- 2 days ago
John and Bob discuss why cover-up culture develops inside charismatic and Pentecostal movements. Rather than placing the entire problem on fallen leaders alone, they explore how loyalty, shame, prophecy, hype, spiritual hierarchy, and “man of God” theology can cause entire communities to protect leaders even after serious failures.
They compare Catholic and Protestant abuse scandals, discuss the Moses model, the “touch not God’s anointed” mindset, the role of the entourage, embellished revival stories, prophetic history, and the difference between criticism and healthy critique.
00:00 Why Cover-Up Culture Is Bigger Than The Leader
04:38 Catholic Scandals, Protestant Scandals, And Human Nature
10:30 The Moses Model And Charismatic Leadership
18:04 The Anointed Leader Problem
25:17 The Invention Of Lying And Spiritual Mythology
34:13 Circling The Wagons
41:55 Cult Dynamics And The Entourage
51:06 Prophetic History And Collective Myth-Making
1:00:45 False Memories, Belonging, And Loyalty
1:08:18 Positive Confession And Revival Exaggeration
1:18:28 Critique Versus Criticism
1:24:00 Closing Thoughts
______________________
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
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They compare Catholic and Protestant abuse scandals, discuss the Moses model, the “touch not God’s anointed” mindset, the role of the entourage, embellished revival stories, prophetic history, and the difference between criticism and healthy critique.
00:00 Why Cover-Up Culture Is Bigger Than The Leader
04:38 Catholic Scandals, Protestant Scandals, And Human Nature
10:30 The Moses Model And Charismatic Leadership
18:04 The Anointed Leader Problem
25:17 The Invention Of Lying And Spiritual Mythology
34:13 Circling The Wagons
41:55 Cult Dynamics And The Entourage
51:06 Prophetic History And Collective Myth-Making
1:00:45 False Memories, Belonging, And Loyalty
1:08:18 Positive Confession And Revival Exaggeration
1:18:28 Critique Versus Criticism
1:24:00 Closing Thoughts
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00:31Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.
00:00:35I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research
00:00:40at william-branham.org, and with me I have my co-host and friend, Bob Scott, former co-founder
00:00:46of the Kansas City Fellowship and the author of three books.
00:00:49The latest is Some Said They Blundered, Breaking My Decades of Silence on Mike Bickle, The
00:00:53Kansas City Prophets, and The International House of Prayer.
00:00:57Bob, it's good to be back.
00:00:59It's been a little bit of a delay connecting.
00:01:01We've both been kind of tied up for a while, and I was thinking as I was reading your Decades
00:01:07of Silence on Mike Bickle, it's the perfect name for the subject that I'm getting into
00:01:13today, which is the cover-up culture.
00:01:16I have had so many people ask me about cover-up culture in various ways, and I don't know if
00:01:23you know this or not.
00:01:24I've been exploring this with Che On's former sister-in-law.
00:01:30I believe it's her sister-in-law.
00:01:32She has been through hell and back, obviously, but she wants to explore the cover-up culture
00:01:39within NAR, and so I've been going down some of that path with her.
00:01:44But I was thinking as I was talking to her, and I was thinking as a question come in about
00:01:48this, many people look at cover-up culture and they focus it to the leader.
00:01:54They say this is a leader problem.
00:01:55The leader's trying to cover up his or her or whatever they did.
00:01:59But it's actually much bigger than that.
00:02:01There's a reason why it exists in the way that it does in the charismatic movement, and
00:02:06yes, while it exists in almost every denomination, it is just a bit different in the charismatic
00:02:11movement, and I want to talk through that just a bit.
00:02:14So, welcome back.
00:02:15For those that don't know, I've been trekking up and down Italy, having the time of my life,
00:02:25feeling like today that I woke up from a dream because the last couple of weeks were just
00:02:32so amazing, exploring Italian culture and everything, that I'm having a hard time feeling
00:02:40like I don't really want to wake up.
00:02:42Yeah.
00:02:43I had so much fun.
00:02:44I want to stay in the dream.
00:02:46So, yes, it's great to be back, and it'll sober me up a little bit from my two weeks of
00:02:52kind of living in a fantasy vacation world.
00:02:56Anything we can do to sober Bob up is a good thing, so I'm glad we're back.
00:03:00Yes, and if I have glitches, it's because I keep waking up at 2 a.m., and I can't remember
00:03:06names and things like that, but this is an interesting topic.
00:03:11You know, for those that have followed us for a long time, I grew up in Milwaukee, a Roman
00:03:20Catholic, and when I was about 11 or 12 years old, my mom yanked us out of the Catholic Church,
00:03:27and I never knew why.
00:03:29And it turns out that the cover-up culture that we know in the Roman Catholic side of
00:03:38things actually happened in Milwaukee at St. John's School of the Deaf, where a group of
00:03:44deaf boys had for decades claimed that they had been abused, and nobody would believe them.
00:03:50And finally, they got the Milwaukee Journal, a writer from the Journal, to actually go public
00:03:56with it, and that's the shot that got fired that then started a whole domino effect in
00:04:02that subculture, and of course, in typical fashion, the Protestant side of the equation
00:04:08got arrogant and cocky, and, you know, those damn Catholics, you know what I mean?
00:04:13And yeah, those, you know, and all the negative, I heard all the things from that side of the
00:04:19equation, and I don't think people realized we had our own skeletons in the closet.
00:04:26And to your point, it's, you know, people tend to always want to point to the leaders,
00:04:32but I think there's some underlying things that are even on the congregational side that
00:04:39need to be addressed.
00:04:42And one, there's two that I can think of, and I'll state them, and then I'll let you kind
00:04:47of take it from there.
00:04:49But the first one is that we have a default setting.
00:04:55I'm not sure where we got it from, but we have to look good, so God looks good, right?
00:05:02So a lot of the facade that comes in the church world of people pretending they're more spiritual
00:05:11than they are, it's all predicated on this thing, well, we got to look good for everyone
00:05:15else.
00:05:16I think that's one side of the equation.
00:05:18The other side of the equation is people are embarrassed.
00:05:22In other words, those that have been in situations where their faith has cost them something, and
00:05:32their family or their relationships have been very critical about their choice, you know,
00:05:38to pursue God or go to a church or such, suddenly now you look bad, right?
00:05:45It's like all your friends and relatives are going, see, we told you, we told you, right?
00:05:51And it's embarrassing.
00:05:52And so I think there's kind of this human element here where, you know, we're embarrassed.
00:05:59And so we want to, you know, we want to cover it up.
00:06:02You know, it's, and I think we've all seen this in family situations.
00:06:06You know, it's like circle the wagons, you know, let's circle the wagons now.
00:06:11We got to, you know, we got to protect the reputation.
00:06:13You know, we, you know, we see all this dysfunctional behavior and I think, you know, it's playing
00:06:19out again.
00:06:20You know, it's interesting because I grew up in a movement that was so strongly against
00:06:25the Catholic church that there was no greater enemy.
00:06:28The Catholic church was the epitome of everything awful that's described in the Bible.
