- 3 hours ago
John examines the Two by Twos, the religious movement founded by William Irvine, and asks why its history and structure can sound remarkably familiar to people who have experienced Branhamism and other restorationist movements. Although the groups developed separately, he compares themes including restoration of the "true way," authorized ministry, special revelation, insider-versus-outsider identity, end-times teaching, home meetings, and hierarchical authority.
The discussion expands beyond individual doctrines to focus on the underlying framework that can turn a restorationist movement destructive: authority, control, isolation, conformity, fear, and the elevation of a leader or ministry as the source of present-day revelation. John compares the Two by Twos, Branhamism, Latter Rain, and the New Apostolic Reformation while encouraging listeners to examine whether a group promotes critical thinking or instead demands loyalty to a special message, chosen leadership, and exclusive spiritual identity.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
03:32 Who Were the Two by Twos?
08:48 The Living Witness and Omega Message
13:22 Authority, Control, Isolation, Conformity, and Fear
20:23 Two Restorationist Movements Compared
26:29 Why Destructive Groups Require Followers
29:09 Branhamism, Home Meetings, and Small Groups
36:40 Restorationism, Special Revelation, and Authorized Ministry
44:26 How the Pattern Recruits and Controls
47:15 How to Recognize the Same Playbook
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
The discussion expands beyond individual doctrines to focus on the underlying framework that can turn a restorationist movement destructive: authority, control, isolation, conformity, fear, and the elevation of a leader or ministry as the source of present-day revelation. John compares the Two by Twos, Branhamism, Latter Rain, and the New Apostolic Reformation while encouraging listeners to examine whether a group promotes critical thinking or instead demands loyalty to a special message, chosen leadership, and exclusive spiritual identity.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
03:32 Who Were the Two by Twos?
08:48 The Living Witness and Omega Message
13:22 Authority, Control, Isolation, Conformity, and Fear
20:23 Two Restorationist Movements Compared
26:29 Why Destructive Groups Require Followers
29:09 Branhamism, Home Meetings, and Small Groups
36:40 Restorationism, Special Revelation, and Authorized Ministry
44:26 How the Pattern Recruits and Controls
47:15 How to Recognize the Same Playbook
______________________
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.
00:36I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research
00:40at william-branham.org, where history proves that truth, or at least their version of it,
00:46is truly stranger than fiction. As many of you who followed the podcast are aware,
00:52there are different themes that I have been examining as I go through this revival history
00:57to try to untangle why this history has become so problematic and how so many different destructive
01:04groups have been created because of it. And it's not necessarily the revival itself,
01:09although we have examined the question as to whether that concept is even biblical.
01:15It's that some of the themes are structured in such a way that it allows and enables destructive
01:23cult leaders to flourish. And one of those themes is this idea or this concept of restorationism.
01:31There are different themes that came into restorationism as a movement, and even that
01:37concept by itself isn't that problematic. But so many groups adopted it in so many different various
01:43ways. And in some cases, they're not even connected. It's just that the mindset of a person who wants to
01:53create his own group and separate from the main body of Christians, the idea of restorationism is
01:59almost something that comes by natural causes. In other words, they want to leave, they feel like there's
02:07some problem with the church, and therefore they want to be the ones to restore it. And most recently,
02:13I received an email, or I think it might have been a comment, asking about this group called the
02:192x2s. And they go by different names. They go by the message, which is very familiar to multiple groups
02:25that we've examined. They go by non-denominational. In some, I think it's Australia, the group is identified
02:33actually by non-denominational. And that's how they represent themselves. Different ways in which,
02:39in fact, the way is one of the names that they go by in this group. And there's a group
02:44in the United
02:44States called the way. And the question is, is this related to Branhamism or the latter rain or any of
02:52the different areas of my research? And it is. But I want to talk a little bit about what that
03:00is,
03:00what the 2x2 group is, and also how and why it's related. Because if you look historically,
03:06they are two completely separate groups with no real interactions. But they are connected. And I
03:14want to talk about that because this is the very foundation that I am heading towards as I examine
03:20why so many different groups form as destructive cults from this restorationist idea. So this is the
03:29perfect example to use the 2x2s. Now, who are the 2x2s? The 2x2s is a religious sect that was founded
03:37by
03:37Scottish evangelist William Irvine. And it was making headlines throughout 2024 and parts of 2025
03:45because in the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was looking into historical child
03:54sexual abuse claims. And not only in the United States, but also in Australia. And what they found
04:00was a global fundamentalist sect that did not really have an official name. The believers referred
04:06to itself as the truth or the way or non-believers called them the 2x2s because of their methodology.
04:14But in some cases, they just simply called it the church with no name. And like some of the other
04:21groups that we've examined, such as William Branham's message sect, believers often met in people's
04:27homes for the prayer sessions and meetings. And the group's ministers moved between different cities
04:33where the followers were based. So it was very hard to detect how many people were in it, who was
04:40in it,
04:40who was in it in a destructive way, and who was a just normal rank and file member. So in
04:47February of
04:482024, the United States, and in the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation launched this
04:55probe into this group. They suddenly learned from former members that this was a, quote,
05:00very persuasive type of religion. And when asked how they would describe it, one former member said,
05:07they would use fear and manipulation. They manipulate people and the fear of the Lord to control people.
