Inside Calvary Chapel: A Former Intern Tells His Story | Our Stories | Episode 738 - video Dailymotion

William Branham Historical Research

John invites Joshua Bell, a former Calvary Chapel member and intern, to discuss his experience inside the movement, including its church culture, leadership structure, theology, and the influence of Chuck Smith’s Moses model. Joshua describes both what he valued about his upbringing in Calvary Chapel and the concerns that developed as he served more closely with church leadership.  John and Joshua examine questions of pastoral accountability, spiritual authority, manipulation, leaving a church, and the difference between doctrine and practice. Joshua explains why he eventually left his internship, what he believes Christians should watch for in unhealthy church environments, and the positive lessons about faith and Scripture that he carried with him afterward.  CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 03:27 Joshua’s First Experience With Calvary Chapel 11:38 Chuck Smith: The Good, Bad, and Ugly 20:32 Accountability and the Calvary Chapel System 26:16 The Moses Model and Who Holds Pastors Accountable 33:14 Why Joshua Decided to Leave Calvary Chapel 41:30 When People Serve the Church Instead of the Church Serving People 48:28 Cover-Up Culture and What an Exit Interview Could Reveal  ______________________ Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR: Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962 Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K ______________________ – Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham – Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ – Visit the website: https://william-branham.org – Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg  – Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham – Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr – Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books

Transcript

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

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

00:40at william-branham.org, and with me I have my very special guest, Joshua Bell, former

00:45member of Calvary Chapel.

00:47Joshua, it's so good to have you on.

00:49We've tried to connect and hit and miss a few times, but we finally got together.

00:53You are among several others who are contacting me from Calvary Chapel, some people who are

00:59still inside, some people who are no longer inside.

01:02But I think you may be the first who've actually come on the podcast, and it takes some bravery

01:08to do that.

01:09I'll be honest, I'm still digging into Calvary Chapel and the history, and if you've watched

01:14any of that, there are deep ties between Calvary Chapel and my research, and we may get into

01:20that, we may not.

01:21But anyway, very good to have you.

01:22If you could just tell everybody a little bit about yourself.

01:25Hey, my name is Joshua Bell.

01:28I, back in my late teens, so that would have been like 2005 to 2006 or so, 2004, 2006, I

01:36was an intern at a particular Calvary Chapel, which at least for the moment, I won't say

01:42the name of it.

01:43But yeah, I've been walking with the Lord since I was 12, been through many ups and downs,

01:49seen a lot of different things.

01:50As you can tell, I like music.

01:52I also enjoy just nerdy stuff in general.

01:55And when you combine that with me going through the things I went through at the Calvary I grew

02:02up in and being research-oriented, yeah, that's how I kind of ended up at this point where

02:07I'm talking with you, because there was a point where I'm like, this happened to me.

02:12Like, I know this can't be an isolated thing.

02:15I just don't buy it.

02:17Because when you've been in the Calvary movement long enough, you just, yeah, you put things

02:20together.

02:22So, but yeah, I've got a bachelor's in counseling and human services, so I'm not like a therapist,

02:30but I'm not like a doofus either.

02:33So I have some idea of what I'm talking about.

02:35And yeah, I don't know.

02:36Anything you want to know?

02:38Yeah, to all the people who are in Calvary Chapel and in favor of it and in high

02:42critical of me, I'll admit, I am the doofus as it relates to this.

02:46I'm still learning, and there's really a lot to learn.

02:49I will preface this entire podcast with something that I say frequently in the podcast that I've

02:54done.

02:55I don't really have anything against Calvary Chapel.

02:57I don't have a dog in the fight whatsoever.

02:59I'm just more interested in the history.

03:01And there is a history.

03:03And one of the components, which I've mentioned a few of these through Chuck Smith and the

03:08latter rain.

03:09One of the components was Chuck Smith's Moses model.

03:13And it's not even that I really want to focus on the Moses model so much as I do the

03:17system,

03:18because this is not Calvary Chapel specific, but it's something that deeply, deeply impacted

03:24Calvary Chapel.

03:25And I know you have an experience.

03:27We'll get into that.

03:28But how did you first encounter Calvary Chapel?

03:31What brought you into it?

03:33Back in, shoot, it would have been like 1998 to 1999.

03:37My parents came to faith.

03:40And then we went from being, you know, I guess you could say, and probably an agnostic family

03:45to a Christian family in the, you know, and you know what I mean by that, I'm sure.

03:50Um, but, um, they decided they were going to start going to the Calvary that I attended

03:56growing up because it was recommended by my aunt.

04:00And, um, pretty much between the ages of 12 and 20, my spiritual life was formed by everything

04:09that was taught by, uh, the main pastor at the church I went to.

04:14So, yeah, I'm very familiar.

04:15In fact, I have a few people who have either worked with me off and on or are still to

04:21some extent working with me who were attracted to Calvary Chapel for various reasons, some

04:26of which probably similar to your family.

04:28But it is a very attractive church if you're thinking coming out of a fundamentalist Pentecostal

04:35environment and trying to find something that's not quite that rigid.

04:39Calvary Chapel is a good midway type church, I guess, is how I would, how I would pitch it.

04:44Um, what was the church like whenever you first joined it?

04:49What, what was the size, the culture, the worship?

04:51Describe the church.

04:52I believe on average, uh, that church has maintained around 1,500 to 2,000 members.

05:02I remember hearing through a friend that it had spiked to 3,000 for a while.

05:07Um, and as far as church culture, um, I would say very yes man and also even, uh, clicks.

05:16Um, in fact, I had one friend back then and this was when I was in the internship, but at

05:22the same time he sat down and he was being kind of tongue in cheek about it a little bit

05:26because he knew that I wasn't like that type of person.

05:29But at the same time, he's like, so you are aware there are the Kenites and the Benites,

05:32right?

05:33Just the two, two pastors.