00:06:33Yeah, and once I actually got to know some Catholic people and I realized that it's not
00:06:41the people that are a problem.
00:06:43If there is a problem as big as they portrayed it, which I don't really think there is as
00:06:49big as they portrayed it, but the people are really good people.
00:06:53And what's interesting about it is Catholicism is much like Protestantism in that you have
00:06:59a variety of different flavors, you have those that probably are deserving of some of the
00:07:06bad things that were said in the movement that I came out of, probably, because you had
00:07:11the extremist Catholicism.
00:07:13And then on the other hand, you had some of the more devout, holy, I mean, people who live
00:07:19just pure lives, love God, love Jesus.
00:07:23And all of the nonsense about the worshiping Mary instead of Jesus, none of that is true
00:07:29if you meet one of the devout Catholic people.
00:07:32So I had to kind of relearn everything that I'd learned about Catholicism.
00:07:37But in doing so, I still, in the back of my mind, had this thing, they're covering up
00:07:41all of the abuse.
00:07:43And it's really hard to get that out once you've been indoctrinated with this, because
00:07:47all you see whenever you're, when you have that frame of mind, all you see are the bad
00:07:52things.
00:07:53Every newspaper article that prints it, every news report, suddenly your mind goes, well,
00:07:58that's all of them.
00:07:59And that's how you brand it.
00:08:01You can do the same thing on the Protestant side if you're a Catholic, which is kind of
00:08:05funny.
00:08:05They see the Mike Pickles, they see the, you know, all of these different people that are
00:08:09doing things that are either unethical or just outright, in some cases, it's illegal.
00:08:15Some people have gone to jail for it.
00:08:16They look at those from the Catholic side and say, look at the mess that the Protestants
00:08:20have.
00:08:21Yeah, exactly.
00:08:22And it's not that I'm trying to find a middle ground in this episode, but what I am trying
00:08:26to do is show that there is a difference between that.
00:08:30And you actually hit the nail on the head early in the episode.
00:08:33It is about the people, but for a different reason than people realize.
00:08:38So in the cover-up culture that exists in the charismatic movement, we have what is called
00:08:44the Moses Model, which I'm going to try to describe.
00:08:47I saw some people wanting me to go deeper with the Moses Model explanation.
00:08:52The Pentecostal movement, combined with British Israelism, taught this notion that all of the
00:08:59blessings and curses that you read in the Old Testament, those were fulfilled in part
00:09:04in type.
00:09:05And we'll get into the types in another episode.
00:09:07But they were fulfilled in type with the ancient children of Israel, but we're seeing them
00:09:12replay today, which is odd, but it takes a step further odd.
00:09:18If you're living that type of lifestyle and you're reading the Old Testament, well, there
00:09:23is a clear hierarchy.
00:09:25And Moses is the kingpin of that hierarchy in the Old Testament.
00:09:29He is the one that God gave the Ten Commandments to.
00:09:31In the charismatic world, you would say he is the one who divinely spoke to God.
00:09:36And so, therefore, hear ye him, Moses.
00:09:40But what's different about the New Covenant is it's not the same structure.
00:09:46The Holy Spirit is the one who leads and guides you if you believe the New Testament.
00:09:50The Old Covenant was completed with Jesus dying on the cross, and now we've entered into a
00:09:56New Covenant.
00:09:56Jesus lives in our hearts.
00:09:58All of the blessings that are described in the New Testament is different.
00:10:01But in Pentecostalism that adopts this, because of the way they've adopted it, they have to
00:10:08have a Moses for today.
00:10:10And so, they're looking – in our group, we looked at William Branham.
00:10:13He was the Moses of the day.
00:10:15And interestingly, the groups and many of the historians say that he was trying to be
00:10:21Elijah or the return of Elijah.
00:10:23But before that, he actually was trying to be Moses, one of his many commissions.
00:10:29He says, the angel told me, as Moses was given three signs, so were you given three signs
00:10:35or two signs.
00:10:36He got the number of signs wrong, which is kind of funny.
00:10:39I think he said two signs.
00:10:40But the thing of it is, once you establish that Moses model, what happens when Moses falls?
00:10:47Right.
00:10:48That's really the problem here, and that's what I wanted to explore.
00:10:50I think the phrase that I've probably most associated with what you're talking about,
00:10:57the way I define it, is the man of God model, right?
00:11:00There's a singular individual who God chooses and anoints, right?
00:11:07And we all rally around him or her.
00:11:12That's very – for people that are not – whose whole life has been in the Pentecostal
00:11:18world, that's their normal.
00:11:21But that's not normal outside of that world.
00:11:25But yeah, that man of God model, which, you know, it's sort of like political ideologies.
00:11:34You know, the most efficient form of government is a dictator, right?
00:11:39But it also has the greatest weakness, and I think it's the same concept within the church
00:11:46world.
00:11:46It may be more efficient, but it's filled with all kinds of landmines and trapdoors.
00:11:55And frankly, in my experience now, 50 years into this, I would say a significant amount
00:12:02of people I know of have fallen into those cracks, crevices, and trapdoors.
00:12:09And it really comes down to this.
00:12:11It is – in both cases, what you're describing, what I'm describing, they're similar.
00:12:15I do have actually a little bit of a difference.
00:12:17But in what we're both describing, it comes down to this central point.
00:12:22It's the anointed leader problem.
00:12:24You have the person who's anointed.
00:12:26And if you're following that model of religion, there's a real problem if you start to question
00:12:32the leadership.
00:12:33And that's why they say, touch not God's anointed.
00:12:35That becomes the shield.
00:12:36Darrell Bock Well, it's the accountability factor, right?
00:12:38Darrell Bock Absolutely.
00:12:39Darrell Bock That person is unaccountable to anyone else because there's no one above him,
00:12:43right?
00:12:44Darrell Bock Yeah, absolutely.
00:12:46And in doing that, what happens is it does go back to the congregation.
00:12:51Loyalty becomes a spiritual value.
00:12:54The more loyal you are to the leader, the more devout you are, your access to God is
00:12:59through that central figure.
00:13:01So therefore, if you're loyal to that central figure, you're in return being loyal to God.
00:13:06And so if the leader falls, you really don't know what to do because my devotion to God
00:13:12is actually through this human.
00:13:13Darrell Bock Well, I think the vulnerability on the
00:13:16congregational side is pretty simple to explain because whether it's in the church world or
00:13:21in the business world or anywhere else, when you're young, you're looking for father figures
00:13:27and mentors and mentors, right?
00:13:29You don't really know how to navigate life.
00:13:32So you're looking for somebody to follow.
00:13:35And, you know, Jesus, there was a reason why Jesus used the analogy of people as sheep.
00:13:44Darrell Bock Yeah.
00:13:45Darrell Bock It's because he understood human nature is to follow, right?
00:13:51Darrell Bock We follow, right?
00:13:52We're not often very confident in our own understanding.
00:13:57And so we default, right?
00:13:59And in the church world, it's particularly poignant because now we add a spiritual dimension to
00:14:06this, right?