05:13They will tell you that we are the only true way. And William Irvine, as the sect leader,
05:19shared many similarities to other group leaders and how their groups formed over something that
05:25really could be just labeled as a schism. He was part of the faith organization or faith mission,
05:32I guess it's called, in Scotland. And in 1895, he became the superintendent of that faith mission
05:40organization. But over time, he became very dissatisfied with the rules, the disciplines,
05:47the teachings, the growing organization and tolerance of other churches. And he decided in
05:53July of 1897, that he was going to go his own way and start a revival. And that's really the
06:02theme
06:03that I want to focus on, because he's part of a group, he decides he's no longer part,
06:08and therefore let's hold a revival. And let's get people who are opposed to that group. That's
06:14usually how these things begin to form. And it doesn't mean that they always form in a destructive
06:19way. His intentions may have been good. But as you examine these groups, it is one of the patterns
06:25that you can clearly say all of the groups begin to share. So he had this break with faith mission,
06:32and he started teaching what he called the alpha gospel. And this basically was the idea that his
06:41version of the gospel was far better than the version of the gospel that he left in the faith
06:47mission. And to a large degree, he copied the faith mission's rules, methods, and traditions. But
06:56while adopting some of the framework of what he left, he believed that he had restored a better way
07:03of what he left. He had restored God's only true way, I think is the exact quote. So that's why
07:11one of
07:11the names for this group is called The Truth. He is restoring the truth. Restoration is the theme that
07:18I'm focusing in on. So in the years after this, around 1900, he started to increase his following.
07:27More of the so-called workers in the new mission began to leave their former churches and join into
07:36his new organization. So from early 1900s, he is building a new organization that is in effect in
07:43competition with what he left. And in 1904, a two-tiered system was created and established by
07:52the group. And that's why the group became known as the two-by-twos. They would send people out in
07:56twos. You had the missionaries, they're called workers, and they were never allowed to keep a home
08:04or a job. They must be homeless and they must go between houses of the other tier, which were people
08:11who had homes and would have jobs to support these people in the upper tier. So you literally had an
08:18upper tier and a lower tier, which is another commonality between this group and many of the
08:23other groups. Because once those two tiers are established, then the central figure is the top
08:29of the pyramid. And here's where we begin to see how similar all of these groups are. When you examine
08:36not only this group, but you can look at Branhamism, Lateran, Word of Faith, once this is established,
08:43once you have the tier structure and you have a separationist view, think of what comes next.
08:49It's presumably 1905 that this doctrine was introduced, but the two-by-twos adopted a doctrine
08:55that was called the Living Witness Doctrine. And according to this, faith and salvation could come
09:02only through hearing the word preached through the lips of and seeing the gospel in the lives of
09:07the true ministry, or they called it the true living witness. So in this tiered structure, the people who
09:15are in the bottom tier had to look to the upper tier and listen to what they say as the
09:19true doctrine.
09:21This, when you consider in Branhamism or Lateran, they called it the spoken word. In Word of Faith,
09:28it's called the Rhema. There's different names for it. You are literally looking to the minister
09:33on the platform as your living word. And that's exactly what this group had adopted. Now, keep in
09:39mind, this doctrine allegedly was introduced in 1905. That would have been before the Azusa Street
09:45revival. But think about this. In 1906, Irvine came to San Francisco, and he was apparently there
09:53during the great earthquake of 1906. If you listen to what he wrote, it sounds as though he was headed
09:59there to see the people speaking in tongues. And while he mentions that he apparently did not
10:06encounter any, he did encounter people from Zion City, Illinois, which connects him to the research
10:11we have done on John Alexander Dowie and his Zion City sect. He said, I go to the church on
10:17Sundays and
10:18hear the same old dope we had in Los Angeles, meaning he was in Los Angeles in that year.
10:24I don't think there are any of the tongue people here now. At least I have not heard of any.
10:29An old
10:29doer man from Zion City with a wife and two baby children, a Jew named Behale, has an empty house
10:36if anybody wants to come there. And if they will pay him a tithe of 10% of what they
10:40earn. It took him
10:42seven years to get from Zion City to here. He came out by the east. I don't know the details.
10:47He gave me his constitution written out, which was pretty much a copy of the Zion City affair near
10:53Chicago. He reasons entirely from Zion, being the true people of God. But in a few minutes,
11:00I talked with him and I disabused his mind a little. And here's where it gets interesting
11:05if you consider the theology that was being birthed in the Lateran movement. Just a few years prior to
11:12the First World War, he began to focus heavily on eschatology. And he developed what was called
11:18the Omega message. And in this message, he began to preach that the Age of Grace, which occurred
11:25during his so-called Alpha Gospel, after that was proclaimed, it was suddenly coming to a close.