05:35And then, you know, some people followed Ben and some people followed Ken.

05:38And, um, so there's a little bit of that yes man culture and the, um, schisms and the

05:44grouping and the infighting.

05:45Um, you didn't hear about it too much because everybody kind of like kept it under wraps

05:51in a sense.

05:52It's like, I mean, even you'd have situations where like there was the homeschool group and

05:57then the homeschool group would do something to offend another group.

06:00And then like, it's just, yeah.

06:02So, and I mean, as far as churches go, it was probably not the worst in that regard, but

06:07it still wasn't great.

06:08And then of course it always got worse during times of crisis for the church.

06:12I am more familiar than you know.

06:14I think I've mentioned this on the podcast, but in the Branham Tabernacle, my grandfather

06:18was the head pastor, William Branham's son.

06:21People wanted him to be the head pastor and they kept fighting to get him in.

06:25And my grandfather kept fighting to stay.

06:27It's a weird, weird story, which I won't go too deep.

06:29But anyway, I grew up kind of away from there and I would visit the family from time to time

06:35when I moved here.

06:36I never really had caught it until I moved here that right straight down the middle, you

06:41had the Josephites, which was William Branham's son, the followers of them, and you had the

06:45Collinsites.

06:46And there were, I guess there were three categories of people, the people in the center, left and

06:50right.

06:51And I'm one of the people that I like everybody.

06:53So it took me about, gosh, I was probably here five years before I really caught on to

06:58it.

06:58And then suddenly I started noticing, wait a minute, there's a strong schism between these

07:02people.

07:03And eventually my grandfather was pushed out and the rest is history.

07:07But it's odd how that develops.

07:09Now that's in a small church.

07:10My grandfather's church, compared to what you're describing, was relatively small.

07:14So I'm trying to picture being in a big church like that, how that would even play out.

07:19It's a little bit odd to think about it.

07:22But along those same lines, we were an independent church.

07:26We viewed ourselves as an independent church, though we were Branhamite through and through.

07:30But we would say we're non-denominational, or some people might have said inter-denominational.

07:36How did you, how would you have categorized the church back then?

07:39Would you say it's independent or denomination?

07:42Back then, for sure.

07:43Excuse me.

07:44It was associated with Calvary Chapel proper.

07:46And so it was only, I think it was, I think it was like 2014 or 15 Ken disaffiliated.

07:55There's rumor that supposedly they're re-affiliated again.

07:58I don't, I don't know if that's true for sure or not.

08:00I haven't dug into it, but the way I, I mean, non-denominational, it was non-denominational, still is.

08:06And I always joke, it's a non-denominational denomination.

08:10I remember you said that once, and I came up with that long before you did.

08:14That's some of the reason I've really appreciated you.

08:17Because it's like, oh yeah, we've been through, I can tell, we've been through some similar experiences.

08:20But yeah, and I would say overall culture has always been more on the conservative side.

08:28And even like on the extreme conservative side, I definitely, I remember back in COVID, I tried to reconnect with

08:37someone that I knew in youth group over Facebook.

08:42And she got very angry very quickly when I even just said something as simple as like, Jesus loves you.

08:49Because she started, she was, she was already getting adversarial and a lot of, you know, Trump this, Trump that,

08:54USA, USA.

08:55And I'm like, I don't know, like, I'm not necessarily against Trump or anything.

08:58It's just, yeah, it was interesting.

09:01So there's a lot of, there's almost no liberal representation in that church, for sure.

09:07Because liberalism of any flavor is deadly and dangerous.

09:12But I'm just sticking with the culture part still a little bit more, because I feel like I could share

09:15more on that.

09:16But like, another part of the culture is excommunication in like a very, very bad sense.

09:22Like, don't get me wrong, I believe that there are times when someone's in sin and you should be like,

09:26Hey, listen, you, you're insane.

09:28You're not repenting.

09:29You're not doing what you're supposed to do.

09:31You can't be here.

09:32You know, that's one thing.

09:33But we're talking like, uh, justifying things, our parents justifying things like kicking their kids out of the house because

09:39they made friends with a Wiccan and brought them to youth group.

09:42And the kid said something at youth group that made the parents uncomfortable and blemished their reputation.

09:49And so their son got kicked out.

09:51Like, this is actual, like, yeah, stuff that's happened.

09:54And I know that, I guess, he's probably, he's probably like in his late 20s now.

09:59But anyway, yeah, so that's kind of the norm.

10:02And then just not a, just a culture of not dealing with actual problems when they arise.

10:08Yeah, it's odd.

10:08I was thinking actually just this morning, I was watching the news and I don't talk about news or politics

10:14very much.

10:15I avoid it at all costs.

10:16But as you know, there are wars and all kinds of political turmoil.

10:20And I was thinking, I was thinking this as I was brushing my teeth, I thought if some newspaper editor

10:27were to publish some great life changing publication, and then suddenly everybody reads it and they get overwhelmed and think,

10:37why are we doing this?

10:38And they stop all the wars and he gets the Nobel Prize.

10:41Most of the people that I talk to on the podcast would celebrate, hey, this guy won the Nobel Prize

10:47and there's no more wars.

10:48If the Pope were to do the same thing and the Pope were to stop it, they would be up

10:55in arms and say, we don't like this.

10:57The Pope has done it.

10:59And I was thinking, you know, it's like the, you know, you read in the Bible about they're following the

11:04letter of the law and not the law of the things that they must do.

11:08Well, Pentecostalism charismatic movement has shifted to the letters of the law of who they must not like.

11:14And it's so odd when you think about it.

11:17But anyway, back to, back to Calvary Chapel.

11:20I don't want to skew this by my own opinion, so I'm going to let you actually introduce Chuck Smith

11:25into this.

11:26But if you've watched my podcast, you know, the research into Chuck Smith, the Moses model, all of this.

