- 9 hours ago
John invites Amie to share her experience of being raised in The Message, the questions that developed as she compared family history with conflicting accounts, and the painful reactions she faced after leaving. They discuss isolation, conditional relationships, doomsday teaching, distrust of doctors and government, divisions among churches, and the difficulty of rebuilding a Christian life outside the movement.
Amie explains how fear and loneliness can keep people from questioning what they were taught and offers encouragement to those beginning a similar journey. She describes finding freedom through faith in Christ, reading the Bible without relying on recorded teachings, resisting the urge to immediately replace one controlling environment with another, and helping others who are privately considering leaving.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
07:03 Growing Up in a Message Family
11:28 Conditional Love After Leaving
14:32 Doomsday Fear and Childhood Trauma
20:24 When the Story Started Falling Apart
22:31 Amy’s Mother and the Question That Changed Everything
26:52 Discovering Contradictions in William Branham’s Stories
29:06 Realizing the Message Might Be a Cult
31:09 When the Prophet’s Word Overrides Common Sense
34:15 Why Intelligent People Stay
38:14 The Many Conflicting Versions of the Message
41:54 Mental Gymnastics and Conflicting Message Churches
46:33 Advice for People Leaving the Message
49:58 Why Amy Didn’t Immediately Join Another Church
52:44 Finding Freedom on the Other Side of Fear
56:07 Helping Others Find Their Way Out
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
Amie explains how fear and loneliness can keep people from questioning what they were taught and offers encouragement to those beginning a similar journey. She describes finding freedom through faith in Christ, reading the Bible without relying on recorded teachings, resisting the urge to immediately replace one controlling environment with another, and helping others who are privately considering leaving.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
07:03 Growing Up in a Message Family
11:28 Conditional Love After Leaving
14:32 Doomsday Fear and Childhood Trauma
20:24 When the Story Started Falling Apart
22:31 Amy’s Mother and the Question That Changed Everything
26:52 Discovering Contradictions in William Branham’s Stories
29:06 Realizing the Message Might Be a Cult
31:09 When the Prophet’s Word Overrides Common Sense
34:15 Why Intelligent People Stay
38:14 The Many Conflicting Versions of the Message
41:54 Mental Gymnastics and Conflicting Message Churches
46:33 Advice for People Leaving the Message
49:58 Why Amy Didn’t Immediately Join Another Church
52:44 Finding Freedom on the Other Side of Fear
56:07 Helping Others Find Their Way Out
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:31Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.
00:35I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research
00:40at william-branham.org, and with me I have my very special guest, Amy Brown Cathy, former
00:45member of The Message.
00:47Amy, it's good to have you aboard and to tell your story about being in The Message.
00:52I was reading through your email that you sent me earlier today just to kind of get my
00:57feel, and I remember the names that you're mentioning.
01:00Homer Brown, and then I made the connection mentally.
01:03I'm multitasking, so I'm doing all of this.
01:05I made the connection, oh my gosh, her middle name's Brown.
01:07She is the person.
01:08Yes.
01:09So there's so much to hear from you, and I'm glad you came.
01:12Maybe if you could just take a moment and tell everybody a little bit about yourself.
01:16First off, thank you so much for having me.
01:17This is my first podcast, and I'm excited and nervous to be here.
01:20I am a former member of The Message.
01:25I was raised my entire life believing The Message.
01:29I believed it a thousand percent.
01:32I never had a question in my mind about anything.
01:36Listened to the tapes growing up, everything.
01:39So to say I'm a former Message believer is very difficult, but I am married.
01:45I live in North Carolina.
01:47I have three children, and my husband has also left the message and our children, of course,
01:54with us.
01:54And it's been a process, but with the Lord's grace, we're going to get through it.
01:59It is a difficult process.
02:01I remember whenever I decided to make my exit, my world came to a screeching halt.
02:07I really didn't expect everything to play out like it did.
02:10I had a phone call with specific family members, and I said, I'm not leaving Jesus.
02:15I'm not leaving Christianity, but I'm no longer going to be part of this, we call it The Message.
02:22There are different ways we call it.
02:23I'm no longer part of this particular Bride of Christ, I think maybe is how I said it.
02:28Yes.
02:28But the shock that went through the system whenever I said this was unbelievable.
02:35And as you probably have experienced, there's a lot of people who instantly look at you differently
02:41because you're no longer part of them.
02:43They don't look at you like you're part of the Christian body.
02:45They look at you like you're the elite part of the Christian body.
02:48What was that like whenever that happened for you?
02:51It was shocking, to be honest.
02:53It was difficult in the sense of I had thought of certain people and how they may or may not
03:03respond.
03:04And for the most part, everyone kind of responded how I expected them to.
03:08But what's hard is the ones that were saying, oh, we love y'all.
03:15We love you.
03:16We're still going to be friends with you.
03:18But then there's a wall there.
03:22You know, there's this invisible wall there now.
03:24And we haven't heard from anyone.
03:27We haven't.
03:28I came from a church of, I don't know, 250 people.
03:32And one person contacted me.
03:36Two people contacted my husband.
03:39So I almost feel like it was harder for the ones who kind of smiled and were like, oh, okay.
03:45Than the ones who were like, what are you talking about?
03:47Like, were upset, showed emotion.
03:49Because I felt like those were genuine emotions, at least.
03:52Like, we knew where they stood.
03:55And I was very surprised at the ones that were...
03:59Some surprised me in a sense of they were just like, yeah, we're done.
04:04We're done.
04:05Don't contact us again.
04:06And so it was a...
04:08Every day was a different reaction from different people.
04:14A few people were like, well, we applied the token on you when you were a child.
04:18So I was like, well, I guess I'm okay then.
04:21Like, I only got told twice I wasn't going to heaven.
04:26Someone did tell us that I would be a servant in heaven.
04:28So I was like, well, at least you got me there.
04:30Like, because that person kicked me out.
04:32So I was like, a win is a win.
04:36It was just a lot of emotion.
04:38And I think it was difficult that people thought we came to this decision very easily.
04:45Like, oh, you just wanted to go out in the world.
04:47And I'm like, if you knew the tears and the heartbreak that actually went into it before we even told
04:58you is nothing further from the truth.
05:01So it was a very wide reaction from a lot of different people.
05:07So trying to absorb all their emotions while also being heartbroken was hard.
05:11It is hard.
05:13I remember the hardest part.
05:15And it took me a long time after leaving to understand this.
05:19The hardest part about leaving really was that I knew how each person would respond.