11:31In other words, his gospel had come forth. Now it was ending. That is exactly something that I grew up
11:38with in Branhamism. I can remember my grandfather and other ministers saying that the Age of Grace
11:44is coming to a close. In other words, we're no longer in the New Testament gospel. We have a new
11:50gospel. And that is exactly what he was teaching in the 2x2 message. That, as you can imagine,
11:57led to this big schism, which happened around 1914, somewhere between 1914 and 1918. Because you had a large
12:06part of the sect that accepted his Alpha Gospel, but they would not accept his Omega Gospel. And they
12:12realized that this doesn't make sense. This doesn't really match my Bible. So this is how this cult began
12:20to form. And all of these things that you hear that are so similar to what you're hearing out of
12:25the
12:25groups that you escaped, the reason why they're so similar is because it's not necessarily the
12:31doctrines that matter. In fact, that's one of the reasons why on my website and research, I usually
12:37don't talk doctrine so much as I do history. These groups are very different. If I'm looking at the
12:432x2 group, there's almost no intersection between it and Pentecostal charismatic movements. Whenever
12:50you look at the two different movements, they have really no intersection points other than I did mention
12:55the Zion City guy. But for the most part, these are two separate isolated groups, and yet they share
13:02the same doctrine. Why? Because even though they have different doctrines underneath the hood,
13:07if you lift it up and you start to look at the motor that's sitting there, they have different
13:12doctrines, but they have the same machinery. It's really the pattern that matters more than the name
13:18of the group or the label that they give themselves. Look at the authority, control, isolation,
13:25conformity, and fear. Whenever a group takes any of those elements and they say,
13:30we're going to give you a better version of the biblical doctrines, but we're going to funnel it
13:35through those things. Authority, control, isolation, conformity, and fear. In other words, we're going
13:42to tell you that you can achieve healing, but they're going to combine that healing with authority and
13:49control. We're the ones who can offer you the healing. It's a different version of healing than the
13:54Bible has. When the Bible talks about healing, yes, it talks about you can be healed. God provides
14:00healing, but they don't really tell you that you have to go to an authority for your healing.
14:05Most of the destructive cults that were based on healing principles will tell you that you're going
14:10to the central figure or figures in the group, and through them you can achieve your healing,
14:16rather than go pray in your home and God can heal you. Holiness, whenever you funnel this through
14:22control and conformity, they're telling you that you should be holy. In other words,
14:28we are going to tell you how to be holy if you conform to our group. You should be holy
14:33and you
14:34should conform to the way that we say holiness can be achieved. Prophecy. This is a crazy big one.
14:42It's widespread throughout the movement. We're going to offer you God's prophecy, but usually those
14:47prophecies are going to tell you things about the control and the authority of our group. In other
14:52words, this is not God's prophecy to the entire church world. It's a prophecy only to our elect
14:59group, our elite group. They will always go to restoration in these restorationist sects and tell
15:06you that the church has been corrupt. The church over time has become corrupt. It's apostate. We have a better
15:15way. We have a better church. And we, as the authorities of these groups, are coming to tell
15:21you through conformity what restoration means. Restoration means essentially what I tell you
15:28the church should look like and you must conform to it. Otherwise, you are apostate. And they will
15:34usually link this to fear. If you don't do this, here are the consequences for not joining our
15:39restorationist movement. To keep people involved and to keep people believing this, there has to be
15:46an action. Otherwise, the people feel uninvolved and eventually they just leave. So usually they
15:51will give you the mission. Here's the mission. We're part of it. Many times the leadership is the
15:56one who executes the mission, but you contribute in various ways. In this two by two group, they had the
16:03upper tier, which was performing the mission, the lower tier, whose job was to support that mission.
16:09And through the fear concepts, they will tell you that Christ is returning, but that looks entirely
16:15different whenever you have all of these elements that are required for Christ's return. And then
16:21combine that with fear. You're going to do these things as we say, or else here are the consequences.
16:29It's usually a Christ's return and consequences. So again, two completely separate groups, very,
16:35very little intersection points, two completely different core doctrines from which they were
16:41founded. But their overall doctrinal framework looks the same because they have the same machinery.
16:48In fact, as I continue, whenever you get into the core message, which is what Irvine claimed to be
16:56bringing, when he started teaching that this age of grace was coming to a close, like many of the
17:02groups that I have mentioned, Branhamism taught this as well. Eventually, what happens is because
17:08they have this apocalyptic view, they try to tie what comes after the gospel to the book of Revelation.
17:16And Irvine, like many of the Pentecostal leaders who have developed into destructive cults,
17:21started to claim that he was going to be one of the two witnesses of the book of Revelation.
17:26And I can almost look on your faces if you're listening, well, my group did this too. My
17:31group did this too. Branham did this. You've got in IHOPKC, they were doing this. Almost every group
17:39will try to tie their end of days realities or fantasy realities, I guess you could say,
17:46to different parts of the book of Revelation. And they all seem to do the same thing.
17:50Because once you get into this mindset that I'm the one, I'm the guy, I'm the messenger,
17:56I'm the one who's bringing you the message. Well, you have to put yourself into those roles in the
18:02Bible. Irvine was one of many people who did this. So if you look at the reasons why these restorationist
18:08groups are established, it's very easy to see why they all look so much the same. We have a schism
18:14because we disagree with the doctrine. We're going to create our own group. And because we've created
18:19our own group, we're going to restore the true way to the people. And this is how it initially
18:26develops. But over time, what happens is, it seems as though the restorationist leaders become more
18:32bitter against the rest of the world, because most of Christianity will reject their restorationist
18:39viewpoints. So eventually, where it leads is this, they start to believe that Christianity
18:44has gone wrong. And the problem is something that they can solve. So they begin to tear down the
18:53ordinary fundamentals of Christianity as it exists in mainstream groups. They'll say that you have turned
18:59to tradition, you have began to compromise with the enemy, you have began to form denominations.