11:31And, you know, you're familiar with some of this, so it's not quite unbiased from my research.

11:37But I do want to hear from your side what you feel Chuck Smith brought into Calvary Chapel, both good,

11:44bad and ugly.

11:45Yeah, let's start with the good.

11:46I think the first good thing that he brought in is, and unfortunately, I don't think even a lot of

11:55the pastors that he immediately discipled right at the beginning of Calvary Chapel actually really took to it in completeness.

12:03But he brought in that idea of healthy tension between what, you know, a lot of the extremes are in

12:11the Bible in the sense of like, he would say, well, you're not, it's not just predestination or just free

12:18will.

12:18Well, you know, there's this tension between these two things.

12:22And what God is doing is somewhere between those two spaces, which I thought was a good thing.

12:29He had a lot of his theology that was more in that direction.

12:32Now that I'm, you know, much older, I realize that's not as new as it sounds, but it sounded at

12:37the time.

12:37But, um, so that's one good thing.

12:40I think another good thing is, especially based on like looking at some of the stuff that you have, um,

12:48on your YouTube channel, I haven't delved too much into your website, but, um, another good thing is that he

12:53tried, he did to his credit, try to break from randomism.

12:57And, um, he was aware of the problems with latter rain and the developing NAR and all that stuff, just

13:04theologically in general, there's, it's relatively healthy.

13:08Theologically, I would say he, he did a good job with that.

13:11There's not a whole lot of like, other than the Moses model, there's not a lot of like directly off

13:18theology.

13:19It's just that letter of the law thing that you were already talking about.

13:22Things go wrong.

13:22Um, as far as the bad, um, and if I come up with other good things as we go, I'll

13:28bring those up.

13:29But, um, as far as the bad, um, there was a real retention of the adversarial culture, I guess you

13:39could say from like randomism.

13:42Um, and the, um, well, if you're not going to do it my way, then, you know, you're at kind

13:48of the thing or, um, no, Jesus told me the right way.

13:52And therefore you have to do it that way too.

13:55Um, and the other bad thing, uh, is from the very beginning, there's been a lot of just general sexual

14:04misconduct.

14:04And I mean, if you go on the Roy's report and just search up Calvary Chapel, you will see scores

14:09and scores of Calvary Chapel pastors with sexual misconduct.

14:12And, you know, while I don't know the statistics of like how many sexual predators are in the Western church

14:18at large or the American church at large, it still feels really strange to me.

14:23And I don't think it's just a coincidence that, um, that's been a problem for, um, Calvary Chapel as a

14:30denomination, um, for a long time.

14:34And, um, then there's the coverup culture, which is something you've talked about before.

14:39And a lot of your videos, coverup culture is totally normal.

14:42Um, if a pastor fails, um, they do a lot to hide it or mitigate it or, um, push victims,

14:51um, under the radar or out of the church.

14:54Um, so I have a method to my madness and I did this actually, I did this actually purposely.

15:00Um, I wanted to mention the Pope in that example first, because to the Calvary Chapel people, I am their

15:05evil Pope.

15:07And the irony is everything that you just said, which they would probably agree with because it's all documented history.

15:14There's nothing you said that's not already documented.

15:17That's exactly my position on all of this.

15:20I've never really said anything differently.

15:22The only difference is I actually do go to the documentation.

15:25Now there is an error that was made some time ago.

15:30I was, I was dealing with many, many moving parts to the business, the website, the podcast, et cetera.

15:36And I have, I have custom software that helps me arrange things on the website.

15:41It was indexing some of the references and it got some of them just vastly wrong out of order.

15:47And so people were looking at it saying, this is incorrect.

15:50But if you followed all of the references, it's actually documented historical material.

15:55I don't, I try very hard not to bring opinion into it.

15:59I just say, here's what a source is saying.

16:01Here's what I agree with it saying.

16:03And here's maybe something I disagree.

16:05But everything that you've said, if I were to form a research paper, I would probably say exactly what you

16:11said in a different order.

16:13Because I would tie it back to also, I think a big key component, which I will mention for this

16:19podcast, is Lonnie Frisbee and his connection to the guys in the shepherding movement.

16:24Because through Lonnie Frisbee, you have a bridge into Paul Kane, into Derek Prince.

16:29He actually lived in Derek Prince's apartment in Florida.

16:33And so that ties to the shepherding movement.

16:35And the shepherding movement laid the entire foundation for the spiritual control and spiritual covering that developed in the new

16:42apostolic reformation.

16:43Not so much in Calvary Chapel.

16:45So you've got all these bridges of people.

16:47And I like to connect the dots.

16:50So that's where Chuck Smith came in.

16:52Not so much that I even really was saying anything bad about Smith.

16:56But all that aside, he also did, to some extent, get into the mindset of developing these big churches.

17:05Which, nothing really against him.

17:07It was a good idea, if you frame it, that you're trying to build Christianity bigger.

17:14Maybe that makes sense.

17:15But the problem is, like you have just mentioned, and again, anybody can read through the Roy's report and see

17:20this.

17:21Sometimes, when you transition too quickly to a size that you can't maintain, you bring in people who really shouldn't

17:29be in the positions that they are.

17:31Also, combined with that, is just simply the human element.

17:35Like, the people who are mentioned in Roy's report that have done the bad things.

17:40And you can read through them.

17:41I'm not accusing anybody.

17:43It's all out there for somebody to read.

17:45Many of those might have been good people, if otherwise not put into the position that they were.

17:50I know people in the Branham movement who are really, really good people who did really, really bad things.

17:56And they just should have simply never been in there.

17:58And it all comes down to this, for me, which is another point that I want to get into now,

18:04is just simply the accountability aspect.

18:07When I left this movement, I went to churches where they did have accountability.

18:12And it was a very rigid, we're going to check you every sermon.

18:16We're going to make sure that you don't go down the wrong path.