05:25And in the back of my head, that anticipation of them responding, their actual response, was actually worse than whenever
05:33it happened.
05:33And I'm laughing now.
05:35I can laugh.
05:35But kind of like you, I cried.
05:37I cried real tears whenever all of this happened.
05:41I had one aunt who was really strong in the church.
05:45And I'm laughing about it now.
05:47I was really, really sad whenever it happened.
05:49But the only person who really said, and I'm sorry, you're gone, was my aunt.
05:56And I got it in the form of a sympathy card that said, I'm sorry you're leaving, but you're wrong.
06:03And I'll never forget that.
06:05I got it.
06:06And when I got it, I was just so heartbroken that she did that.
06:10It was rude for one thing.
06:12But now I look back at it, and it's like a bunch of grade school kids.
06:16And you're not going to play ball with our court.
06:19You're going to go to that other court.
06:20So get out of here.
06:21That's kind of how it felt for me.
06:23But I'm laughing now, but when you're in the moment, it's really hard because the connection you have, your entire
06:30world is built around these people.
06:32And once that wall breaks down, you realize that every relationship that I had was paper thin.
06:40And every single thread that bound us together was bound up in this thing that I've now learned was false.
06:48There's so much fiction wrapped into it.
06:50And you look at that string that bound everybody together, and you wonder how it stood in the first place.
06:55How did all of these people connect?
06:57And why did nobody figure out that half the stuff the man said wasn't true?
07:03Exactly.
07:04Exactly.
07:05I come from a very long line of ministers.
07:10My grandfather started ministering back in the 60s, came into the message.
07:15He was the assistant pastor for Junior Jackson, and he was an assistant pastor for a brother named, I think
07:24his name was Bill Padaris in North Carolina.
07:26And eventually, when he left Brother Jackson's, he went to St. Augustine and started a church there, and that's where
07:31I was born and raised.
07:32And as a woman, you are born in this, you're raised in it, you're homeschooled, you don't go away to
07:41school, you marry into it, you have your children, you homeschool them.
07:45Your entire world is just the message.
07:49Every friend you have in the world is in the message.
07:53And so walking away from the message quite literally meant walking away from every friend I have.
08:00And that sounds dramatic.
08:02And if you are not raised in an environment like this, I don't know that you would probably believe it.
08:09But 100% of my friends are in the message.
08:13And now I'm like, I don't even know how to make friends.
08:16I don't know what to do with my life.
08:19I have no one for three months.
08:22I didn't talk to anyone.
08:23And I randomly ended up at a lady's house from an acquaintance.
08:30And the next thing I knew, four hours had passed, and I told her my whole story.
08:34And of course, she was so interested and was like, you need to tell this story.
08:38And I was like, I'm actually going to be on a podcast next week.
08:42But I didn't even realize how lonely I was just after months of not speaking to anyone.
08:50And I saw a friend of ours in the store, and they were perfectly polite.
08:55How are you?
08:57Handshake.
08:57God bless you.
08:58Have a nice day.
08:59And went on about there.
09:00And I'm like, this is what I would consider one of our best friends, like our closest circle of friends.
09:06And it was perfectly polite.
09:09But there was also a clear wall there of this is us now.
09:13You're here.
09:14We are here.
09:15And politeness is the only thing standing between us.
09:19And it's just going to take time to accept that, I guess.
09:22What else can you do?
09:24Yeah, I remember we went to one of the churches that had small group concept when we left the message.
09:30And I was in that church, and we were sitting around talking, and everybody suddenly learned that John just lost
09:37everybody that he knows.
09:38All of his friends, all of his family have cut him off.
09:41And they're asking me how you cope with it.
09:44And funny enough, I had the song, which you may not have even heard the song being in the message,
09:49but I had the song, I Got Friends in Low Places, stuck in my head.
09:52And I said, I got friends in low places, and you guys are it, something to that effect.
09:57But, you know, whenever you have to replace every single person that you have ever known, loved, I had bonds
10:08with people that I thought just could not be broken.
10:11And right down to flesh and blood relatives that I just knew that these people, no matter what happened to
10:19me, if I were to go rob a bank and be put in jail, they'd be right there at the
10:24prison, you know, trying to talk me through it, help me, John.
10:28But then I realized that, no, it's not like that.
10:31They put most of their faith and their trust into this dead guy who, again, wasn't being truthful with them.
10:39And that's the only connection, the only bond that they really made.
10:44I got to thinking about that after I left, and it's really difficult to fathom that even within the family
10:50unit, the parents make a bond more closely with a dead recording than they do their own children.
10:56Yes.
10:57When that hit me, it was overwhelming.
10:59Because I looked around, I remember when it hit me, I was in the living room and my children were
11:03on the couch, I looked over at them and I just started crying.
11:06Because there's no way you could ever make me be like that.
11:10Yeah.
11:11I would be connected to my kids and I don't care what they did.
11:14I don't, even if, you know, even if they were to turn atheist, I would go try to convert them
11:19back, right?
11:20I would be right there with them every step of the way.
11:23And yet, all you have to do is say, I don't believe that dead guy, and they cut you off.
11:28Yeah, it's that simple.
11:30It's very, I thought I was unconditionally loved.
11:35And it was very eye-opening to realize I was conditionally loved based on what they wanted me to do.
11:42And then the second I said, hey, like, that's not for me, it was done.
11:48And it was shocking.
11:51Like, there are not adequate words to express what it feels like to have people that you've known your entire
11:57life dismiss you so easily.
12:00Just dismiss every worry you have, every fear you have.
12:05And I did have, we had a few people that I feel like I would say are, you know, very
12:12genuine.
12:13They reached out and were like, we love you no matter what.
12:16We're here for you.
12:17So, you know, but when you don't go to church with those people anymore, it almost cuts off 100%
12:24of the time you see them.
12:25You know, it's very limited now.
12:29So, a couple people I believe may stay in our life, only time will tell, have reached out several times.
12:37The husband has reached out to my husband several times.
12:40How are you doing?
12:41Are you okay?
12:42Like, and to me, that showed genuine Christian love.
12:46And that's less than, that's like 0.1% of the people in my life.
12:49And I know because of, I don't say this in any sort of way, my name, being a brown, and
12:57just because my grandfather was in the message so long and he traveled and preached and my father traveled and
13:01preached.
13:02We traveled all over the United States.
13:04I went with them to Canada, South Africa.
13:06America, like we traveled a lot.
13:10We were homeschooled.
13:11So, that's what we kind of just traveled and did that.
13:14I know a lot of people everywhere.