00:14:08And now, you know, now God's involved, right?
00:14:11God's chosen, right?
00:14:12So now this has escalated to a whole nother level.
00:14:16So even more dangerous to challenge that because now you're not just challenging the leader.
00:14:23You are challenging God Almighty himself.
00:14:26How dare you, right?
00:14:28And so, you know, I have not seen, you know, because, I mean, those that don't know, I've
00:14:37spent 40 years consulting and counseling high-profile leaders that are these anointed men of God, you know, and it's
00:14:49a dangerous place.
00:14:51What it does to them in terms of their psyche and their soul and their understanding, it's very, very dangerous.
00:15:00It's a drug.
00:15:02And they get addicted to it, and that's why things go off the deep end, right?
00:15:05But getting back to what you're talking about, what is it about us as human beings?
00:15:11Because here's what's interesting.
00:15:13When my book came out a couple years ago, there were two audiences.
00:15:18They had very different reactions to it.
00:15:21It was very fascinating.
00:15:23The KCFers, which was my boomer generation, right, that are 60 and older, their reaction to the book was, huh,
00:15:32I always wondered about that.
00:15:34But, you know, I never was able to really figure a few things out.
00:15:38But, man, you know, I've been on my own journey for, you know, 30 years, and I'm good, you know?
00:15:44I mean, this doesn't shake me one way or the other.
00:15:46I have my own relationship with God, right?
00:15:49They're mature now, right?
00:15:50They're not needing affirmation.
00:15:53They're not needing direction.
00:15:55It's like, you know, I remember John Wimbert telling me when I was in my 30s that I wouldn't get
00:16:01secure in myself until I turned 60.
00:16:04And he goes, when you turn 60, you're going to be comfortable in your own skin for the first time.
00:16:09And that's turned out to be true for a lot of different people.
00:16:12On the other hand, the younger crowd, right, the millennials, were having panic attacks and leaving their faith and absolutely,
00:16:20you know, felt untethered, right?
00:16:23It was like everything that was their security blanket, you know, their sense of identity and value and purpose was
00:16:32all ripped out from underneath them.
00:16:34And they are in panic mode.
00:16:35And so it's fascinating just watching this, right?
00:16:38And so I think a lot of that plays into what you're talking about from the congregational end of it,
00:16:45you know, from the human side, depending on where you are in life, impacts you differently.
00:16:51And that's actually the perfect introduction to the example that I wanted to use for this.
00:16:56I come up with these off-the-wall examples, but they really make sense to some people, and hopefully this
00:17:01one does.
00:17:01There is a problem that exists in humanity, and it's not just the narcissistic personality disorders.
00:17:10All of the things that everybody goes to is usually a psychological problem, but it's not always that.
00:17:16Because you have to understand the leaders who become the Moses in this Moses model figure,
00:17:22the reason why they have a cover-up culture to begin with is because the group collectively has to keep
00:17:28moving or the group implodes.
00:17:32And the best example to go to for this is a movie that I would have at one time thought
00:17:38sacrilegious.
00:17:39And in many ways, I know people will probably say it is, and they'll hate me for this, but I'm
00:17:43going to say it anyway.
00:17:44There's a movie called The Invention of Lying.
00:17:47Have you seen this movie?
00:17:48No.
00:17:49Now you got me curious.
00:17:50Okay, so here's your homework for today.
00:17:53Just so you don't feel so bad, God speaks to me through movies all the time.
00:17:57And as I've said to you before on the podcast, in some ways, I think the Hollywood scriptwriters are more
00:18:04prophetic than people in the church,
00:18:06which gets me in trouble all the time.
00:18:08But I hear God speaking all the time through them, you know?
00:18:12Yeah, yeah.
00:18:13So go ahead.
00:18:13I want to hear about this movie.
00:18:14Yeah, and this one, oddly, if you watch it to the end, it does have a heartwarming thing where you
00:18:20can kind of connect to God in that way.
00:18:22But in the beginning, there isn't really a God concept.
00:18:27This is a town that exists who knows where, where not a single person has ever lied in their entire
00:18:34life.
00:18:34Oh, my goodness.
00:18:35And Ricky Gervais is the main character in this.
00:18:39His mother starts dying, and she's at the hospital.
00:18:43He's meeting with her.
00:18:44He's down on his luck.
00:18:46He feels awful because she's dying.
00:18:48And the mother says something to the effect, where do I go after this?
00:18:54And the doctor looks at her straight face because nobody has ever lied.
00:18:57And he says, oh, you're going to go into a dark box, and you're going to be there underground for
00:19:02the rest of your life, and you won't exist anymore.
00:19:06And she starts pleading with, no, no, that doesn't happen, right?
00:19:10And Ricky Gervais tells what is called the first lie in this, and he says something to the effect of,
00:19:16no, you go to this wonderful land where you'll be young again.
00:19:20And everybody wants to know more about this wonderful land, right?
00:19:24So they all come up to him.
00:19:25They're asking him, tell us more about this place.
00:19:27Well, it's the invention of lying because he is not a religious man.
00:19:31He doesn't know what exists on the other side.
00:19:34He's asked descriptions of it as though he does know.
00:19:38And so he's pulling it straight out of his butt.
00:19:42I'm not going to ruin the movie because it is worth watching.
00:19:45But there is one point that I'll ruin because it's so outlandish.
00:19:49It's kind of funny.
00:19:51It gets to the point where everybody is after him as the source of information of all truth.
00:19:58To the extent the news media is coming, the city, everybody is swarming his house, and he can't even go
00:20:05out to eat.
00:20:06So he orders pizza and they bring it to the door.
00:20:08And the people are out there screaming, tell us what God says.
00:20:11Tell us what.
00:20:11And he writes down ten things on the ripped pizza box and walks out with his new, here are the
00:20:19ten things that you must do to be good to each other.
00:20:22And the climax of it is basically one lie leads to another, leads to another, and it can grow so
00:20:30out of proportion where people will look to you as though you are the divine source of truth.
00:20:37Interestingly, in some of the research that I have done, I have found that there seem to be really, really
00:20:43good people who maybe they did have a personality disorder, maybe not, but they said something that wasn't quite true
00:20:51and people believed them, and it snowballed until they become the central figure of their own cult.
00:20:56Now, can you blame the leader for this?
00:20:59Not really, because they're just saying something that isn't true and the crowd's listening and wanting more.
00:21:05The crowd has shut off God completely.
00:21:07We want to know more through this human about God.
00:21:10Let him tell us.
00:21:11Let's don't read our Bibles or ask the Holy Spirit.
00:21:14We need to go to this human.
00:21:16And so what happens is this, back to the cover-up culture, when you're in that mindset where you literally
00:21:24have shut off all of your own thinking, you become a parrot, a parrot of this guy who's just pulling
00:21:31stuff right out of his butt as he's talking, there comes a point where if the leader falls, you're so
00:21:38invested that you have to pick him back up.
00:21:42It doesn't matter what he's done, he could rob a bank, he could kill somebody, he could adultery, whatever it
00:21:48is, you have to pick him back up, because if you don't, your personality is so intertwined with his personality
00:21:55that your own personality starts to suffer.