19:05Because of this, you are adopting man's wisdom and not God's wisdom. But the problem is within the
19:13answer, because while they're claiming man's wisdom is what the mainstream church has accepted,
19:19they claim that God's wisdom comes through their mouth. So on the flip side, they began to bring these
19:24terms that are almost universal. We're coming to bring restoration to the church. We are the ones who
19:32have the truth. We're the ones who have the way. We're the ones who have been divinely given God's
19:38message. And through this message, we're going to bring you back to the original faith. In other words,
19:45we are rejecting the idea that God has had his hand on all of the churches since the foundation of
19:51Christianity, and that the church has not been led by God. Instead, we are the ones to lead by God.
19:58And that turns into an ego complex, because once you believe that your words are the message of God,
20:06how can you believe anything else that anybody else says as far as the traditional views?
20:12The traditional views have to be evil. So eventually, over time, in such a way,
20:17their doctrines will become structured so that they will oppose the traditional church. Think of the
20:22similarities between the two-by-twos group and how they began, and to just simply the latter rain movement
20:29in general. Both groups came from an existing revivalist movement. So the revivalist movement
20:36was already established. Neither group really started from nothing. Irvine was a superintendent and
20:42an evangelist in his faith mission. Houghton, Percy Haunt, and associates that were part of the
20:48established Pentecostal Bible School, especially the Bethel Bible Institute. They formed their own
20:54separation in the Sharon Orphanage. So both came with this dissatisfaction that the parent movement
21:02had adopted ways that they believed to be just spiritually inadequate. Irvine believed that the
21:10faith mission was not taking the New Testament principles forward, and he believed that his
21:16discipleship would achieve this. The latter rain movement, much like Irvine, they believed that
21:22Pentecostalism in general had lost or diminished its focus on the supernatural gifts, but more specifically,
21:29the supernatural power that should have come with those gifts under the doctrine. So they believed they
21:34had a better way. And they set up a, established a routine where the students were fasting and in
21:42prayer, trying to find that better way. So both were claiming that they had a way to restore something
21:48that the church had lost. And in both cases, they taught that they had the way to bring this restoration.
21:56In latter rain, God was restoring the gifts, the ministries, the prophecy, the apostles,
22:03all of the five-fold foundation. But in Irvine and his religion, he believed that the true
22:09Christianity was by establishing the home church pattern that the churches had and the missionaries
22:16that were sent out. So both focuses, while slightly different, believed that they had established a
22:23pattern for restorationism. And that pattern was better than the prior restoration movement that they had
22:29created a schism from. So both were driven by this idea essentially of new revelation. Irvine believed
22:38that he had the true meaning of Matthew 10, and he was bringing the alpha gospel. In other words,
22:44mine is the gospel number one. Well, in latter rain sects, they believed that the church had become
22:50apostate and the gospel was more of a works, miracle-driven gospel. And they were bringing the new
22:56gospel. They did not call it the alpha gospel, but both groups essentially believed that they had
23:02a alpha gospel. And if you follow the group's histories over time, the group's pattern is such
23:10that they began focusing more heavily on end-of-day's destruction and that they had the answer to that
23:17end-of-day's destruction. In other words, both groups were founded by leaders that believed that they
23:22had strong convictions. And that was the first step. But the problem is those convictions suddenly turned
23:29into a crisis. We have these convictions and therefore we're in crisis mode. We must at all
23:35costs bring people out of the original movement. So they basically are holding up these invisible signs
23:41that said, you have begun to compromise. You, the group that we were a part of and have now left,
23:47you are filled with false teaching. We have the true teaching. And then they'll start to target the
23:53churches that are involved in the network that they had left with their movement. All of those
23:58churches are now corrupt. God is not leading them. God is not part of them. God is instead part of
24:05our
24:05group. You are following man's traditions. We are following what God has established as the church
24:11traditions. And most explicitly, you have lost the full authority. We, or more specifically,
24:19the new leader, has the ultimate authority. And so they always offer the same solution. Number one,
24:27Christianity has gone wrong. We have the right. We have the answer. Number two, all of the denominations,
24:35except ours has become compromised. God is not leading them. We cannot trust God to lead them.
24:42We need instead a central figure who is not God, but eventually in some of the groups actually becomes
24:49a God to the people. We need our God or our leadership because God cannot lead the churches
24:55independently. Number three, the original faith of the Bible has been lost. And we're the ones to tell
25:03you what it was. Because it's not written down in the Bible according to this new structure. You can't
25:09read the pages of the Bible and determine what was the original faith. You must come to us. We have
25:15the
25:15way. We have the truth. They don't have it because they only have the Bible. Number four, the church no
25:23longer has authority. In other words, you must have an authoritarian structure. You need a man to lead you.
25:30And these denominations, they're being led by the apostates. You can't trust their leadership.
25:36Number five, the big one in every restorationist group, there must be something. We'll tell you what
25:43it is that must be restored. And through that restoration, we have the truth. We have the way.
25:49We have the message. So as you can see, especially those of you who have escaped a similar type of
25:56restorationist mentality, many of these restorationist groups share the same principles.
26:01Their doctrines change. Their strategies change. The actions that you must take may change.
26:08They change so much that they appear to be completely separate groups of completely different
26:14isolationist viewpoints. But when you look at their core framework, they're really all the same.