13:18And I don't know, if you would ask me at the beginning of the year, I would say, oh, there's
13:23never a time in my life that I won't just have a plethora of friends and family.
13:28And, you know, and now I'm like, I feel like I could fit my friends in this library, my family
13:33in this library.
13:34And I don't even, it's crazy.
13:37I hope I never look at my children that way.
13:40So, let's talk about your name just a little bit.
13:42So, for people who weren't in Branhamism, you had specific names of people who were close to the prophet, the
13:50quote-unquote prophet, and those were the special people, and you always wanted to hear them.
13:54My grandfather was one of the names.
13:56Your grandfather was one of the names.
13:58And yet, at the same time, we were in this doomsday mindset, doomsday cult.
14:04The world is about to end on any given Sunday.
14:06If you don't get right with God this Sunday, that's it.
14:10By Monday, you're going to hell with the rest of the world.
14:14And I grew up in that mindset, and it was catastrophic what it did to my mental health.
14:19Well, I'm curious to know, from your side, having been in the same position as me, the grandchild of somebody
14:26who's in that mindset, what was it like being under the doomsday doctrines?
14:32It was terrifying.
14:36It was, I didn't realize until I was an adult that it was actually traumatizing.
14:41I mean, my grandfather, I've had to try to figure out a way to talk about my grandfather in a
14:50way that is respectful, but truthful.
14:54I'm sure you've struggled with this, because at the end of the day, that was my Dan Dan.
14:58And he was such a good man.
15:00And he died about seven years, eight years ago.
15:04And that man believed in God, and he was a Christian, and he was a World War II vet.
15:10And him and my grandmother got married after the war and lived their entire life serving the Lord, the best
15:15that they knew how.
15:16Was that in a doomsday cult?
15:18Yes.
15:19But he was so loving and kind.
15:24It was kind of hard when you're a child to experience your grandfather that way.
15:29But then on Sundays and Wednesdays, it's doomsday, and the world is ending.
15:34And the government is going to get us.
15:36My grandfather in the 90s very much was a part of that.
15:41The world is ending.
15:43And I think they thought the world would end in like 2000.
15:46Because I believe I was turning 13 in February of 2000.
15:49And I had a lot of depression my whole life, because I would never be a teenager.
15:53I believed that.
15:55As much as I believe the sky is blue, I believed I wouldn't be a teenager.
15:58So when I turned 13, imagine my shock when I'm like, oh my gosh, I made it.
16:03I'll never drive, but I'm a teenager.
16:06My grandfather was very much trying to warn everyone the world was ending.
16:14We had to watch.
16:15Anytime the government did something, we watched the documentary on it.
16:19I remember sitting in church on Wednesday night watching the Waco, Texas documentary.
16:24And I don't know, 96, 95, whenever that happened.
16:28I'm born in 87.
16:29So I was pretty young.
16:31And hiding under the church pews.
16:33We would sit under the pews at church.
16:35All the lights would be off.
16:36There'd be a projector of the government raiding buildings.
16:39And it was, this is what's going to happen.
16:42Russia's coming.
16:43They're taking us to Alaska.
16:45Helicopters are coming.
16:46If a helicopter flew over my head, that was the government.
16:49And it sounds silly and funny and ha-ha, but it was, we believed it a hundred percent.
16:55We believed it.
16:57And it's just, I would say later in his life, all that went away.
17:03I don't really remember him preaching anything like that as kind of an older teenager and into
17:08my adulthood.
17:10But I don't know if at some point he realized maybe that wasn't the way to preach.
17:17He got more, much more into grace and mercy and love.
17:20And, you know, so it wasn't like that forever.
17:23But in the first like 10 to 14 years of my life, it was the government's going to get us.
17:30And that bred fear into doctor.
17:32You didn't talk to the doctor.
17:33You didn't go to the doctor.
17:36You didn't trust anyone, you know?
17:38And I believe that eventually ended up costing my mother her life.
17:43And that sounds very traumatic.
17:44But it's just the truth because you don't trust the government and the doctors are the
17:51government.
17:52And, you know, everyone is the government if you're not in the message.
17:55So it was a lot.
17:58It was hard.
17:59And as Jeff Foxworthy would say, if your church is playing videotapes to let you know that
18:04there's a government conspiracy, you might be a cult.
18:07You might be a cult.
18:09I remember those sermons.
18:12We had not just in one church.
18:14So we lived in Kansas during the years you're talking about.
18:19And I would go – I would travel myself to different churches.
18:22I'd drive to them and some in the Ozarks, some in some places now that I'm actually
18:27connecting the dots to some history that's a little sketchy.
18:30But anyway, needless to say, they preached on the same kind of things.
18:35And there's a period of time that they did, even in my grandfather's church here in
18:38Jeffersonville.
18:39Then there's a period of time when they all didn't.
18:42And I am convinced – in fact, I've walked through this with other people who are doing
18:47the podcast with me.
18:49We believe that there is a time whenever many ministers in the movement realized this guy
18:55wasn't being truthful, some of this stuff is false, we have to weigh in the balance,
19:00what did he say that was true, what did he pull straight out of his butt.
19:04And they're trying to do this, but they're not telling anybody who's in it that they're
19:10doing this.
19:11I'm convinced of this.
19:12In fact, I remember – I have vague memories of seeing some documentation my grandfather
19:18had that included a book that was trying to stop – I can't remember the exact scenario,
19:26but basically it was trying to stop these particular set of people from spreading the
19:30message because they were spreading it in a way that was undermining the core belief set.
19:36And that was about the same time there's a guy in Arizona that started publishing a
19:40book that he realized William Branham wasn't there for the famous cloud photo that every
19:46every Branhamite has in their church or in their homes, well, most of them in the churches.
19:50So you had – information was spreading, you had dissent among the leadership, you had
19:56copyright issues, you had this onslaught of problems that existed.
20:01And usually from a mind control standpoint, whenever you're shaken that much, so many things
20:07are happening, you start to critically think, even if you're under the mind control.
20:11So I believe my grandfather was critically thinking.
20:14I know in the podcast, Charles has mentioned he thought that Raymond Jackson was critically
20:18thinking.
20:19I'm hearing from you the same.
20:21I'll bet it was widespread.
20:23I'll bet many people knew.
20:24I think so, too, because my sister has no memories of this.
20:28She is three and a half years younger than me.
20:32So at the time, she was born in 90.
20:35So, you know, she's four or five years old.
20:37She's probably able to escape to the nursery with my mom while we're sitting in church.