00:21:59Sybar, one of my favorite all-time movies, it was Peter Sellers' last movie called Being There, and it's the
00:22:05same kind of concept.
00:22:06He's a mentally slow gardener who gets kicked out of an estate and ends up having world leaders sitting at
00:22:14his feet by the end of the movie.
00:22:16It's hilarious, but it's very much to your point.
00:22:21Yeah, interesting.
00:22:23One of the things that I went through, and again, I discussed this a little bit in my book.
00:22:32I found myself married into a family that was sired by two flaming alcoholics.
00:22:42Their children, i.e. Mike and his six siblings, all had very interesting personalities that were different from my normal,
00:22:53and I was really struggling to understand it, until one day I was walking down a mall not far from
00:23:01my house that had a bookstore,
00:23:03and up on the shelf was a book called Children of, I believe it was something like Children of Alcoholics.
00:23:11And I was like, hey, it's kind of my existence right now.
00:23:16So I pull it down and start reading, going, oh my gosh, this is really interesting.
00:23:21One of the dynamics that the book talks about is a concept they call circling the wagons.
00:23:28And circling the wagons is a dynamic where the children who are utterly embarrassed by their,
00:23:35in this case, it can just be one parent that's an alcoholic, a drug addict, you know, something, you know,
00:23:42they're disruptive in the family.
00:23:44They're embarrassed, right?
00:23:46It's an embarrassing situation.
00:23:49When you got two, now it's, you know, now this thing has reached a whole nother level.
00:23:53So what they do is they circle the wagons and they create a false narrative, right?
00:24:00Because they don't want to go to school.
00:24:01Who wants to go to school and go, hey, my parents are drunks, right?
00:24:05Yeah, my parents came home last night.
00:24:08My mom's pants were inside out.
00:24:10Like, what were they up to, right?
00:24:11It's like nobody wants to be that kid, right?
00:24:15So what ends up happening is you create this whole culture where the older ones sort of create the narrative
00:24:21and then underneath everybody's sworn to loyalty.
00:24:25We've got to keep the secret, right?
00:24:28We've got to hide the secret.
00:24:30We've got to circle the wagons.
00:24:31We've got to create a false narrative that makes us look good.
00:24:36And I realized that over time that while this happens in families, it also can happen on a macro level
00:24:46in the church world, right?
00:24:49And it's based on, it's driven by shame, right?
00:24:52We don't want to be ashamed.
00:24:55And so I'm trying to bring a human element here of to why we fall into this trap of going,
00:25:02no, no, no, we can't talk about this.
00:25:03Because I'm running into this.
00:25:06In fact, there's some big Christian leaders that have come at me pretty hard about my book because they feel
00:25:12like that I'm the son of Satan because of the fact that I want to critique, not criticize, critique.
00:25:21Those are two very different words with two very different end results.
00:25:26What's going on?
00:25:27Because my goal, I want to be better, right?
00:25:29But there's this whole, I want us to improve, like, okay, we failed miserably.
00:25:34How do we get out of this?
00:25:35That's why at the end of my book, I talk about the issues underneath.
00:25:38Let's get somewhere.
00:25:40Let's learn our lessons and move forward here somewhere.
00:25:43Sorry, I'm being very Italian today.
00:25:45I notice my hands are going like this.
00:25:47That's what happens when you spend two weeks in Italy and everybody's doing this.
00:25:51So anyways, so that's one of the things for me that I see happening right now because we, you know,
00:25:59a lot of people want to talk about the IHOP situation, but we've been through two years of one revelation
00:26:06after another of human brokenness at high levels, right?
00:26:10I mean, this isn't just an isolated situation.
00:26:13Either God is up to something, right?
00:26:15The Holy Spirit's flushing things out, or we just seem we're caught into one of these cultural moments that's a
00:26:23wave, right?
00:26:24That's just reproducing itself.
00:26:27I don't know which it is.
00:26:29I mean, you hope it's the Holy Spirit, but it could be just a cultural thing.
00:26:32I don't know.
00:26:33Nonetheless, you're seeing two very different reactions, right?
00:26:38There's one group of people that's going, hey, bring it into the light.
00:26:42We want to see it.
00:26:43We want to acknowledge this is happening, and let's solve the problem.
00:26:47We've got another group of people that are going, no, no, no, no, no.
00:26:50This makes us look bad, right?
00:26:52The non-Christians, what are they going to say about Jesus, and what are they going to say about God?
00:26:56Even though Jesus has nothing to do with any of these broken individuals, like Jesus hasn't done anything wrong, somehow
00:27:03we've got to protect Jesus.
00:27:04And I'm like, wait a minute.
00:27:06What did he do?
00:27:08So, you know, I mean, it's this whole thing, but it's this circling the wagon dysfunctional thing that you see
00:27:14in broken families.
00:27:15And I'm like, are we, as a church, we're like a, you know, we like dysfunctional family here, you know,
00:27:23with dysfunctional parents.
00:27:24And so we're doing the same thing where, you know, we've got to circle the wagons and hide the sins
00:27:31so that all our non-Christian friends won't think bad of us, that we made bad decisions.
00:27:36And they won't think bad of Jesus, even though he had nothing to do with this.
00:27:40Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started, or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter
00:27:49reign, charismatic, and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation?
00:27:54You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org.
00:28:24You can find the books page of the website.
00:28:31Subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching.
00:28:35On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
00:28:40When I was beginning my research, there was a weird thing that happened to me.
00:28:46So my family was in the upper tier.
00:28:48My grandfather spent time with Branham.
00:28:50Branham was the central figure.
00:28:52I knew most of the upper tier, but I didn't realize there was an upper tier.
00:28:58That's a shock to me.
00:29:00That came to me as like, I thought there's Branham and there's everybody else, but I realized, no, it's actually
00:29:05a multi-tiered structure.
00:29:07When I began to study cult dynamics, and in fact, I went through a crash course with Dr. Stephen Hassan.
00:29:15We went together on a mission to try to help somebody.
00:29:18He was explaining how it all worked, and that's when it really dawned on me.
00:29:21Yes, there was a structure.
00:29:23There were people who were the rank-and-file members.
00:29:26They were just following.
00:29:27They were the sheeple, I guess you would say.
00:29:29But then there's this category that's between them and the leader that's quite different.
00:29:34I call that the entourage.
00:29:36The entourage, yeah.
00:29:38But it's deeper than that because some of the entourage can actually be congregational members who are just an average
00:29:44person, but they're in the upper tier for a different reason.
00:29:48And here's where I'm headed with this.
00:29:51People have different psychological makeup.
00:29:55I was born and raised to – my dad would say this phrase over and over again.
00:30:00John, there are two people I hate most in this world, a thief and a liar.
00:30:04And he would say this all the time, usually directing it at me, thinking that I had told him something
00:30:08that wasn't true, which it wasn't quite the case.
00:30:12But he would say this and just grill it into me, and it molded my psyche.