26:20It's as though you took a cookie cutter stamp and started stamping. Here is how you create a
26:25restorationist destructive cult. They all follow the same pattern. But the thing to be really concerned
26:32about is this. It takes two. And it's ironic that the group is called the two by twos because
26:40there's the leadership. There's this tier up above you. And then there's the bottom tier,
26:45the rank and file members. In Dr. Stephen Hassan's book, Combating Cult Mind Control,
26:50he shows you the pyramid of authoritarian control, how there's central figures. And then there's this
26:56upper tier of people. He actually divides it, I think, in three tiers. And then there's
27:02all of the splinter groups that evolve off of those three tiers. But in the end, the two upper tiers
27:08are quite different than the rank and file member tier. And this group has just explicitly said,
27:13we're going to have an upper tier. And their third tier really would be Irvine, if you put it in
27:18true form to Dr. Stephen Hassan's model. The very, very top tier, the guy who's coming with the message
27:24and giving you the message, he is that top of the pyramid. But he created a very, very explicit two
27:31tiers below him. And that's really the problem here when you look at the bottom tier, because it takes
27:38two to tango. You have to have a leader who's at the top, you have to have this upper tier
27:44that's
27:45bringing people in. But on the flip side of that, you have to have people who are shutting down
27:51critical thinking and allowing themselves to join. And that's really where I want to focus next with
27:57this restorationist viewpoint. Because without those two tiers and without people joining in,
28:04you could never actually form a destructive group. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement
28:10started? Or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign,
28:16charismatic, and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation? You can learn this and
28:22more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org. On the books page of the
28:30website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery,
28:36John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.
28:42You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.
28:49If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at
28:55the top. And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that
29:00you're listening to or watching. On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to
29:05thank you for your support. Those of you who are familiar with my story, I'm aware that I escaped a
29:12mind control cult, the cult following of William Marion Branham, or Branhamism. And that was the root of
29:18most of the things that we're talking about today. If you pull Branhamism out of the historical
29:23lineage of New Apostolic Reformation, you don't get New Apostolic Reformation. He was one of the
29:29linchpins, and there were a few. But I was stuck in the 1950s because we listened to these recordings
29:37from 1947 to 1965, and we thought that they were the Word of God, the fresh manna for our day.
29:46Whenever we went to my grandfather's church, which was the main Branham Tabernacle in Jeffersonville,
29:52that's what the church did. Everybody went into the pews, they sat in the pews, and my grandfather
29:57would holler to the guy in the back and say, play the tape, brother. And they would play the tape
30:02that
30:02was like two and a half hours long. So we were continually brainwashing ourselves with these
30:07recordings from the 40s, 50s, and 60s. Well, one of the problems that exists with Branhamism is that
30:15it's really hard to determine how many of them that there are, how many groups there are,
30:19because you do have some of the churches, like my grandfather's, but the vast majority of people
30:26worldwide are meeting in homes. And so what will happen is, in many cases, for the tape-only people,
30:33they will meet in somebody's home, they'll press play on the tape, and everybody sits there in the
30:38living room and listens to this recording from 1950s and brainwashes their heads. I left this group,
30:45and we started attending mainstream churches, and my family got to experience new things, one of which
30:51was a new old thing to us. We started attending this church that had what was many of the churches
31:00today called small groups or group homes, where people will go to the church on Sunday, and then
31:06after the service, either Sunday night or a different night during the week, in small groups they will
31:12meet in people's homes, which was new and interesting and yet all too familiar in some weird ways. I could
31:19not help but think about the times that we would sit in somebody else's home and listen to a recording
31:25from the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. Granted, it was much different. Whenever we met in the small groups,
31:31we were talking about the sermon that was preached that Sunday, not something from the 40s, 50s, and 60s.
31:39However, it was eerily similar, and I had to think through this, and I had to overcome this because
31:46it was actually a little triggering for me to do this. And I went deeply into the history of why
31:54that exists in the modern church, why it existed in my church, and did it exist in latter rain? And
32:00what I kind of found out, there are some similarities that are good, there are some that are bad, and
32:06there
32:06are some that are questionable. And I will preface with this, I'm actually in favor of it. I did like
32:12it. I really enjoyed it. And we were fortunate in that most of the homes that we met in, the
32:20home
32:20leader, and it would alternate between people, was usually somebody who knew what they were talking
32:26about. And the Bible, they were mostly Bible-centered. Sometimes they went back to the sermon, but
32:33usually, they were talking about what the Bible said about the sermon. And so, we got lucky. But
32:40what about the cases for people who don't get lucky? That's really one of the disturbing things about
32:47this. When you're being led by these small groups, you can be swayed in one direction or another,
32:54just simply based on the doctrines of the people in that small group. Carry that out to Branhamism.
33:01Yes, we listen to the recording, but often, whenever you had somebody who was a little preachy,
33:06who was going to press play on the tape, well, whenever they did, they might speak a few words
33:11before, and you were leaning towards their doctrine. And sometimes their doctrine was just wacky.