20:42But she would just be like, oh, wait, I kind of remember.
20:47They would turn off the lights and play a video.
20:49And I mean, I have the Waco, Texas video ingrained into my brain to this day because we just sat
20:57there and watched it.
20:58And my grandfather – now, he wasn't on the pool.
21:02When you say like doomsday, he wasn't screaming at us.
21:06He was just like, guys, this is what's going to happen.
21:08You know, like this is what I believe is going to happen.
21:10And we would just be like, okay, you know, just be ready.
21:13Just be ready.
21:14And I would listen.
21:16I think that is what helped me see discrepancies is because we read the books.
21:23I've read the generation books.
21:24I wanted to be a good Christian.
21:27I wanted to be a good daughter.
21:28I wanted to be a good granddaughter.
21:29So, I read all the generation books.
21:32Anytime we got a new edition, I read it.
21:34I listened to the tapes.
21:35I would go to sleep listening to the tapes.
21:37When I went to Easter for Jeffersonville, you know, we did the tours in Jeffersonville.
21:43We have pictures of me as 10, 11 years old sitting at the piano in Brownham Tabernacle.
21:49You know, it was what we did.
21:51It was our whole life.
21:53So, as an adult, once I started seeing things, I'd be like, oh, wait, that's not how it was.
21:57Someone would say something.
21:58I'd be like, oh, that's not what happened.
22:00And I'm like, oh, no, it is.
22:01And I'm like, no, it's not.
22:02And then I would go look and be like, wow, that is not how I remember it.
22:07But you just go, I was wrong.
22:09Like, you just kind of accept it until you get to a point where you're like, I cannot be wrong
22:14about this much stuff.
22:17Like, it can't have been that way.
22:20And also, once you get more life experience, you start realizing because I don't know how much time or how
22:28much detail you want me to go into on here.
22:31But when I was 17, my mother died.
22:33And she was eight and a half months pregnant with my twin brothers.
22:37And she had three previous children and had gotten a sickness called preeclampsia each time.
22:44And they told her, if you do it again, it will take your life.
22:48But they just didn't really trust doctors.
22:50They were just like, well, the Lord will give us as many children as we can have and he will
22:54take care and he will provide.
22:56And I do believe that.
22:58But I also believe the Lord provides us doctors with knowledge to tell us, hey, you shouldn't do this.
23:04And they didn't listen and she did.
23:06She got pregnant again with my brothers and it took her life and it took their life.
23:10And we went to church on a Sunday morning, came home and we found her in our kitchen floor.
23:16And to this day, it's been 21 years later.
23:18I can tell you exactly what happened that day.
23:20I can tell you where I was, where my family was, where the ambulance was.
23:24I had to interview with police because they were treating it as a homicide, like pregnant woman found dead in
23:29her home.
23:30Think about it from their point of view.
23:32I can tell you the detailed conversations I had with these investigators.
23:36So when I found out Brother Brownham had multiple stories on how his dad died, that was one of the
23:42first things that really got to me.
23:45Because you cannot change my mind on the day my mother died.
23:49I know what happened and I remember it.
23:51And it was, I know how old I was.
23:53I know the details.
23:5621 years later, and I went to my pastor at the time and I was like, you know, I'm really
23:59struggling with these different dates.
24:01And they were like, oh, well, when you're up there preaching and you're just talking quickly and you're telling the
24:06story, you just don't get dates right.
24:08And I just couldn't accept that because I can't imagine that I would say, oh, I was six years old
24:15when my mom died.
24:16You know, I can't imagine that I would get it so wrong that I was like, oh, she died in
24:21a car accident.
24:22You know, like the details would be so drastically different.
24:25So that was the first thing that made me kind of pause and go, something's not adding up here.
24:34And when I talked to my pastor and he answered me once and he answered me twice, and I was
24:40like, well, your dad died.
24:41Do you think you would ever, like, get the details wrong?
24:45And that's when what surprised me the most happened is that he came back kind of annoyed, kind of a,
24:51I won't say anger, but kind of a, do you know more than a prophet?
24:57Do you think you know?
24:59And I was just like, oh, like, no, absolutely not.
25:02I'm so sorry.
25:03And just like dropped it and never spoke about it again.
25:05But that's when the seed planted in my mind that something isn't right here.
25:10And it was all because of life experience.
25:13And you realize there's just some things in life, barring a medical issue, you would not get the details wrong
25:20on.
25:21That's actually one of the things that drove me down the path of investigating the mob connection to the Branham
25:26family.
25:27A lot of people who are in the movement, they ask, why did you do that?
25:31What significance was that?
25:32If you're concerned about Christianity, this is irrelevant.
25:35And he even mentions on recording that his family is connected to it.
25:39But my thinking was this.
25:41Like you, there's no way that that person, William Branham, did not know how old he was when his father
25:48died.
25:49He might have forgotten the age as a number.
25:51But you're not going to remember, you're not going to forget things like, I was sixth grade education.
25:59I did not finish the education because my father died early.
26:02You would remember whether or not you went to school because your father was alive.
26:06Or he preached his own father's funeral.
26:09You're not going to have a discrepancy where in one story he preaches the funeral and in another story he's
26:14not even old enough to preach.
26:16Those two things don't coincide.
26:18And the only case that I can think of where anybody would do this is if they're trying to disconnect
26:24themselves from family history for some unknown reason.
26:27And I want to know why.
26:28Why is that?
26:30And then whenever I get into the weeds of it, I'm like, oh my gosh, I think he was a
26:35little bit more into the mafia than he let on.
26:38But there's no way to prove it because all of the history has been erased.
26:43Bottom line for me is he wasn't truthful about himself.
26:47And if I can't trust what he says about himself, how can I trust the things that he says about
26:51God?
26:52Yes, I agree.
26:53Absolutely.
26:55For me, it was the family histories that he was dishonest about.
27:00It was the amount of times I remember reading his life story and crying my eyes out at the story
27:07of little Sharon Rose dying, our sister Hope dying, and the flood and tuberculosis and getting it in the field
27:13house.
27:13All of these things I knew my whole life.
27:15And then when I started piecing together that it didn't happen this way or watching your podcast and seeing that
27:23these things were not true, how could I trust him about anything?
27:28I know for some people, it's the opposite.
27:31I've had personally people say, oh, you mean this?
27:36And I was like, you know?
27:38And they're like, yeah, but that doesn't bother me.
27:39And I'm just like, how could it not?
27:43He wasn't honest about it.
27:46And it doesn't bother them, you know?