00:30:16So when I found out that, okay, the entire religion that I left was a lie, I had no problem
00:30:22leaving because I am so hardcore against somebody lying.
00:30:26That's my makeup.
00:30:28There are other people who aren't wired that way.
00:30:30I have met people who can just straight tell you something that isn't true and not care.
00:30:36And you almost can't tell it.
00:30:38There's certain cultures like the Australians are like that.
00:30:40Their whole culture is like that.
00:30:42You suck.
00:30:42They'll tell you.
00:30:43You suck.
00:30:44You're terrible.
00:30:46There are so many different complexities to the human makeup.
00:30:50But now think of that pyramid.
00:30:52You've got a central figure, and then you've got this group of people.
00:30:56I'm just going to call them a group for now.
00:30:59Whenever somebody looks at cover-up culture, they look at the central figure, and they look at the staff.
00:31:04That's always where they go.
00:31:06You can read the newspaper.
00:31:07You can read Rory's report.
00:31:08Every single source that I have found, that's where they go.
00:31:11But it actually isn't just that.
00:31:14Yes, that's part of it.
00:31:15But this tier that exists underneath the central figure may be somebody that you don't even really know sitting in
00:31:21that pew
00:31:22who has no problem saying, well, I had a divine revelation from God, and all of this is going to
00:31:30just simply resolve itself.
00:31:32And our leader, even though he's fallen to this great horrific thing, our leader will be justified by God.
00:31:40And in the end, we will get closer to God because of this trial we're going through.
00:31:44And they may actually truly believe it.
00:31:46They may have some sort of a mental disorder, or they may have actually had a dream.
00:31:50Who knows?
00:31:51They may believe what they said.
00:31:54But you've got the other category.
00:31:56And in my research in Branhamism, sadly, I identified people I know in this category.
00:32:02The movement itself has a momentum, and if something happens to defame the leader, our momentum stops.
00:32:11I believe in the movement's agenda.
00:32:13I believe that the movement is of God.
00:32:16So, therefore, I'm going to give my vindication.
00:32:19I'll just simply say, I was there.
00:32:21I saw this happen.
00:32:22This great light came down from heaven and shone on his head.
00:32:27I saw this kind of thing.
00:32:28There are people who will do this in that middle tier.
00:32:32And they may not be part of the staff.
00:32:34They may even not have a lot of money, but they gain favor by supporting the leader.
00:32:39Yeah, the reason I call it the entourage is that after my ministry stint, I went into the music world
00:32:48for a decade.
00:32:50And I saw the same dynamics.
00:32:52And that group you're talking about, the reason I call them the entourage is I realized that just like in
00:32:58the church world, there's this tweener tier.
00:33:00And the tweener tier are all people who, and forgive me for just being graphic here, they're leeches.
00:33:08They are whatever, they don't have the star power, right?
00:33:13They don't have the dynamics.
00:33:16You always have that one person.
00:33:18That's sort of the figure, right?
00:33:20But they all either make money, they get identity, they get value, they get stature, they get something.
00:33:29They're feeding off of this person's gifting.
00:33:32But they have an investment, right, in making sure that nothing bad can touch this one person.
00:33:40Because they're the goose that lays the golden egg, as it were, right?
00:33:44And so we have to protect this at all costs, right?
00:33:48And they will do whatever it takes to protect this.
00:33:51They will lie, cheat, and steal.
00:33:53I've watched it in the church world, I've watched it in the music world, I've watched it in other sectors.
00:33:58These same dynamics, right?
00:34:01And so to your point, somebody that's not even on staff, but because of their proximity, they're a friend of
00:34:09the star, right?
00:34:10But their identity, then, when they go back out into the congregation, is their other, right?
00:34:16They're a little elevated, right?
00:34:18So they're still gaining something.
00:34:19So they're all feeding off of this.
00:34:21And that's that middle group that I think you're describing.
00:34:26The word I'm looking for was vested interest.
00:34:29They all have a vested interest in circling the wagons, preserving the mythology, the culture, the spiritual history.
00:34:40You know, that's why you see all the time, at least in my world here in Kansas City, we have
00:34:45to preserve the prophetic history at all costs, right?
00:34:49And there's a reason why.
00:34:51It's like I ask people all the time, why do you think they're so obsessed with that?
00:34:54Because what happens if you take it away?
00:34:56So let's talk about prophetic history a bit.
00:34:59When I was researching Branhamism, the foundation of all of this that we're talking about today, in Branhamism, there's this
00:35:06weird cloud picture.
00:35:07And you've seen it.
00:35:08If you've ever looked at anything Branham, you see this thing.
00:35:11And I had no idea that this was an object of worship until after I left.
00:35:15We believe that the cloud was seven angels because Branham told us so.
00:35:20And that's part of where I'm headed with this.
00:35:22So keep that thought in mind.
00:35:24And in the tale, Branham goes west hunting, and he receives the revelation of the seven seals.
00:35:31And he claims that he was there right when this cloud thing happened.
00:35:34Well, if you piece the timeline together correctly, and we have all of the history to do it, he actually
00:35:42wasn't in the state of Arizona at the time this happened.
00:35:44The cloud was actually the result of a rocket that had been launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base.
00:35:50Branham was down in Houston, Texas with Joel Osteen and the Full Gospel Businessmen trying to save a transgender from
00:35:57death row.
00:35:59And so he wasn't even there.
00:36:01John Osteen.
00:36:01John Osteen.
00:36:02I said, Joel.
00:36:03I meant John.
00:36:04Joel's the kid.
00:36:05He would have been in diapers.
00:36:07Yeah, he was in diapers.
00:36:08He was probably there, but who knows.
00:36:11Anyway, he wasn't even in the state is the point I'm trying to make.
00:36:14Got it.
00:36:15So he sees this thing, and he puts two and three together.
00:36:19Wow, this is a great, unusual event.
00:36:22I can use this to further my ministry.
00:36:24So he is just outright lying, right?
00:36:26That's what he's doing.
00:36:29He's embellishing.
00:36:30He's embellishing.
00:36:31Well, that middle tier, the ones who were with him but not at the time this thing happened,
00:36:38became witnesses that they were there when it happened.
00:36:40I was there with him when it happened.
00:36:43And I grew up hearing testimonies of these guys who were out there with him on that trip.
00:36:48And I looked up and I saw this thing.
00:36:50Some of them did change their story later to say, I never saw it, I heard it.
00:36:54But there was a point in time when they were joining in.
00:36:59And some of the guys, like I know of these people, some of them I knew personally, some of them
00:37:04I just knew of them.
00:37:06And they were very humble, meek kind of people.
00:37:08They weren't really the kind of people to lie to you.
00:37:12What happens is this.
00:37:14Whenever you tie something, when you have that scenario that I mentioned, the invention of lying, the central figure lies.
00:37:21You have these people that are trying to support it.
00:37:23Well, now it starts this cycle that's really weird because the supporter just confirmed it.
00:37:32All the congregation believes it.
00:37:34Well, the central figure tries to build upon the confirmation.
00:37:38So they'll add details.