33:16And for this reason, the headquarters of Branhamism had this slogan, they still had this slogan today,
33:23just press play and obey, which is like a good brainwashing slogan. Just press play and obey what
33:31is going to be programmed in your head. You can actually search this online and find that there
33:35are, they sell memorabilia about that slogan. But to carry this back to the conversation about the
33:42two-by-twos. One of the reasons why people ask me, is this similar or connected to Branhamism is
33:49because of the meeting in the homes. And that history is a little bit, like I said, it's a little
33:56bit difficult to untangle. I won't do that fully in this episode, but it goes back to whenever you read
34:02in the New Testament, when the early church was forming, they did meet in the homes. And here is
34:09where it ties to the restorationist theme. There is this concept by restorationist movements
34:16that the church has gone apostate or astray, and we need to go back to the original. But the question
34:23is, did they go too far? Because there were things that were happening in the early church that were
34:29situations that caused the structures. And one of those I've talked about before in this episode,
34:37there's the scriptures about do not forsake yourself, the assembling together. Well,
34:42if you didn't assemble together, you didn't hear the Bible. And for the early church,
34:46this was important because the vast majority of people could not read or write. And so those
34:52people who gathered together, they had to gather together just to simply hear the Bible.
34:56Otherwise, there would be no passing of the, of Christianity from place to place.
35:02There wasn't enough people who could read. So you had to go to somebody who could read.
35:07Well, the same kind of thing, the same kind of concept occurs with the meeting in the homes. Yes,
35:13they met in the homes. But there also were not a whole lot of churches for them to go to.
35:19There were not that many Christian temples. And more to the point, there was heavy persecution
35:25by the ancient religions, especially during war times. The way that the ancient world worked,
35:32you prayed, you could pray to as many gods as you want. And Christianity wasn't persecuted just
35:37simply for worshiping Jesus. It was that they were the new religion. Some of the older established
35:44religions, if there were to be a war and the invading, the invading country were to just decimate
35:51the city that you were living in, people would start pointing fingers. Okay, which one of you
35:56is serving the weaker God? We just got beaten. And Christianity would have been named because
36:01simply it was one of the newer religions. These people here, they're, they're not serving the
36:06religion that's established. They have this new thing. And so people were meeting in their homes
36:11just simply because of persecution. And yet the restorationist movement and even large parts of
36:18mainstream Christianity, they're going back to the original in many ways without really thinking
36:25through why did the original exist in the first place? So, yes, you can say that the two by twos
36:32created by William Irvine does match Branimism in that they did meet in their homes, but there's more
36:38to it than that. So I've talked about some of the mechanics of why these groups look to be so
36:44similar,
36:44similar. But now let's go a little bit deeper and talk just briefly through the superficial doctrines
36:50of why the two would look similar to somebody who's not examining the machinery or the, the engine
36:57that's running underneath, because they are very similar. So I'll start with Branimism and show you
37:02why they look so similar. But then we'll carry that out further to the new apostolic reformation,
37:07because again, many of these themes, many of these groups are sharing the same machinery,
37:12the same themes that are produced by that same machinery, restorationism, special revelation,
37:19and authorized messenger or ministry. You create an exclusive identity. And then there's this insider
37:27versus outsider boundary that gets established. So the two by twos, William Irvine and his group,
37:34they, again, started with this restoration theme. But over time, they developed the truth or the way
37:41way. And just simply by naming themselves this, you're creating this boundary between you and the
37:48groups who are not part of the truth or the way. We have the truth, they must not. We have
37:53the way,
37:54they must have gone a different way. They're in error. And this leads to an authorized ministry,
38:00because the workers in the ministry are representing the true ministry. We have the truth, they do not.
38:06Therefore, we are working in the truth, essentially. So that part we've established in the first part of
38:12this podcast. But now go into the living witness. This is really where you start to see the mechanics
38:19that can be shared between all of the different groups I'm discussing, all the way up to your
38:25International House of Prayer in Kansas City, Bethel, etc. Once you establish the idea that we have this
38:32living witness, this true gospel, salvation is tied to this new gospel, it truly becomes a new gospel
38:39and different gospel than what's in the Bible, because this is our, as I said with our group,
38:45we call it the fresh manna for the day. This is the fresh revelation, the fresh Bible for today.
38:51And it's closely tied to the ministry's preaching and the examples they give in it. That's why you have,
38:58so often you have the prophetic history, is how IHOP KC would call it. In Branhamism,
39:04we called it the life story. You had all of these things that literally was writing what would be
39:09called by the group, another book of Acts. And this is the living witness. And with this,
39:17you elevate a messenger or messengers, and they create the end time message. So when you compare
39:23Irvine and his Omega message to Branham and his Laodicean messenger message, both are teaching
39:30exactly the same thing, just with different doctrines and that are running on top of these
39:35mechanics. Branham claimed that he was coming to restore before Christ's return, much like many
39:41of the other groups, and that his spoken word, or Branham's version of the living witness,
39:47was the authoritative interpretation of the Bible. It became the framework for most message believers.
39:53And I would say the vast majority of them will take what Branham said over the Bible,
39:58even if the Bible is in conflict. So that's just comparing Branhamism to the two by twos.
40:05Let's go a little bit deeper. Branham was one of two catalysts that started the Lateran movement.
40:10And because of this, they shared so many similarities, because it was the same doctrines.
40:16They had the restorationist claim, and they believed that the church had become
40:22apostate, had lost their apostolic and prophetic ministries, and they needed to be restored for
40:27the end times, straight out of Branham's playbook. They also developed the exclusive identity. And often
40:34they would refer to themselves as the end time people, the end time message, the new wine,
40:39the apostolic reformation, etc. Not a single centralized organization, but many different
40:47groups with many different names, all meaning basically the same thing. We have the message,
40:53the others do not. And because they had the message, or the Lateran message, or whatever they
40:59called their message, leaders in the movement got authorized in their ministries just simply because
41:05they were part of the network that was preaching the quote unquote end time message.