18:19Because people are people, and people have people problems.

18:23But Smith came out of this environment where there was zero accountability in latter rain.

18:29You just laid your hand.

18:30You prophesied on somebody.

18:31And Jim Jones was the prime example of this.

18:35People's Temple, Guyana.

18:36He was one of the people who really didn't have any guardrails, and his group spiraled out of control.

18:44Chuck Smith didn't go that same route, but the system was there that he built upon.

18:50And I don't see, if I were to say something negative about Smith, I would say he didn't strive hard

18:56enough to change that system.

18:58I would say that his biggest fault, if he had one, was that he really did not bring accountability into

19:03the picture.

19:05So, with all that background, what was your experience with accountability in Calvary Chapel?

19:10I mean, the hard thing is, is when I was an intern, that was when, you know, because recently a

19:16lot of things have kind of come to light at the church I grew up in.

19:20But when I was there, a lot of things were still under wraps.

19:22And so, I think the best example I have is, where there was just like a lack of accountability, is

19:31when I was an intern, they hired a guy from the congregation.

19:36Good guy, but not, it's like you were saying, not entirely ready for the position he was put in.

19:44And he was expected to give counseling in a sexual abuse situation, essentially, which, I mean, at least in the

19:51state I live in, I believe it's illegal for a pastor to even counsel on that anyway.

19:55But that's a whole nother thing.

19:58But essentially, the whole situation blew up in this new pastor's face.

20:03He messed a lot of stuff up.

20:05And then he started getting blamed for it by the family he was counseling.

20:10And then on top of that, the lead pastor, Ken at the time, basically just threw him under the bus

20:15and said, yeah, like you screwed up.

20:17And then I guess you could maybe argue there's an attempt at accountability there, but it was more like the

20:23real problem was that this guy was given a task that he wasn't ready for.

20:28And even he admitted that much later.

20:31So now that we have the background, we talked about Chuck Smith, Pentecostalism, Lateran, all of those things and your

20:37experience in being in there.

20:39I want to dive deeper on what Calvary Chapel means to you.

20:44Like I said, I've got friends who are researchers who look at Calvary Chapel very favorably.

20:51Some of them, I think, may have even joined, or at least they're experimenting with joining.

20:55So what does it look like?

20:57Whenever you think about Calvary Chapel, what would you say are their core beliefs, and how does that differ from

21:03what you would say mainstream might believe?

21:06Certainly, church structure and accountability of pastors is different.

21:11I would say the mainline is much better at the accountability piece.

21:17And so when something goes wrong in the Calvary movement, there's just not much of an attempt to, I guess,

21:25really take that person out of ministry and restore them.

21:29And, you know, restoration doesn't always have to involve going back to ministry, right?

21:35But that's always the trajectory is, you know, oh, we're restoring them.

21:40But usually what that means is, like, taking the guy out, or there's no women pastors, really, in the Calvary

21:48movement.

21:50But taking that guy out and just basically hiding him for a year, wait for everything to die down, then

21:56you bring that person back, because by then you got the new crop.

22:00So back to my Pope example, I am a big fan of studying history and understanding what history means.

22:07And one of the things that C. Peter Wagner said, when he saw all of these networks that began to

22:15emerge, you had Pentecostal networks, you had different holiness networks, Lateran people.

22:20He was actually referring to parts of what came out of the intersection between Chuck Smith and various others, John

22:28Wimber, etc.

22:29And he called this, branded this, the New Apostolic Reformation.

22:33Now, we know years later, New Apostolic Reformation today, when you think of it, there's certain highly political themes that

22:40you look at and you say, that must be a New Apostolic Reformation church.

22:44But that's not really what Wagner was referring to.

22:46He was referring to all of these networks that eventually developed into that.

22:50So, according to Wagner's point of view, he would have looked at the emerging of Calvary Chapel as just simply

22:57one of the networks.

22:57That is in this vast array of networks.

23:01I'm curious what you would have thought, being in that, looking backwards in time, now that you know what the

23:08NAR is and what they stand for.

23:10And you mentioned Trump, so I'm assuming you have seen the photos of people who are NAR leaders standing behind

23:15Trump and all of that.

23:16I don't want to get into the politics of this.

23:19But when you consider Calvary Chapel, would you consider it what Wagner was terming the New Apostolic Reformation years ago?

23:27Or would you say it's leaning more towards what they would call NAR now?

23:31It's definitely the case that there are churches within Calvary that lean very heavily towards NAR-type systems, and there

23:43are ones that don't.

23:44And then you get, you know, ranges in between.

23:48And I would say on average, you're going to end up, if you just went to a random city and

23:53walked into a random Calvary, you're probably more likely to run into a church system that's being run more like

24:01than NAR rather than less.

24:03So, like, that would include, like, the Moses model, lack of accountability for leaders, a lot of, like, group schisms.

24:11So, like, in the church that I grew up in, Benites and Kenites, that sort of thing.

24:17Yeah, I think the way that I would frame it is there are multiple varying ways in which these connections

24:23can happen through these networks.

24:25Some of it is within, but some of it is just simply historical.

24:28I tend to gravitate towards, just simply out of curiosity, what was the historical lineage?

24:35And usually I go actually through the shepherding movement.

24:38I mentioned Chuck Smith and his connection to Lonnie Frisbee, Frisbee to the shepherds.

24:43When the shepherding movement, they created this pyramid-style hierarchy of what you would call today a spiritual covering or

24:49just – it was called discipleship back then.

24:52But essentially you had guys at the top who were discipling the leaders, the leaders down to the churches, churches

24:57down to the people, et cetera.

24:59And so I usually – I don't evaluate it 100 percent, is it NAR, is it not NAR?

25:05But I look at it as one of the – I would say that was probably the most destructive hierarchies

25:10that you can go through through history.