00:37:40They'll embellish.
00:37:41And if somebody is either mentally unstable and just starts hallucinating or having, you know, going down the path of
00:37:50mental anguish,
00:37:51they can spin off all the craziest tales that you can possibly imagine to feed that confirmation.
00:37:56Well, then the people go back to the person who gave the confirmation.
00:38:00Did you see that?
00:38:02Did you see that detail?
00:38:03Tell us more.
00:38:03Tell us more.
00:38:04And so now this person is starting to get excited because they have a special insight nobody else has.
00:38:10Right.
00:38:11I was there.
00:38:12I was there.
00:38:13The wrong kind of people will also embellish the story.
00:38:17Yeah.
00:38:18And you and I have talked about this a few times.
00:38:21Over time, your mind loses the frame of reference.
00:38:24And so there is no true witness.
00:38:27Yeah, you start believing your own lies.
00:38:28You start believing your own lies.
00:38:30Or they may hear the central figure's lies and say, oh, yeah, I think I did see that.
00:38:36And then their mind will run with it.
00:38:37And so the story in their own head gets bigger than it really was.
00:38:41What happens when you do this if you tie this to something spiritual?
00:38:45Like, I got the secret mysteries behind the seven seals.
00:38:51Well, now it's tied to something prophetic because you can point that to the future about a future coming events.
00:38:58I know the secret.
00:38:59The moment that it turns to prophecy, when you've got this cycle, now you have a hook that can't be
00:39:05released because if they cover it up and continue, they can see, is this thing true or is this thing
00:39:12not true?
00:39:13In the back of their minds, they're thinking, well, I'm not going to stop this guy if he's done something
00:39:18horrific.
00:39:18I'm going to let it continue and see did the prophecy come true.
00:39:22But by the time they wait, they've long forgotten that this thing that they covered up was even covered up.
00:39:28Yeah, and for people that may or may not be aware, we know scientifically in the psychology world that you
00:39:37can actually put memory, false memories into people.
00:39:42In other words, to the point where they really believe they were there.
00:39:47Like, they're so convinced of it.
00:39:49There's a whole manipulative way you can do that.
00:39:52But that's why you have to be very, very careful when you're doing counseling and you're talking about memories because,
00:39:58you know, people may remember things, but it may not necessarily be true.
00:40:05So, yeah, the other thing, the other dynamic there, I think, that underlies a lot of that is that, you
00:40:14know, while our number one human instinct may be survival,
00:40:19probably right up there underneath it is this human need to belong, to be a part of something, right?
00:40:27We are very tribal or family, right?
00:40:30You know, we have subcultures, you know, that we belong to because we need to belong, right?
00:40:36So, I always tell people when you are on the opposite side of an issue with someone and they start
00:40:43getting upset, it's more than likely it's not about your difference.
00:40:49In your arguments, it's what the implications are if they have to change their mind with all their relationships.
00:40:57That's where people start freaking out and they start getting agitated and they start getting aggressive.
00:41:03It's the repercussions.
00:41:04It's where this leads to because in their brain, it's like, oh my God, you know, if I change my
00:41:11mind and agree with you, I don't lose all my friends.
00:41:15Like, my family is going to isolate me, right?
00:41:17So, fear kicks in and so it becomes, so they get more aggressive and they're arguing with you, but it
00:41:22has nothing to really do with the facts and everything to do with fear.
00:41:26And so, it's the same thing, I think, in the church world.
00:41:30It's that fear of being ostracized or looked down on, right?
00:41:35So, that's why people are so easily manipulated in group things.
00:41:39That's why we have cults, right?
00:41:40So, the whole idea here is that we have to be loyal to this thing, right?
00:41:47Which, again, if you go back and you remember what I just talked about a little while ago about dysfunctional
00:41:53families and false narratives and circling the wagons and this demand for loyalty.
00:41:59It's everything you see in a dysfunctional alcoholic or drug addict family is the same thing, same dynamics you see
00:42:06in a cult, right?
00:42:08I saw the same thing in the music world.
00:42:11I mean, there's a whole story I remember of Elton John talking about after he got out of rehab and
00:42:18they were asking him, like, well, you know, what's the number one thing you realize?
00:42:25He says, no one told me the truth.
00:42:28He goes, I've been living in a fantasy world and I didn't even know it because everyone had a hidden
00:42:35agenda.
00:42:36Everybody was, you know, had a motivation to keep feeding him the BS, right?
00:42:44Because they were all afraid if I confront him and tell him the truth that, you know, that's what he
00:42:49finally said at the end of the thing.
00:42:50He goes, I was a jerk, you know?
00:42:52Like, I was not a nice person, but nobody would tell me that, right?
00:42:56Because they were all afraid of the implications of what would happen because if Elton didn't like that, I'm gone.
00:43:04Like, I'm out of the entourage now.
00:43:06I lose my access to status and stuff, right?
00:43:10And so people will compromise and perpetuate lies out of just the simple fear of isolation or being rejected.
00:43:20And again, these are the very human realities of our weaknesses as human beings.
00:43:27So I'm not here to point fingers or condemn anybody, but just realize who we are and what we are
00:43:32and what our strengths and weaknesses are.
00:43:34And so that's one of the reasons why I actually have compassion and empathy for people that are caught in
00:43:39this because I realize that I'm not looking at somebody who's put a flag in the ground and, you know,
00:43:48they're standing for a cause.
00:43:50I'm looking at a very scary, you know, sort of like the, you know, the Wizard of Oz, right?
00:43:54The little shaking old man behind the curtain.
00:43:57Don't mind the man, right?
00:43:58It's like most people are living in fear of the implications of things, right?
00:44:03And so I feel bad for people, actually.
00:44:06I feel terrible that they get caught in this, you know, these dynamics, these power struggles.
00:44:12Yeah, I feel bad, too.
00:44:13And there's – so in the beginning, I said that this is similar to the invention of lying.
00:44:18There was an invention of lying in this culture that caused a lot of this.
00:44:22And I don't know if you know this or not.
00:44:24I think we've talked about it.
00:44:26But so let's compare a bit.
00:44:29If you're looking at the Catholic cover-up culture, which is what the Protestants usually point fingers, the Catholics are
00:44:35doing this, right?
00:44:36It is different in this aspect.
00:44:39There has been a history, which is actually they're trying to correct it.
00:44:43So I see some strides in the right way.
00:44:46Where the church covered up for the church.
00:44:49On the Protestant side, in the charismatic movement specifically, the congregation covers up the leader.
00:44:57It's quite different.
00:44:58Those are two different models entirely.
00:45:00And there's a reason for it, in my opinion.
00:45:03It all goes back to the invention of lying.
00:45:06There was a lie that was told.
00:45:09And every generation that I've looked at in history, every century that I've looked at in history,
00:45:16where this exists, well, every decade, I should say, where this exists, it's like a snowball.
00:45:22It gets bigger.
00:45:23The lie gets bigger and bigger and bigger.
00:45:25And that's positive confession.
00:45:27The invention of lying is that I'm going to start a revival.