27:49And for my husband, he was more so like, I want to see discrepancies in the doctor and show me
27:54where the seven cells are wrong.
27:55Show me where he wasn't there when the cloud happened.
27:58And so that's really what helped me focus my research is him saying, like, these are the things I need
28:04to see errors in.
28:06And once I kind of had that, I was able to say, okay, here's the information on the cloud.
28:11And because we're so indoctrinated not to look you up.
28:16Like, talking to you is not on my 2026 bingo card.
28:19If you would have told me that, I would have said, you are insane.
28:22Go see a doctor.
28:25And even when we tried to talk to some of our family, they were like, don't even tell us anything
28:29that comes out of John Collins' mouth.
28:31And we were just like, well, that's like 90% of the information out there.
28:35Like, what can I say then?
28:36But it was getting the courage to watch one of y'all's podcasts was because I was told to consider,
28:48not to do it, to think about looking up something negative about our prophet was akin to blaspheming the Holy
28:56Ghost.
28:58And he was just like, I don't want to blaspheme the Holy Ghost.
29:01Like, I didn't live my whole life as a Christian to blaspheme the Holy Ghost, you know.
29:05And once I really started looking to, I didn't even think we were in a cult.
29:11I thought the ministers were misrepresenting Brother Brownham.
29:13I was like, they've just misrepresented him there.
29:16And so I started like looking into that.
29:19My mind was all over the place.
29:20It's very difficult to figure out which avenue of research to go down because we're not supposed to look anything
29:26up.
29:27But then how do you find out the information?
29:29So I actually had watched a podcast of one of the Duggar girls because that was like the only thing
29:37we were kind of allowed to watch growing up was the Duggars.
29:40And when they were talking about what a cult is and the BITE model and different things, I was just
29:49like, I mean, my brain was just misfired.
29:51And like, I was like, I think we might be a cult, like a cult, cult.
29:57And I didn't speak those words out loud for a long time.
30:02And now to see that, wow, we were actually in a cult cult, it was mind boggling.
30:10Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter
30:18reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation?
30:23You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org.
30:30On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery,
30:39John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.
30:45You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.
30:51If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the Contribute button at the
30:57top.
30:58And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or
31:04watching.
31:04On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
31:09You mentioned you're only allowed to watch a particular show.
31:13I remember there was a period of time when it was widespread throughout the movement, you're not allowed to watch
31:18television.
31:19But then there were these key people that did.
31:23And they would limit the shows, they would only watch specific shows.
31:27But it was odd to me because I had – so my mind was torn in half.
31:31I would go to my grandparents' house in Georgia, and they would have a television, and they're watching like Georgia
31:36public television, things that are really wholesome TV shows, right?
31:41Then I'd go to the other grandparents, and they would just ridicule from my grandfather behind the pulpit anybody who
31:47thought about having one of these hell boxes.
31:50And later, interestingly, he got a monitor that had several VHS tapes of all kinds of old shows, which is
31:57kind of funny.
31:58But I was in that mindset, and I was sitting around the television in Georgia with family who I didn't
32:06know that they had this mindset.
32:07But it's exactly like you said, everything that the prophet said, you must believe it or else you're doomed to
32:15hell.
32:15That was the mindset.
32:16That I did not have this for some reason.
32:19I didn't know I was supposed to.
32:20So we're sitting around in the den.
32:23We're watching television.
32:24It was – I can't remember – National Geographic or something.
32:27And they're talking about space, and they're talking about Mars.
32:32And they're talking about a mission to go there.
32:35And one of the guys in the room says something, the fact, well, they'll never get there.
32:39The prophet said it would take a million light years to get to Mars.
32:43And I looked at him, and I said, you know they've already been, right?
32:48And you could have – it was as though I smacked the people with a ball bat in the face.
32:53They looked at me like I had just committed the ultimate blasphemy, get out of the house.
32:58Now, my grandfather didn't, but the other people in the room did.
33:01And I'll never forget that because I was like, how can you even say that whenever we have, like, photographs?
33:09You know, there are things that you should just simply know in your life, and you don't know these things.
33:14But that was the mindset.
33:16And the problem is people have chosen the man and what he said over even common sense.
33:24It's not just whether it's God or whether it's Christianity.
33:28Christianity, even right down to the basic fundamentals of common sense, they abandon it.
33:33And it gets to be dangerous because if you're trying to go through life and you can't even think for
33:40yourself, you're going to end up in a very bad place.
33:43And sadly, I have known people who actually ended up in very bad places because of this.
33:49They just – I hate to say it.
33:50There's a lot of people in it that don't employ common sense.
33:54I'll say it like that.
33:55It's not that they're unintelligent.
33:57I know some doctors and lawyers that are in the movement, highly trained people, very skilled, very educated.
34:04And yet they believe things that if the other doctors knew, they'd be like, are you sure you should be
34:10working on that guy's heart?
34:12But that's the way we were.
34:15Exactly.
34:15We were raised that Brother Brownham was infallible.
34:19The prophet spoke it.
34:20I believe it.
34:21That settles it.
34:22That was our mantra.
34:23And Billy, Brother Billy Paul, would come to our church and give his testimony.
34:27And that was what he would – I remember him saying from the platform.
34:30And that was our life.
34:32You didn't question what the prophet said.
34:35My husband didn't come into the message until he was older.
34:39And he had a whole life.
34:40He was 25 when him and his brother came into the message.
34:45And he had an entire military career before he came into the message.
34:49And he's very educated.
34:50And sometimes I wonder, I'm like, how did you come into it?
34:55You know, I've always been in it, so I didn't have a choice.
34:58And I like to think I might be smart enough not to get caught up in it.
35:01But he had a whole life.
35:04And I sometimes wonder, like, how do people who are so educated get caught up in it?
35:11But my research into kind of like how a cult traps you in has nothing to do with intelligence.
35:18Some of the smartest people in the world have been in cults.
35:23And it's really more so, I think, an emotional draw.
35:29And that's how they – because that's what kept me in so long was the emotion of it.
35:33The fear, losing my family, being afraid you're going to go to hell.
35:38Like, who wants to think about that?
35:40Being afraid that you cannot have a Christian walk with Christ without Brother Brownham.
35:44And for years, I've said, I don't understand why Christ's blood isn't enough.
35:49And my husband and I have had this conversation round and round.
35:52And it would just boggle my mind that I couldn't have a connection with Christ without the message.
36:00And I feel like if you asked any message believer, can you have a relationship with Jesus Christ aside of
36:06Brother Brownham,
36:06they'd probably say, oh, of course.