25:12If it goes through the shepherding movement branch, it gets to very, very destructive tones.

25:17And usually there's one criteria that I go by whenever I do this.

25:20I will ask the question, which I'm actually going to ask you this.

25:24In Calvary Chapel, who disciples a senior pastor?

25:28If you can find a clear definition of this, usually they did not go through the shepherding pathway.

25:34They went through a different one.

25:35Who would you say disciples the senior pastor?

25:38So as far as pastors within the Calvary movement being discipled, it's basically nonexistent.

25:44Yes, in the church that I grew up in, Ken, the main pastor, would occasionally go back to Costa Mesa

25:50and talk with Chuck about church matters and those types of things.

25:54He would meet with other pastors, like at pastor's conferences and stuff.

25:58But generally speaking, as far as I could tell and as far as I knew and as far as I've

26:03been able to tell,

26:04pastors in the Calvary movement don't generally have someone who's discipling them.

26:08Or if nothing else, they don't have that one person who's a Christian that's an accountability partner for them.

26:15So I was actually going to go two different pathways with this podcast, depending on how you answered the shepherding

26:22question, because I'll say it like this.

26:25Again, I'm the evil pope, so I'm trying to give examples where you're leading me there.

26:30I'm not I'm actually trying very hard not to lead you in the Brannamism example.

26:35Brannam set the standard.

26:36He said that we follow the elect seed is what he would say.

26:42We're all part of the elect seed.

26:43And he was referring to the biblical there's passages that you can go through to find this.

26:47But what he would say is this.

26:50The the spirit is giving the spoken word to the messenger of the day and that he was saying this

26:56all during latter rain.

26:57This is what Chuck Smith would have adopted in his latter rain years.

27:01Not that he continued this by no means, but he was part of a system that was teaching this.

27:07And Brannam went further to say that he essentially laid down all of the groundwork that would eventually lead to

27:14the shepherding movement.

27:16Many of those people were part of that same framework.

27:19But what he was saying is this.

27:20The leadership is led by God, not by man.

27:24And so you shouldn't question the leader was the theme that was pushed.

27:28And he had various ways that he would say it.

27:30And touch not God's anointed is one of the phrases that was thrown out very randomly for all kinds of

27:37scenarios.

27:38But essentially, you could not question a leader.

27:40And it flowed from the top down.

27:43There wasn't any, at least to my knowledge, there wasn't any real structure to disciple a leader.

27:49The leader was instead believed to be discipled by God.

27:53But what happens when he's not?

27:55That was the question I began to ask.

27:57What happens when he's not?

27:59So I was surprised whenever I first learned two things.

28:03The first one, I learned from another researcher that Chuck Smith actually had a end of days prediction, which follows

28:12the pattern that I have seen in the Moses model.

28:16Many of the leaders that came out of the latter rain movement, they were in time focused.

28:20And so they were always constantly thinking of ways to calculate when the end shall be.

28:25So that mindset clearly stuck with him.

28:28You can't say that it left him.

28:31And also the Moses model.

28:32I was really surprised.

28:34Point number two, whenever I read the newspaper article where he publicly declared we follow the Moses model, and he's

28:41referring to a situation.

28:42You can read it in the news.

28:43I'm not, you know, this is not even my opinion.

28:46He's referring to a situation where there is a serious allegation against ministers, and he's saying we follow the Moses

28:53model.

28:53The ministers judge the ministers.

28:55In other words, the ministers are not accountable to the people, as what happens with mainstream churches.

29:01We're following the Branham structure is essentially what he's saying.

29:06Essentially, if you look at the church governance chapter in the Calvary Chapel Distinctives, which you can find the PDF

29:14on the internet, it's out there.

29:16And then you go to the, I'm on the wrong thing here.

29:20And if you go to the church governance chapter, towards the end, Chuck is talking about an experience he had

29:28before he started Calvary with another church, if I remember right.

29:33But the quote that I'm going to read is from that experience.

29:38He's talking about what happened with him.

29:41I felt that it was led by the spirit, this group, and was very dynamic.

29:44I mean, it was exciting.

29:46There were fellows that night who led out in prayer who had never prayed publicly in their lives.

29:50So many of them were really touched and moved.

29:53However, the board members got together afterward for a special board meeting.

29:56They called me in the next morning and wanted to know just what I thought I was doing, and they

30:01let me know that they didn't want me to do that again.

30:03And at the time, I thought, well, I thought this might be my wife's ministry, but it won't be.

30:08I'm not going to be under these kinds of restrictions.

30:10I must be open to be led by the spirit.

30:14And that is kind of just the example of how a lot of the same ideas from the Gnar and

30:20Ladder Rain and all those things were still in Chuck.

30:23Before he started Calvary, he didn't like the idea of being under someone else's thumb.

30:29And so that sort of, I guess, attitude filtered through him and got trickled down to anybody he discipled as

30:38well, where it's like, well, no, I'm led by God.

30:40I know how to leave this church.

30:42I know what I'm doing.

30:43You don't have the right to question me.

30:45So in the church that was founded by Chuck Smith, who they, by the way, called Papa, you never saw

30:51a Board of Elders.

30:52I guess you could say the Board of Elders is more like a suggestion rather than an actual Board of

30:58Elders.

30:58Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started, or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the Ladder

31:07Rain, charismatic, and other fringe movements into the New Apostolic Reformation?

31:12You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org.

31:19On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery,

31:28John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.

31:34You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.

31:40If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the Contribute button at the

31:46top.

31:47And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or

31:53watching.

31:53On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.

31:58Yeah, the Pope example for me, it's a little funny because we were so adamantly against the Catholic Church.

32:04We saw them as the serpent seed.

32:07We had ways to frame it that we were just giving them these insulting terms.

32:10But essentially, we thought that the Antichrist would emerge and he would be the Pope.

32:14That's, in a nutshell, what we believed.