00:45:33I'm going to bring 10,000 people in this tent or five, whatever, however your tent will hold.
00:45:38And every single person who comes through that healing line, I'm going to have them confess that they are healed.
00:45:45But when I go to the next town, I'm going to say that 10,000 people were healed.
00:45:52I'm not going to say 10,000 people confessed that they were healed.
00:45:56I'm going to say they were actually healed.
00:45:58That's where the lie begins, because I grew up hearing stories how, not just with Branham, but all of these
00:46:05healing revivalists,
00:46:06they would enter into a tent, and God was so filled with that, filled our spirits with that tent.
00:46:1210,000 people left their crutches behind.
00:46:15Then you go back and you read the newspaper.
00:46:16There were newspaper reporters present at the tent revivals.
00:46:20And they would say there were 10,000 people that went through this line, and they left their crutches, but
00:46:27they never made it offstage.
00:46:29They had to get their crutches again to make it offstage.
00:46:31They tried, but they did confess they were healed.
00:46:34And I even found newspaper articles that said they came on crutches and stretchers and wheelchairs, and they left on
00:46:40crutches and stretchers.
00:46:42But when you hear the history part, they say there were so many people healed.
00:46:46It was the most amazing move of God.
00:46:49We've never seen anything like it.
00:46:51You had all of these healings and prophecy, and it caused growth and crowds.
00:46:55Well, there is a hype that grows.
00:46:58Whenever you're part of something that's that extravagant, suddenly you feel like you're contributing to part of the crowd, the
00:47:05audience, the spirit.
00:47:08And there were people that would say, I felt the spirit when I was there.
00:47:11Well, what they felt was the crowd.
00:47:13You can have the same type of people.
00:47:15You mentioned music.
00:47:16You can have the same type of effect if you go hear a good concert by a band that you
00:47:20are a fan of, right?
00:47:22You get into that euphoria of being in the crowd.
00:47:25Well, suddenly you become part of the invention of lying.
00:47:29I saw 10,000 people confess that they were healed.
00:47:31You go tell everybody at work, 10,000 people were healed at that tent.
00:47:35But you're not telling it true.
00:47:37It's 10,000 people confess they were healed, right?
00:47:40My suspicion, and again, you know, you can probably more knowledgeable about this than I am, so you can address
00:47:47the Branham side of this.
00:47:49I was actually having a conversation yesterday with some guys that flew in town, and I was explaining Mike.
00:47:55Like I said, when you grow up in the circle of the wagons culture, you are a liar.
00:48:02That's your normal, right?
00:48:04You lie all the time.
00:48:05You don't see it, right?
00:48:08You don't see it as lying because it's your norm.
00:48:12And so most of these guys, well, I don't want to say most, many of the guys that I've done
00:48:19my research on or worked with came from very broken backgrounds and started lying as children.
00:48:26And lying is their norm in everything.
00:48:30I mean, they lie when they don't even need to lie.
00:48:32But everything, and when I'm saying lying, you know, people always think of lying as simply telling an untruth, and
00:48:42that's true.
00:48:43But that's why I threw the word embellishment in there because a lot of times what these guys do is
00:48:48take something this big.
00:48:49You know, it's like the fisherman, right?
00:48:51How big was the fish?
00:48:52It was this big.
00:48:53It was this big.
00:48:54No, it was this big, right?
00:48:55And it becomes normal, and that's one of the things that I discovered within the church world.
00:49:02There's this propensity to embellish.
00:49:05We want every story to be bigger than that.
00:49:08Now, here's what was so fascinating about this.
00:49:11Back in the 1980s, I had the opportunity to meet Norman Grubb, who was the author of Reese Hall's Intercessor,
00:49:20which was the book that was most influential in Mike Pickle's life.
00:49:25And I was telling him about my experience at Bible College, where, you know, first time I'm learning about Hudson
00:49:32Taylor and C.T.
00:49:35Studd and all these great missionaries.
00:49:36And I said to him, I go, Norman, I got to confess something to you.
00:49:41I said, I can't explain this, but I have this feeling like I'm reading a book that's really hyped up.
00:49:48Like, it's like these guys are bigger than life.
00:49:50Like, it's like these books are presenting these guys like they're heroic.
00:49:54And he starts laughing.
00:49:56He's 90 years old.
00:49:57His hands are like this.
00:49:58He's sitting in a couch under a blanket.
00:49:59He starts laughing.
00:50:00He goes, young man, you're very perceptive.
00:50:03And I was like, huh, this is interesting.
00:50:06I thought he was going to get mad at me, right?
00:50:07Because C.T.
00:50:08Studd was his father-in-law.
00:50:10And then he says to me, you have to understand something, young man.
00:50:14He goes, back in those days, there was only one source of financing for the missionaries.
00:50:20And it was the London Missionary Society.
00:50:23He goes, these guys were all competing for the same bucks.
00:50:27He goes, every report that came from the field was embellished.
00:50:32Because they had to, you know, he goes, my father-in-law was an athlete.
00:50:35He was super competitive.
00:50:37He was bound and determined he was going to outdo Hudson Taylor, who was going to outdo
00:50:43Kerry, who was in India.
00:50:44Like, these guys were, right?
00:50:46And he goes, so yes, it's all embellished.
00:50:49I literally sat there stunned, right, that this man who knew Evangeline Booth firsthand,
00:50:56like this was his friend, right, is telling me these stories at a very early part of my
00:51:03faith walk, right?
00:51:04And so, I was kind of introduced to this embellishment culture in the ministry world,
00:51:11realizing that it just didn't start in 1930 or 1980.
00:51:16This goes back to the 1800s and probably even before that.
00:51:21Because why?
00:51:22It's human nature.
00:51:24Well, I would say that it goes all the way back to the ancient religions.
00:51:27We've talked before how something normal would develop and grow into a tale, and the tale
00:51:32to a legend, and the legend to sacrificing your children to a deity.
00:51:37That's really, and it comes down to that, because what happens is when you wrap human nature into
00:51:43trying to understand God through another human, that other human has emotional aspects, right?
00:51:52Sometimes they're in a bad mood.
00:51:54God's angry at you.
00:51:55Oh, and God gets angry at you.
00:51:57What do you do?
00:51:57You try to appease the God.
00:52:00When you're in this type of culture where you've got the revival, the hype, the charismatic style,
00:52:07there's always an aspect of fear and urgency.
00:52:10And those two things, that combination, helps fuel the cover-up culture, in my opinion, because
00:52:16you have to appease the God.
00:52:18God's angry.
00:52:19Well, what can I do to make, not just me, but what can I do to make the whole body
00:52:23of
00:52:23believers believe?
00:52:25Your mind starts spinning out of control, and you may do and say things that you wouldn't
00:52:29otherwise do and say, because you're part of that culture.
00:52:32You may, going back to my example, you may affirm the leader, I was standing there with
00:52:37him when you weren't even there.
00:52:39That's just how your mind works.
00:52:41Well, in the Catholic culture, the word sin is a mortal sin, right?