41:09So suddenly, because they're stating that apostles, modern apostles and prophets would have ongoing
41:15revelation and influence on God's kingdom, they were getting their own credentials just simply by
41:22saying, we have the credentials. And it was spreading because the groups believed that if you had one
41:28person who had credentials, he could lay his or her hands on another person and suddenly transfer
41:34through the power of their hands, a ministry. And so ministries were being developed with no
41:40credentials whatsoever, other than the authorized person gives the unauthorized person authorization.
41:46Much like you see today, if you look at the videos of Bethel and some of the, some of the
41:52new
41:52apostles that come up and they lay their hands on them and say, here's a new ministry, they were
41:56doing the same thing in Lateran. And it all comes down to this one point, which you can almost
42:03universally identify with every destructive group. The group believed that they have the present day
42:10revelation. Lateran, new apostolic reformation movements, they call it the present day revelation,
42:14typically. In Branhamism, they call it the spoken word. In Kenneth Hagin's group, it was the rhema.
42:20In two by twos, it was the living witness doctrine. All of these share the same commonality in that
42:26we have a new thing and we're going to give you the new thing, but we want you to accept
42:31this new
42:32thing as though it is equal to or sometimes greater than the written word that is in the Bible. It
42:38is a
42:39present day revelation, which implies and suggests that the old revelation, the one that's in the Bible,
42:46it's for a different day. We have a new day, a new revelation. That's how Branham would say it.
42:52And he explicitly said in the Lateran movement, from which all of this developed, that Moses's
42:58message would not work in today. It only worked in Moses' time. Paul's message only worked in Paul's
43:03time. And then he would say, we have today the spoken word. So he's categorically separating
43:09each of the movements, each of the milestones that's happening in the Bible history. And he's
43:16saying essentially that the New Testament was for the ancients. We have a new New Testament. And that's
43:22really what this Omega message was with Irvine, end time message with Branham, present day revelation,
43:29end time mission with New Apostolic Reformation. It's all about the message to the end time. The
43:36only difference that is slightly more aggressive is in the New Apostolic Reformation. Notice how it
43:44changed. In Irvine's ministry, it was the Omega message. It was focused more on Irvine. In Branham,
43:51it was the end time message. It was focused on what Branham said. But in the New Apostolic Reformation,
43:56it has an activation component. It's the end time mission. In other words, we have the end time
44:04revelation, but you are part of the mission. You're part of this. And so it makes the bind even stronger
44:11whenever you try to think about how mind control works and how you become activated. This is literally
44:17an activation for the end time mission. So as you can see, it is the same methods that each of
44:23these
44:24are using. They just give different names to it. These destructive movements recruit, control people.
44:30And then what's sad is they repeat. And there are many people who get stuck in one movement.
44:35They finally wake up and escape and they get stuck in a different movement because it is the same
44:40pattern. And they become very comfortable with that pattern. And this is the sad truth. And if you're
44:46listening in one of the audio only versions, I've got a slide up that shows sheep walking into this
44:52church with this big welcome sign, the light is inside of the church. And this is really what's sad to
44:58me. It is true. People are walking into these movements, thinking that they're getting truth,
45:06thinking that they're going to join into freedom. They're finally going to get answers.
45:10People who are suffering mentally, sometimes physically, they're looking for belonging and
45:17purpose. And they're told that the church will give it to them. So they go in with open arms and
45:23without critical thinking. And what you find is suddenly on the inside, after they have adopted the
45:30methods of this control mechanism, they begin to conform. So suddenly you have lost identities.
45:37Families get to be broken. There are groups that will financially just rob people of their life
45:45savings. Financial exploitation has been happening through the history of these movements. If you've
45:51been following my podcast, you have seen some of the groups that are doing this. And it leads towards
45:57all forms of abuse, at minimum spiritual abuse. But there are other forms of abuse that develop
46:02because you have a people who have suffered immensely by losing their own identities.