32:16And I'm finding that's actually a common theme because many groups spun off of the Latter Rain movement.

32:22Now, here's the funny part.

32:24Well, two funny parts.

32:25The first funny part is if you read Matthew 23, Jesus says explicitly, call no man father on earth.

32:32And you find that people do this, but many groups will condemn the Catholic Church for doing similar structures of

32:40hierarchy.

32:41And the reason I wanted to go there is we called a certain name.

32:46I won't name him.

32:47We called a certain individual in the Branham circles.

32:49We call him the Pope.

32:50And it wasn't that we called him Papa or anything like this.

32:53We didn't call him Pope outright.

32:54But we would jokingly say he's the Pope of our group because the hierarchy and structure was much the same.

33:01You could not hold a leader accountable for what they did.

33:06That was part of the structure.

33:08So, that leads me into the part of the story that I want to really get into your part of

33:14the story.

33:14I want to talk about what made you suddenly decide or gradually decide that this was not the church for

33:21you.

33:21How did you come to that conclusion?

33:23So, what made me decide to leave was what started happening when I started to pick up on the manipulation

33:35and the tactics that were being used on me when I started to assert my autonomy.

33:42And also, when I tried to assert my relationship with God over their belief of what I should have been

33:58doing.

34:00So, there was a point where I realized that whether I was right or wrong, whether God wanted me to

34:07stay as an intern at Calvary or not, I couldn't do it anymore.

34:12I was pretty depressed by the time that started to dawn on me and life just sucked and I was

34:19being crap-holed into doing janitorial all the time.

34:23So, basically, I went to Ben and I said, listen, I don't want to do this anymore.

34:29I'm ready to leave the internship.

34:31I don't think I'm called to be a pastor.

34:33I don't think that I'm even supposed to be here on staff.

34:39And that sort of began this, I guess, back and forth of him.

34:44And that first time that I went to him, all of this love bombing came out.

34:49It was like, oh, well, but if you just stay, you know, you'll get to be this great man of

34:53God.

34:54You'll get to be a pastor.

34:55You'll get to do X, Y, Z.

34:57All this stuff will open up for you, all these opportunities.

35:00And then I said, even so, I don't want it.

35:03I don't feel I'm called to it.

35:04I don't, you know, I don't want to do something that I don't even like.

35:09It was even just like a matter of conscience, too.

35:12Like, my conscience just couldn't do it.

35:14I didn't want to violate my own conscience.

35:16And that began this process of him every month, once or twice a month.

35:22He'd check in with me and be like, so, have you prayed about it?

35:25Have you prayed about it?

35:26And I'm like, yeah, I prayed about it some more.

35:28Still in the same place.

35:29And then this process of him getting more and more perturbed because during that time also,

35:36he was increasing his indirect pressure of manipulation through, like, other people,

35:40triangulation, all these other things.

35:42And it just wasn't working.

35:43And then, you know, after about a six-month period, it finally culminated in me leaving.

35:50But it was that seeing that pressure or experiencing that pressure ratchet up on me to obey and to follow

35:58his directive.

36:00And then if you add in what I saw going on with someone else who was officially on staff at

36:05the time,

36:06his name was Alex.

36:08He ran the Russian ministry there.

36:11And one day, he suddenly just out of nowhere was telling everybody on staff that he felt God had called

36:17him to take the Russian ministry at Calvary in a certain way,

36:22or more like that Calvary, in a certain direction.

36:25And, like, as soon as he started saying that, like, you saw the thread in the morning meetings before the

36:35church workday would start where Ken and Ben would be preaching at this guy,

36:40praying at this guy, and in every way that they could, trying to bring this manipulative pressure to bear on

36:46him.

36:46And, again, similar to me, he just, he didn't cave.

36:50And so, slowly, he started to get pushed further and further out of the staff circle, and people started talking

36:58to him less and less, you know.

37:00And then there was a point where one day it had been, you know, three weeks since I'd last seen

37:05him.

37:05And I was just like, wait, where's Alex?

37:07Like, what's going on with that?

37:09And started asking around and found out from various staff members that he's gone, he was fired, he just, he's

37:17out.

37:18And, of course, they have all sorts of ways of, I say fired in as much as that's what I

37:23would call it now, but the way that they would term it.

37:27And, of course, shortly after I started asking those questions, there was another one of those staff meetings where it

37:32was like, oh, so-and-so's gone because their vision didn't align with what God's doing here and all that

37:38type of thing.

37:39And stuff you're familiar with, I know, so.

37:43But it was that mirror of, like, what was happening to me was happening to him, and it kind of

37:49helped everything just make sense for me, so.

37:51And back to the John is the evil Pope example that I gave.

37:56There are certain things that I'm trying very, very hard not to say, but I'm watching you say some of

38:02them.

38:03There are criteria that I use whenever I'm evaluating what direction a group is headed.

38:09I'm going to say it like that and be very cautious.

38:11And one of the criteria is how hard is it for a person to leave?

38:16When we left Branhamism, we went to several different churches.

38:19I wanted to try out different ones.

38:21And the first one that I left, I was a little surprised at how easy it was to leave.

38:25We went, we left, and they really, as open as they were in welcoming us, they also were open in

38:35saying, we hope that God leads you in the new church.

38:38I mean, it was that pure, plain, and simple.

38:40It was a good experience.

38:42Actually, it was a very good experience leaving.

38:44And then we have experienced that with every church that we've tried and left.

38:49And I'll say it like this, in Branhamism, it was the single most difficult thing that I ever did in

38:54my life, was leaving.

38:56And I just heard you say that it was a little bit hard for you to leave.

38:59Talk about that a bit.

39:00What made it hard for you to leave?

39:02The thing that made it hard to leave was when I had the realization that not only did I not

39:11want to be a pastor, but I didn't want to be a part of the staff at the Calvary I

39:17grew up in.