36:08Like, you know, you don't have to, but you do.
36:12Really, to be a true message believer, to be the elite bride of Jesus Christ,
36:18you 100% have to be a message believer in William Brownham.
36:25I'm learning now all the different sects of the message when Charles talks about things.
36:30I thought we were, like, the main sect, I guess.
36:36My grandfather, he didn't speak much on Junior Jackson.
36:40I asked him several times, oh, why did you leave Brother Junior Jackson?
36:44I'm kind of a history buff myself.
36:46I love the history of things.
36:49And he would always just be like, oh, we had a differing opinion.
36:52Like, that was it.
36:52He never once said a negative word about anything.
36:55And he was just like, oh, we just had some different ideas about things.
36:59And the Lord, I'd already felt like the Lord was drawing me to Florida.
37:04So, when I got to the point where y'all were talking about him, and Charles was like,
37:07and then Homer Brown was the news editor of the Challenger or whatever it was,
37:14my heart dropped.
37:16I'm in the picture he uses.
37:18I'm cropped out.
37:19But I was like, those are family photos in the church for their 70th anniversary.
37:23It was so funny.
37:25I screamed.
37:26And I was so scared.
37:28I was like, they're about to drop some knowledge about my grandfather that I don't know.
37:32And I was sweating.
37:35But it was kind of, I can see now that my grandfather, I think, just didn't want to say anything
37:41negative.
37:42And that's who he was as a person.
37:44I never heard him talk bad about anyone.
37:46But I got more information about my family history through your podcast than I ever did
37:51through my family.
37:53They just didn't really talk about their time in Indiana.
37:56They were, God called them to Florida.
37:58And that's where we lived.
38:00And I wish they had had more of a connection.
38:05So I could have maybe met Brother Junior Jackson.
38:07But they never had, I don't think they really ever had any more connection after he left
38:12Indiana.
38:14You know, I visited several different, I'm guessing they were sects of the message.
38:19Some of them were the main sect.
38:21And we believed in the tent revival, the coming tent revival, where he would be resurrected
38:27and go out in the tents, all this weird stuff.
38:29But then we had other groups that were different branches of the movement.
38:33And part of me, when I was going through the history, part of me wanted to know why all
38:37of that is.
38:38And I started looking at the different branches, especially as I was talking through it with
38:42Charles.
38:43And then the other part of me wanted to know, okay, we had this mindset of what brandimism
38:49was.
38:50And we didn't call it brandimism.
38:51We called it the message.
38:53And it really only consisted of what happened from about 1964 until current.
38:58And even that had many different iterations and many different splinter groups.
39:02But if you went before 1964, there was a different version of brandimism.
39:07And they had their splinter groups.
39:08And they went off into all kinds of weird things.
39:11Go back to about, it was about right about the time he met Jen Jones, whenever that phase
39:17of his ministry or stage persona changed.
39:20Go back before this, and you had a different set of Pentecostal groups, different set of
39:24brandimites that had different splinter groups.
39:28Each iteration had groups that went destructive.
39:30And so it's like this tree.
39:33When you look at it, all of these branches come back to the one root.
39:36And that one root wasn't really just brandimism.
39:40It was a combination of brandim and who he worked with.
39:43So in the days of Gordon Lindsay, it's brandimism and Gordon Lindsay's version of Christian
39:49identity, all of his revival themes.
39:52That's deeply rooted into what brandim taught.
39:55And those had different tree trunks.
39:58So I'm going back through all of these things, and I'm learning, well, which message do I
40:02believe?
40:03This was the message from 1947 to 1953.
40:08Well, then they had a different message and a different commission, different stage persona,
40:13different everything.
40:14Well, do I believe that message?
40:16Do I believe the next message?
40:17And at the time I was coming up with all of this, I was writing that book, Preacher Behind
40:23the White Hoods from Christian Identity, and I was trying to determine what is the message.
40:28I wanted to actually create a section or a chapter that just kind of described it.
40:32And I realized it can't really be described because the message is what the audience wants
40:37to hear.
40:38If I'm preaching this stage persona, it's because I'm in front of an audience that wants
40:43to hear that persona.
40:44And then when it's no longer appealing to the crowd, I'm going to change it, reinvent myself,
40:49and it's a new one.
40:50And they're not consistent.
40:52There are too many internal conflicts and contradictions.
40:57So I could not even, part of me wanted to do just like a bullet list.
41:02Here's what you believe when you're in the message.
41:04Well, I was like, well, this group didn't believe that.
41:07They're in a different message.
41:08They're in a different brand of Mism.
41:10And in the end, I came to realize that God is not the author of confusion, but this was
41:17the biggest confusing mess that I have encountered in Christian history.
41:22And I've studied all kinds of different Christian history themes and ideas and scenarios and histories.
41:28Whenever I go through this, yes, there are some messes.
41:31Yes, there are some problems, but I don't find anything as confusing.
41:35And this confusion is literally what developed into the weirdness we see today, where there
41:40are politicians mixing with religious leaders, trying to employ dominion over different sects
41:47of people.
41:48It's so weird when you think about it.
41:50And I just kept going back to that thought, God is not the author of confusion.
41:54That has been something I've had to lean on, because the mental gymnastics that you have
42:02to go through to believe the message is quite staggering.
42:08When you're raised in it, you just do it.
42:11It's second nature.
42:12You just believe all these different things.
42:15And we were not return ministry.
42:18Um, so that's another reason I was like, well, I think we were the main sect, but we didn't
42:23believe return ministry.
42:24We were not take church.
42:26Um, when Joseph did the here I stand, oh, that was a big, we were, um, message believers,
42:34but we were also with the ministers.
42:35We're on the minister side of it.
42:37It was just a constant, ever evolving mess that as a child or even a teenager, you're
42:45trying to keep up with everything, but then this man believes this, but here's a church
42:49down the road we don't associate with because they have a slightly different opinion.
42:53And then you may go to this church for 10 years and all of a sudden you just don't one
42:57day.
42:57Oh, we don't go there anymore.
42:59No one talks about why, but maybe you found out for some reason that minister shouldn't
43:04have been preaching or he allowed someone to preach.
43:06It's just, they can't agree with each other.
43:10They can't, two ministers can't agree on the same thing.
43:13And I asked my dad, I was like, I don't understand.
43:17Why is there so much confusion?
43:19Why is there so many different opinions on things?
43:22And he would always, he told me, he's like, well, people have a way of finding loopholes
43:26in the message.