46:11And so what happens from this is people, even after escaping for a very long time,
46:17you have long lasting trauma. And the groups that we've talked through in this episode,
46:22I've talked to Branhamism, the two by twos, but think of the other groups that I've mentioned in this
46:27podcast. Many of them sharing names that are so similar to what the two by twos called themselves,
46:32such as the way. There are groups like the Christian Missionary Alliance that were teaching the same
46:37end of days themes that we're seeing in the New Apostolic Reformation today. And most people who are
46:44in CMA today would say, we're not New Apostolic Reformation. We have no connection to them. But yet,
46:50if you look through these histories, there's a spiderweb of connections between Branhamism and
46:54Christian Missionary Alliance. New Apostolic Reformation is basically a spiderweb of
47:01apostolic networks, many sharing the same histories, but most sharing the same mechanisms. They recruit,
47:08they isolate, they indoctrinate, they control. And in the end, the sad truth is many of them will begin
47:15to shun. So to summarize this podcast, the two by two groups started by Irvine has no real solid
47:23connection to Branhamism, which is the question that caused this whole podcast. But if you look
47:28at the framework, they both do share very, very similar frameworks. And if you are in one of the
47:34New Apostolic Reformation churches, you have escaped this or you're in it determining if you're going to
47:39escape, you probably heard everything in this podcast thinking, oh my gosh, they're describing our
47:46group. It's because they're using the same pattern. It is the same pattern. And so people ask me, well,
47:53how do you know? How do you know if the pattern is destructive? They're saying things that are right
47:57out of the Bible. But again, sometimes you can share something that is biblical while putting your
48:03own emphasis on something that is not biblical. And that's really where this gets to be really scary
48:09because people will submit their entire fortune, their life savings, their well-being,
48:16their identities. They will submit them to these groups. And it is the same pattern, different name,
48:23same playbook. How do you know? You start to look for the group's message. Do they have a special
48:29message? Are they simply teaching the message that Jesus gave in the Bible, the ones that the apostles
48:35spread? Or do they try to tell you that the apostle is the one who actually had the message and
48:41Jesus
48:41was just the one who came and initiated this whole thing? In Branhamism, Branham would often talk about
48:48the message that Paul gave. I don't really remember one time him talking about the message that Jesus
48:53came to give. So it is a different playbook. The other thing to look for, do they believe they're
49:00a chosen people and those chosen people need to be led by a human leader? Usually that's the framework
49:07by just simple definition of a cult. You have a cult following of a human leader. Are they bringing
49:13additional revelation to that special message or are they adding revelation to the Bible? In other
49:19words, are they turning this into a new and different message? Does that message include isolation
49:26and control? Has it created this us versus them mentality where, yes, you may encounter another
49:32Christian, but they're not our kind of Christian. We're a different kind of Christian than they are
49:37because they follow Christ and we follow our leader and Christ or our leader instead of Christ,
49:43one of the two. Does that following of the leader cause fear and deception? Are they saying things
49:49that just simply aren't true or things that you can't really even verify that are true about themselves
49:55to make you believe that they are the human leader, the chosen people, the chosen ones?
50:01Are they exploiting you is essentially the question. Can you look at the fruits of the ministry and see
50:07that there is spiritual abuse? Many people only look for physical abuse or sexual abuse, but what about
50:14the spiritual abuse? Do you see people who are broken down? Do you see broken lives? That's really the
50:21question because you can look at many of these ministries and you can say that I go to this
50:27church and this church is teaching me from the Bible. Yes, there are problems, but every church has
50:32problems. That's the number, that's the number one thing that people say in the comments. If you
50:37haven't noticed this, every church has these things, but have they established a way to fix these things?
50:43It's not that you want to be in a broken church and then stay broken forever.
50:47But one of the problems with these destructive groups is once it gets to that level of destruction,
50:53it usually doesn't change. It only gets worse. So you want to be in a church that's actually
50:58trying to get better, not one that is going to remain statically worse for the rest of your life
51:04and actually may worsen as you continue. So it doesn't matter the group name. It doesn't matter
51:10the doctrines, in my opinion. Look at this pattern and this framework. If they're sharing everything that
51:16I have said to you today and you're in a group that is teaching things that turn you against other
51:23Christians and make you to believe that God is not in control of the church today, you need this
51:29leader because he can fix it. You're probably in a cult. You're probably in a cult that will or is,
51:36will be or is now a destructive group. So hopefully I've said something that can help someone.
51:41I know that the people who were asking this question, is Irvine and the two by twos connected
51:47to Branham? Is this the message? I'll admit when I first looked at it, I thought, oh my gosh,
51:53the FBI is investigating an offshoot of Branhamism. Will they investigate the whole thing? That was the
51:59first thought that went through my head. But as I took a step back, I came full stop because I
52:05realized
52:06that it isn't really that the groups are connected. Even if they were, that's not the bigger story here.
52:12And if you focus on these two groups, you're essentially focusing on limited numbers of people
52:19who are hurt by the same framework. If you look at the underlying foundation of this itself, you begin
52:27to help more and more people because there are so many groups sharing the same foundation. And that
52:32foundation is wrong. Just simply put, it's wrong. You should never, ever be in a situation where your
52:39group says, we're the true Christians and those Christians down the street, God's not helping them.
52:46Because you essentially, in doing that, you have, in essence, created a new God who is powerless to
52:52control the overall trajectory of the church. And for me, that's a problem. That's a huge problem. So
52:59hopefully I've said something that can help people to engage critical thinking. Whether you're in a
53:05church that has a minister behind the pulpit or you're in one of these home groups and you've got
53:10somebody who is leading the home group and they're just a little bit off and something feels just not
53:16right deep inside, you can turn on the critical thinking. Because usually all of these situations,
53:23whether it's the group, the mega church, the destructive cult, the home group, if you turn on your
53:28critical thinking hat and you start to say, I don't agree with this, you can just simply come
53:35full stop and say, I'm walking out. I'm done. I'm sorry that you people are stuck in this cult.
53:40So if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information or to share your story, you can check
53:45us out on the web. You can find us at william-brannum.org. For more about the dark side of
53:50the new
53:50apostolic reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.
53:55Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
54:11If you enjoyed our show, youάν slightly by wearing the name and vírusCマw.
54:13So that's a very helpful.
54:13How STIT M상이 Audible has come.
54:14Our time I try to lover their children with you.
54:17Wearte Audible is an eyebrow problem.
54:19Thank you for staying that alone.
54:20It's beautiful if youaring in this country.
54:20I'm going to tell you why I'm doing it and I know you are looking for too much.
54:27It's almost everything.