00:52:44We call it a mortal sin.
00:52:45Well, the mortal sin in Pentecostalism is not having faith, brother.
00:52:52Right?
00:52:53So, it's like, to challenge anything, brother, you lack faith, right?
00:52:57That's like the worst thing.
00:52:59So, nobody wants to get accused of that.
00:53:01Like, and you're in the congregation, you know, nobody's going to speak up and go, hey,
00:53:05he's got no clothes, right?
00:53:07Brother, you lack faith.
00:53:09Yeah.
00:53:09You're coming.
00:53:10You know?
00:53:12I'm sorry, I'm just being weird here, but I'm just saying that's, to your point, it's
00:53:15like, when you're sitting out there and you're in the congregation, there's so much pressure
00:53:19on you, you know, the thing that does happen, though, is you get older, then people just
00:53:24walk, you know what I mean?
00:53:25They just, like, you get to a certain point going, okay, wait a minute here.
00:53:29You know, this is just, it's sort of like, Pentecostalism to me, in many ways, is sort
00:53:38of like an injection of nitro in your gas tank.
00:53:43Well, the problem is, is that you keep injecting nitro into your gas tank, there's a certain
00:53:49point where the engine's going to blow.
00:53:50And I think there's an addictive culture in Pentecostalism towards this sensationalism,
00:53:58right?
00:53:58This exaggeration, this embellishment, these lines, right?
00:54:02And I think what happens is some people who have sort of an addictive nature, they just
00:54:07keep feeding on that, right?
00:54:09That's their food.
00:54:10There's another group of people that it just exhausts, and it's just like, God, not again,
00:54:16you know, and it's like, that happened in Kansas City, because it was just constantly,
00:54:21Bob Jones, every year, was going to be the one, right?
00:54:24Every year, oh, next year, it's coming.
00:54:27Next year, right?
00:54:28This went on for, you know, when I was there, it went on for like eight years, right?
00:54:33It was always the next year.
00:54:35Oh, when the Chiefs win the Super Bowl.
00:54:37And so people were constantly hanging on.
00:54:39Then there's a certain point where you're like, okay, I got to move on here, right?
00:54:44I mean, this is something adding up here, you know?
00:54:48Now we've won three Super Bowls, and it still hasn't come, you know?
00:54:53So there's, you know, the older group is, you know, well, now everybody here, you know,
00:54:57even with the IHOP thing, everybody's relooking at everything now going, huh, you know?
00:55:02And I heard recently Sam Storms came out with a book where he's kind of re-evaluating his
00:55:07worldview of a lot of this, because he was one of the big proponents behind all this.
00:55:12And, you know, we're having this come-to-Jesus moment, right?
00:55:16It's sort of like an intervention, right?
00:55:18Sober up.
00:55:20And that's something that it feels to me.
00:55:24Again, this is just me kind of giving my sense of things.
00:55:28I feel like we're in a sober up.
00:55:31We've been in two years of sober up, you know?
00:55:34You know, whether they, again, I'm hoping it's God, it's the Holy Spirit, just going
00:55:38sober up, people.
00:55:40You know, I want to do something, but sober up here, you know?
00:55:44I'm glad that we can sober you up.
00:55:48Trying to think of a good snappy ending.
00:55:50I thought we could close with something.
00:55:52There's been a lot of negativity, and that could really take you down the rabbit hole,
00:55:57right?
00:55:57It's just depressing.
00:55:59The other side of this is, well, wait a minute.
00:56:04What if this is God trying to get us better?
00:56:08You know, one of the things that I'm having a problem with some of my former ministry colleagues
00:56:15is that they look at guys like us as guys that are bringing criticism towards them and the church.
00:56:24And I've told them all.
00:56:26I said, you know, I suppose from your perspective, because you're kind of touchy about this,
00:56:31it appears to be criticism.
00:56:33But I said, I live in a world where I work with pro athletes that every Monday after a football
00:56:40game go in their position rooms and they watch film.
00:56:43And they get embarrassed because they missed the block.
00:56:46They ran the wrong pattern.
00:56:48They're being held accountable.
00:56:50Why?
00:56:50Because they want to win the next week, right?
00:56:53The whole idea is, let's look at this.
00:56:56Let's evaluate.
00:56:57That's called critique.
00:56:59It's a very different dynamic than criticism.
00:57:01Criticism is simply about tearing people down.
00:57:05That's neither you and I want to do that.
00:57:07That is not our goal.
00:57:08You know, we're not here to criticize anyone.
00:57:11What we want to do is critique, right?
00:57:13It's the same thing in the business world.
00:57:15A sales proposal goes bad, like we lost to somebody else.
00:57:18Why?
00:57:19Everybody goes in the boardroom.
00:57:20We tear it apart.
00:57:21What should we have done different, right?
00:57:24Why?
00:57:24Because we want to win the next time.
00:57:26So I wrote a book to critique my, you know, to look back on the experience of my life.
00:57:32Why?
00:57:32Because I want things to be better.
00:57:35We all do, right?
00:57:36So that's the difference.
00:57:38So when you see guys get upset and go, well, they're being critical.
00:57:42No, not at all.
00:57:44It's all about critique, which is the normal thing that healthy people do
00:57:49when they want to overcome their failures and get better.
00:57:54That's what happens when you go to rehab.
00:57:56You know what I mean?
00:57:58They get in your face and go, you are not taking personal responsibility for your own problems, right?
00:58:04They're in your face about it.
00:58:06So that's what we can take away in the positive side.
00:58:10Just realize we're in one of those moments right now.
00:58:12But that's all because it's about getting better.
00:58:15Like text criticism is a study of the Bible, not to criticize the Bible,
00:58:19but to critique it and understand which families are true, which families have the right text.
00:58:24But thank you so much for doing this.
00:58:26I've been wanting to do this for a while, and I'm glad we were able to cover it.
00:58:30Well, thank you.
00:58:30Despite my jet lag and all of it, it's been an absolutely stimulating conversation,
00:58:35and I think you've sobered me up.
00:58:37I'm glad I sobered you up.
00:58:39Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information,
00:58:41you can check us out on the web.
00:58:43You can find us at william-branham.org.
00:58:45For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation,
00:58:48you can read Weaponized Religion, From Christian Identity to the NAR.
00:58:52And for more about Mike Bickle and IHOP KC,
00:58:54you can read Some Said They Blundered, Breaking My Decades of Silence on Mike Bickle,
00:58:58the Kansas City Prophets, and the International House of Prayer.
00:59:35Weaponized Religion, From Christian Identity to the NAR.
01:00:06Weaponized Religion, From Christian Identity to the NAR.
01:00:08Weaponized Personality to the NAR.
01:00:08Weaponized Religion, From Christian Identity to the NAR.
01:00:08Weaponized Soul Demon, From Christian Identity to the NAR.
01:00:08Weaponized Religion, From Christian立刻,
01:00:09from Christian Design and From Christian Eymer.
01:00:09Weaponized Religion, From Christian attemptedываем which for more about them,
01:00:09themselves together, weaponizedглийcellny,
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