43:26So if they really want to search for something, they will find a quote to agree with what they
43:30want.
43:31And I was just like, oh, you know what?
43:32You're right.
43:33You know, they're in their heart.
43:35They're looking for a way out.
43:36And now I'm like, they find the quotes because he said it.
43:39If he didn't say it 10 different ways, there wouldn't be 10 different quotes saying this,
43:44you know?
43:45And ministers are the biggest, one of the biggest issues in my opinion to the message.
43:52A lot of people, I think probably wouldn't even look into leaving the message if the
43:55ministers weren't so weird about it.
43:58They get angry and defensive.
44:00And if the ministers I talked to, now some did, some have shown a lot of love.
44:05And, but in my twenties, we went to a church for 12 years and it wasn't at my family's
44:12church.
44:15And I don't know if I'd ever question a message if it wasn't for this certain minister and
44:19the way he would approach things.
44:22And I, looking back now, I realize message churches are little cults and a bigger cult
44:28and they have their way of doing things.
44:30Why are so many message ministers so narcissistic prone?
44:34I'm not going to say they're narcissists, but they do have quality traits that could be
44:39contributed to narcissism.
44:42And when everything happened with your grandfather and he resigned and all the deacons resigned,
44:48everything happened, we were in a house and we were all just, it came up so casually.
44:54And I remember I was like, man, what is Jeffersonville going to, what's Brown Cabernacle going to
44:59do now?
45:00You know, like they lost everybody.
45:02They're going to have to rehire everyone.
45:03And my pastor was sitting across from me.
45:06He stood up, slapped his hands on the table, leaned over and he goes, we don't question
45:12Jeffersonville no matter what.
45:15And I was just like, okay, we don't question Jeffersonville.
45:20And honestly, that made me question Jeffersonville.
45:23If he would have just not done that, I would have been like, asked my question, went and
45:27got me some sweet tea and cake and went on about my life.
45:30But because of his reaction, I was just like, wait, why don't we question Jeffersonville?
45:35Well, what's Jeffersonville doing?
45:36That needs to be questioned.
45:37You know, it just like sparks things in people that, at least for me, that was my personal
45:42experience that every time a minister would act that way, I would just be like, why are
45:47we not doing that?
45:48Now I want to know.
45:50And that's just, I mean, again, that was 10 years ago.
45:52So it took me a long time to get here, but it is just like slow, slow information over
45:57a spread of time.
45:58And my, I wish it had happened faster.
46:01I wish my kids would have been younger, but it is what it is.
46:05And sadly, here in Jeffersonville, they also don't question Jeffersonville.
46:09Some of the things going on, you can look at the history of why they resigned and you're
46:14like scratching your head.
46:15A church really did this?
46:17They split a church in half by ownership of property?
46:20None of it makes any sense.
46:22But I've come to realize that if you study this movement all from its inception to now,
46:28it has milestones of not making sense, but people just turn their blind eye to it.
46:34So you've gone through a very difficult journey and I'm putting myself back in your
46:41shoes a bit.
46:41I'm so far distant from it.
46:43The emotions that I had, I remember crying constantly.
46:46I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep.
46:48This was, this was the most difficult time that I can remember ever having in my entire
46:53life.
46:54Probably the most difficult time I will ever have.
46:58And I wish whenever I was going through it, I wish I had people who could give me advice.
47:03And I'd like to know what you would give as advice to people who are freshly out of the
47:08Branham movement, specifically, because I do get contacted from people who are Branhamites.
47:14And it's sad to say of all of the different groups that contact me now asking for help,
47:20the Branhamites are the ones who are the most destructive in their churches.
47:24And the families are hardest towards the people.
47:27The people suffer.
47:28It is, it is purely, purely evil.
47:32What advice would you give to somebody who has just come out and they're like you?
47:37What do I do?
47:38We're all my friends.
47:39I have all my family cut me off.
47:41What do I do?
47:42What advice would you give them?
47:44My first bit of advice is to realize that fear is the last tactic they will use against
47:50you.
47:51They will talk to you.
47:53They will love you.
47:54They will, when you're asking your questions in the beginning, they will be your friend,
47:59your family.
48:00But when they start using, their language starts turning fear-driven, what's going to happen
48:06to your children?
48:07What's going to do that?
48:07You're so close.
48:09On the other side of that fear is truth.
48:12And you have to step through it.
48:14You have to be okay with losing those friends, losing that family.
48:19And you have to cling to God in a way that, honestly, you have never had to do before because
48:26William Brownham has been in that spot.
48:29Brother Brownham was our absolute.
48:32He was the person.
48:34Now, we didn't pray to him.
48:35We didn't do anything like that.
48:36But you have to be okay.
48:39You have to pray.
48:41This is how I prayed.
48:43I was like, Lord, you have to show me the truth or you have to take me out of it.
48:51I can't do this anymore.
48:53I can't question.
48:55I can't go back and forth, being at the altar crying, being told I just don't have the
49:01revelation, being told if I really wanted it, I would get it.
49:04I didn't really have the Holy Ghost.
49:07When you find freedom out of the message, as scary as it is right now, there is a freedom
49:14that comes in your mind.
49:15And this is not freedom up.
49:17I can cut my hair.
49:17I can wear pants.
49:18I can wear...
49:19That's all.
49:20You have to decide for yourself what you believe on those things.
49:23I'm talking about the freedom in your mind when you finally accept, I'm in a cult.
49:32William Brown deceived us.
49:33The message ministers know it and they've hidden it from us.
49:39Your brain, it's tearing itself apart inside right now, trying to come to those conclusions.
49:44If you're just about to come to them, you're struggling with them, maybe you're past that
49:49point.
49:50When you can finally accept those things and say them to yourself, say them out loud, it
49:58is a weight that's going to lift off your shoulders.
50:00There's still a long road.
50:01That's the beginning of the road, in my opinion.
50:04Just discovering that you're in a cult is like door one.
50:07You've walked through that door.
50:10You have to take a break from it.
50:12For us, we had to...
50:13Our whole life was church.
50:15Church, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, church meetings, church adventure.
50:20I had to say, I don't have anything else to give anyone right now.
50:24I can't jump back into another church.
50:28From my research, I have learned that when you're in a cult, there's so much loneliness when you've
50:36left it.
50:37The loneliness you feel from your friends and family, that gap that's there now, you
50:41want to fill it.
50:42You want to run to another church, find another church, be part of another church, and you're
50:47very prone to joining another cult.
50:49Surprisingly, people who have come out of cults are very prone to join other cults.