39:19And I took some time to pray, didn't necessarily get any clear confirmation from God one way or another on

39:24what he wanted me to do.

39:26I just knew that I couldn't do it anymore.

39:29And so within that week, I went to Ben and I said, hey, I'm done.

39:36It's time for me to go.

39:37I don't want to do this anymore.

39:39I don't think I'm called to be a pastor.

39:43And that first meeting with him about that was when he kind of did the standard love bombing thing where

39:49he would say things like, where he said things like, you know, if you just stay, you'll become, you know,

39:54a great pastor and you'll have this opportunity and that opportunity and you can do this and that.

40:00And I told him, well, even at that, I don't want to be here anymore.

40:07And that began a cycle where he would say, well, let's just wait a month or let's wait two months.

40:16And he would check in with me, you know, during that time once or twice and say, well, have you

40:21prayed about it, brother?

40:22Like, how are you feeling about it?

40:23What's going on?

40:24And I would just say the same thing again.

40:26It's like, no, I don't, I don't want to be here.

40:27And I don't think that's calling me to be here.

40:31And, um, it was sort of like this weird, I was only 19.

40:35So I didn't really like understand that he was manipulating me into staying by essentially saying, well, we'll just give

40:42it a little more time.

40:43Let's give it a little more time.

40:45Um, and during that time he was, um, setting up my work days at the church so that you weren't

40:54getting to do the tasks that were privileged.

40:56You were under more oversight.

40:58Um, and then, I mean, there was always, there was always triangulation going on to one degree or another.

41:04Um, so there's that part too.

41:06Um, and just realizing like, he would always make it clear that somebody was keeping an eye on you somehow

41:11or another, um, to make sure that you were, you were towing the line.

41:16And, um, after about six months of this process of him come trying to put the pressure on more and

41:21more, and then checking in again and again, you know, over the course of about six months, um, the thing

41:27that made it difficult was just that he was trying to take advantage of that power dynamic to create guilt.

42:00There's also another criteria that I use.

42:02you're, um, as I Gundam do now.

42:06Okay, we would start getting rid of that.

42:07We would start getting rid of that.

42:08And, um, the reason I wasCO for this is why I began having this, amaze of that.

42:14Um, would be, uh, or also to be cut out as kind of a weird word, but that is in

42:19my mind, uh, clear, but path, everywhere.

42:19So from the upper, I just now talked about what?

42:21Uh, there, that is, sort of��, uh, four years old and have noveambled some religious and ethnography.

42:26So what Dr.

42:32that type of model and so people became servants of the church instead of the church servants of

42:36the people which of those two models would you say describe calvary chapel um it was definitely

42:43people are for the church and not churches for the people everything there is about what you can do

42:50for the church and how you can support the church and more particularly how you can support the

42:54vision of your pastors and um using a lot of that to justify um horrible treatment of congregants

43:05and staff members and um just a way of justifying a lot of the behavior that they were doing

43:10because if you're there for them if you're there to enact their vision the end of it is there's just

43:18a lot of things that were justified with the moses model and manipulation and control and all these

43:26things and just there's going to be stern words there's going to be stern words from jesus for um

43:31a lot of calvary pastors at the end well let's leave the stern words and if you could give yourself

43:37some encouraging words look way back in time whenever you were in this and you were struggling

43:45to struggling to make sense of it and also struggling to leave if you could give yourself

43:49some encouragement and advice what advice would you give yourself the biggest encouragement and advice

43:55i would give to my younger self back when i was 19 18 19 and stuck in uh the internship

44:00like i was

44:01is your relationship with god is not filtered through these men they don't get to decide what god

44:09has spoken to you or not spoken to you yes you might get things wrong because you're human and you're

44:14imperfect but that is not the same as you know um someone controlling your spiritual life and what

44:22your calling is and how you serve god um god gets to tell you that because we all we all

44:29have access

44:29to the holy spirit and there isn't some kind of guaranteed special knowledge that your pastor has

44:35over you that uh that you don't have and if you trust god and you stick with god he's going

44:44to show you

44:44the way out um so don't don't give up and um there's more to there's more to your relationship with

44:55god

44:55than this one moment in time and i'm going to ask another question because whenever i began my research

45:02i was literally pushing towards trying to prove that what i was in was true not false but the

45:10problem was as i uncovered critical information and i published both sides if you as you start to

45:16publish the critical people start to brand you they say this person is just they're out to get us

45:22this person is disgruntled you can't listen to this person so i want to ask you the the opposite

45:27question looking back in time whenever you were in that same period i myself came through many of

45:34the things that you described and it was very hard for me to leave i understand exactly what you're

45:38saying but i can also look back at things that i remember that really formed the character that i am

45:45today many of the good aspects of my character did come from this environment because i was i was

45:50essentially raised in it what would you say were the good things that came out of calvary chapel

45:56what would you say that you retain for the rest of your life uh the good things will be uh

46:01are still

46:02are um just an absolute trust in god because part of being stuck in stuck in that moment in the

46:11internship was um god bringing me to a place where and it would it would really chafe it would really

46:19chafe ken and ben to know but through their own preaching where like and this is coming to memory

46:25this time around of um basically god asked me like who are you going to obey are you going to

46:31obey me or are you going to obey them um and realizing that if i was going to obey anybody

46:38i was going

46:38to obey god and god was like okay well then no more 10 chapters a year for you you're reading

46:44the

46:45psalms and the proverbs over and over until you're tired of it like that's what i want you to do

46:49and i want you to learn as much as you can from that and um so there's that part of

46:55it um that's

46:57good that i learned to hear god's voice um the theology was overall pretty good as is you know off

47:04often the case with legalistic churches where you know the letter of the law is usually right like

47:09they get that part right but then it's the the orthopraxy that's wrong um and then

47:16the other good thing i would say is um the ability to see what or to know what a healthy