50:53That's why, in my opinion, a lot of message ministers, a lot of message believers,
50:57believers that I know are ex-Amish and ex-Mennonite.
50:59They got freedom out of all that, and they left their cult, but they kind of walked right
51:04into another one.
51:05And that terrifies me to think, I'm just going to now put something else in place of where
51:10Jesus Christ should be.
51:11I've been focusing on getting into the word, and the simplicity of it will throw you.
51:16You will go, it can't be that simple.
51:18By grace, are we saved?
51:20Like, not by works, not by my long hair, not by my skirts, not by my lack of makeup.
51:26That's nothing.
51:26Finding out that all these things you have prioritized your whole life, it's good.
51:31I believe in modesty, yes.
51:32These things, there is a place, but that your salvation is in Christ, in the blood of Christ.
51:38Not so you can boast above anyone else.
51:41There's almost so much simplicity in that that you'll miss it.
51:44You'll think it can't be that simple.
51:46And I have, my husband and I, we've been watching some of Charles' videos where he just takes
51:52a scripture verse and kind of breaks it down, and it's just 15 or 20 minutes.
51:57The simplicity of it, you just, after being in the message, you're so used to, this verse
52:03has to line up with this verse, and this message has to come in, and then you bring in the
52:06cloud,
52:07and then there's a weird, like, Brother Bruno says things, but he's a prophet, so that's
52:12not in the Bible, but you still have to accept it, because it's the prophet's word.
52:16All of that just goes away.
52:17And it's just you, and your Bible, and Christ, and it's hard.
52:22It's really difficult, because you just think, what did the prophet say?
52:28It took months for me not to think, what did the prophet say?
52:31Let me see what the prophet, let me look up this quote, because the Bible says this, but
52:35what did he say?
52:37Why is he not just automatically saying what's in the Bible?
52:40It's so interesting, and it's so scary, but on the other side of that fear that you're
52:47feeling, on the other side of that loneliness, it's truth, and it's freedom, and you have
52:53to step through it, no matter how scared you are, if you're in it.
52:57I have been documenting my journey on my TikTok, and I don't put anything on Facebook or my
53:03Instagram, because that's where all of my church friends and family are.
53:06They haven't blocked or deleted me yet, but my TikTok was kind of a place I didn't let
53:10any of my friends and family follow me, because it was just a place I wanted to be more
53:15open with my thoughts.
53:16I did this like a year ago, and I think that's when I really started trying to process things,
53:21and every single day, I get messages from message believers, every day.
53:30I've been, people I know, people I know sitting in a church right now going, we're gone, we
53:36just don't know how to leave.
53:38What do I do?
53:40Keep posting your videos.
53:41This is helping so much.
53:44And I can't believe how many, I mean, I've probably got 200 messages of people just going,
53:49oh, we left.
53:50We left.
53:51We left here.
53:52We went to this church.
53:53We went big name churches.
53:54We went to this church, and we left.
53:56And I'm like, are the ministers lying to us about how many people are leaving?
54:00Because they make it seem like no one is leaving.
54:03And if you do, it's just one maybe little person over here.
54:07I think there's a mass exodus from the message, and it's being hidden.
54:12That's my conspiracy theory on it, is that the message ministers know how many people,
54:18and that is why they are more angry, more hardcore, on fear-driven than ever, because they're
54:25the ones who see, you know, we don't see it, but I'm just like, I don't know.
54:33I was like, we have to do something to help these people.
54:35So one lady was like, I've been out 15 years, and she said, I'm still depressed.
54:39I still don't have friends.
54:40I still don't have family.
54:43And that's, it angers me.
54:47It angers me.
54:49And I don't know what to do about it, other than to just talk to people when they write
54:53me and, you know, try to write back to them.
54:58But again, my entire family is in the message.
55:03I come from, I can probably count five to 10 message ministers right now you would know
55:08the names of that I'm related to, from the tip of Florida, to Arizona, to Indiana.
55:16And walking away is the hardest thing I've ever had to do.
55:19So telling them, dealing with the backlash of that, but the freedom I have felt mentally,
55:26I have been able to get off every anxiety medication I've ever had to take.
55:32I haven't been on it in three months because my mind isn't tearing itself apart, trying to
55:38not live two lives, knowing the truth somewhere in the back of my mind, and then going to church
55:44and being at the altar, going, Lord, please help me.
55:47And he's like, I am trying to help you.
55:48I'm trying to show you the truth and you won't listen.
55:52There's just a freedom in it now that I'm like, man, I wish I'd have left years ago.
55:57I wish that I had been brave enough to leave when I first started questioning.
56:01But maybe I wouldn't have been able to handle it then, you know, may God knows.
56:05His timing is perfect.
56:07And I just pray that through this, my family has like six decades of preaching the message.
56:14I was like, maybe I can give a few decades to helping those who need to get out of it.
56:20Well, I'm glad you're doing it.
56:21Their version of truth, for me, it's like a doctrinal jigsaw puzzle that's missing all the
56:25most important pieces.
56:27And you just don't want to play with that puzzle.
56:29I'll be honest.
56:30So very glad that you did this.
56:32Thank you for coming on.
56:33Thank you for having me.
56:34Thank you for having me on.
56:36I am so thankful to be a very small piece of a much larger puzzle that you are doing with
56:44so many different people.
56:47And if there's anything I can ever do, please let me know.
56:50I would love to be a help.
56:52I don't know if you had spoken with Charles about the book that we sent him.
56:58He had all of the documents, all the acts of a prophet book.
57:03And we'd watched your podcast about there was like a first manuscript that he didn't have.
57:09I was like, oh, I can't believe there's a book Charles doesn't have.
57:11And I remember a box of books my grandfather had given me and we had it.
57:16We had the first typed up manuscript of acts of a prophet and we sent it to Charles.
57:21And I was like, use this in some way.
57:23And we were looking through it and there were things that were different.
57:25There were things that were in the other ones.
57:28And I was just like, thank you, Lord.
57:30Maybe that's a little piece of a puzzle that can help someone one day see that the discrepancies
57:35need to be talked about.
57:36And if they can be explained, please let a message minister do it.
57:42I would love to do that too.
57:44But thank you so much for having me on.
57:47Awesome.
57:47Well, thank you again so much for doing this.
57:49If you've enjoyed our show and you want more information or to share your story, you can
57:53check us out on the web.
57:54You can find us at william-brannum.org.
57:56For more about the dark side of the new apostolic reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion
58:01from Christian Identity to the NAR.
58:03Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
58:48Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.
59:11Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.