47:23church looks

47:23like because when you've when you've been stuck in an unhealthy church for most of your life and

47:29then you finally leave and then you go to another church that's healthy you you have no doubts about

47:36what you went through after that like you're not confused anymore about um what what uh to look out

47:43for when you step into a church and um i think the other good thing would be the difference between

47:50being able to memorize passages and knowing knowing the heart of the word if that makes sense because

47:57like i've read the bible a lot from being in the internship um and i would easily be able to

48:02tell

48:02you that's in the bible that's not in the bible that's the heart of jesus that's not and that's

48:08because of that 10 times a year through the bible where i may not have a specific scripture memorized

48:15but when you bring the combination of god god discipling me and then me just reading the word

48:21a ton you're never going to make me confused on what is the holy spirit what isn't and i'm going

48:28to

48:28ask a couple more questions but do it in the same balanced way because i want to i want to

48:33show people

48:34that this is this is reality this is not something that you and i are making up when i left

48:39the first

48:40church that we left again i left and it was the easiest thing ever they were just so excited for

48:45us in our new church and it was so shocking to me but one of the things that they did

48:50right

48:51they i can't remember if it was formal or indirect i think it might have been indirect maybe casual over

48:56a dinner they gave me an exit interview and they were asking for feedback which every church should do

49:02i don't care what church you are i don't care what denomination or non-denomination you are

49:07you should want to have feedback to make yourself better um so i'm going to ask you did they give

49:13you

49:13an exit interview that's the first question and the other half of it is if not what would you say

49:19in that exit interview to give them feedback to help them in their church growth yeah i think i think

49:25the overall thing with just the culture of um the calvary that i grew up in but like unhealthy calvaries

49:33in general is there's a very um there's a very um manipulative um a manipulative secretive

49:43um cover culture in a lot of them where um pastors failings get covered up hidden or um i mean

49:54there's

49:55also the classic tactic that a lot of unhealthy churches do in general which is oh well this

50:00pastor sinned and they fell well we're gonna take them out of the pulpit for a while we're gonna go

50:04through a restoration process and then a year later they're back in the pulpit but they're still doing

50:11the same behaviors just they're still doing the same thing it wasn't really about um restoring that

50:18pastor to fellowship with god or even fellowship with congregation it was about um taking them out

50:25of the limelight for a while so that their behavior gets forgotten and a new crop of people comes into

50:33the church that aren't um aware of this pastor's behavior and then the people who were aware and tried

50:40to say something about it they get hurt they get ignored they leave and then it all starts over again

50:47and the last question i'll ask again trying to keep it balanced you gave feedback that hopefully helps

50:52them to build their church in a healthy way now let's talk about the other side of the equation

50:57if somebody is thinking about joining calvary chapel what warnings would you give them um the warning i

51:04would give them is be aware that at least as far as i've been able to see from the outside

51:09uh looking

51:10in over many years now because i'm in a 40 now and so when i generally left calvary i was

51:181920

51:19and um so over 20 years of my life essentially from what i've been able to see on average calvaries

51:27lean more towards um nar tendencies and latter rain tendencies than they don't you will definitely get ones

51:34that are really healthy they're out there but i would say be very careful and be aware of um like

51:41take take your time to do your homework and go over john's material that he has talking about nar and

51:47the patterns that are there um go to phoenix preacher.com and look up the calvary chapel chronicles

51:54there um to get some more information on what the patterns look like go to the roy's report and just

51:59search up calvary chapel and look at all the different pastors who have fallen uh that are

52:05documented there look at the patterns that you see in those articles and make sure you're aware

52:10like at this point in my walk with god if i just walk into a random church any church doesn't

52:15matter

52:15what denomination what i guess what political eating anything i'm not even going to be looking for

52:22doctrine right away i look for is there a culture that encourages manipulation of the congregation and

52:28staff does the pastor say things that remind me of the kind of manipulative tactics that i experienced

52:35when i was an intern um is there anything there that um especially now that you know i've gotten some

52:42education in counseling like is there anything there that strikes me as dysfunctional family dynamics

52:48because you'll see a lot of similarities with dysfunctional families and dysfunctional churches

52:53um be looking out for patterns and trends rather than just whether or not the doctrine is right

52:58because a lot of calvaries have pretty good doctrine their theology is fairly fairly accurate but it's

53:04the orthopraxy rather than the orthodoxy that's the problem the practice well thank you so much for

53:10doing this and thank you for being i believe again i believe it is the first who has actually come

53:15on

53:15and told a critical story about calvary chapel i i thank you for doing that and hopefully you've said

53:20something that can help both calvary chapel and people who are either in it or thinking about

53:25being in it so thanks again for joining me i'm glad to be here and i really appreciate you having

53:29me on um and uh i would love to come back and talk some more because in a way like

53:35we've only

53:35scratched the surface of what there is to talk about um we could get really into the weeds in my

53:39own story and talk more about details because i mean there's more than one incident i could talk

53:44about there of examples of the kind of cover-up culture that's on staff at a lot of calvaries

53:49um and then um i could talk about some of the ways that like ben and ken would manipulate the

53:55congregation um there's a lot of general trends in the calvary movement that we could talk about

54:02um that get swept under the rug or kind of hidden by the the i guess you could say less

54:08bombastic

54:09spiritual language that kind of hides and covers up a lot of the things that go on so

54:14oh there will definitely be more i will ask i will have you back again thanks again yeah thank

54:20you for having me on and uh looking forward to coming back well if you've enjoyed our show and

54:24you want more information you can check us out on the web you can find us at william-branham.org

54:29for more about the dark side of the new apostolic reformation you can read weaponized religion

54:33from christian identity to the nar available on amazon kindle and audible

54:46so

54:56so

54:57so

Inside Calvary Chapel: A Former Intern Tells His Story | Our Stories | Episode 738

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