Bible As A Weapon: How NAR Leaders Silence Victims | Jed Hartley | Podcast Episode 654 - video Dailymotion

William Branham Historical Research

John and Jed examine how Bible verses can be stripped from context, loaded with hidden meanings, and turned into weapons inside high-control revival movements. They discuss how phrases like “all have sinned,” “cast the first stone,” and appeals to private correction can be used to deflect accountability, silence victims, and protect influential leaders.  The conversation explores apostolic word salad, spiritual whiplash, rally-style preaching, the Dunning-Kruger effect in ministry culture, and the difference between reading Scripture in context versus using scattered phrases to create a new narrative. John and Jed also discuss Bethel, IHOPKC, Lou Engle, Mike Bickle, Sean Bolz, Ben Armstrong, and broader patterns inside the New Apostolic Reformation.  00:00 Introduction 01:54 Using the Bible to Excuse or Condemn Behavior 03:20 Bible Verses as a Whipping Tool 04:07 Jen Johnson, Bethel, and Serious Scandals 07:07 Biblical Appeals Used to Defend Accused Leaders 09:36 Silencing Critics and Victims with Bible Language 11:33 Accountability, Abuse, and Cognitive Dissonance 13:40 Apostolic Sermon Salad and Loaded Language 16:58 Reading the Bible Beyond Phraseology 19:08 Bible Phrases Rearranged to Say Anything 21:07 Dunning-Kruger and False Biblical Confidence 23:44 Why the Podcast Uses Many Voices 25:15 Epistemic Humility and the New Apostolic Reformation 26:39 Jed’s Isaiah 60 Sermon and Misused Context 29:32 Sounding Smart Versus Knowing Scripture 32:17 Mosaic Bible Verses as Punishment or Permission  34:03 The Bible Used Like a Loaded Weapon 37:18 Unsafe Weapons and Unsafe Leaders 39:28 Lou Engle, Judgment, and Selective Silence 43:50 A Gospel for the Suffering Versus a Rally 46:08 Profit, Power, and Avoiding Nuance 47:45 Power, Money, and Forerunner Christianity 50:08 Prophetic Performance and the Love of Power 51:10 Breaking the Bible into Pieces for Authority 52:43 Walking Out and Defusing the Weapon 53:26 Closing ______________________ 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

00:39at william-branham.org, and with me I have my co-host and friend, Jed Hartley, son of

00:45a false prophet and former member of the International House of Prayer.

00:48Jed, it's good to be back and to talk about using the Bible as a whiplash.

00:53I've mentioned this last time, but there were certain verses and phrases that we would use

00:58that just had all of that loaded language in it, and you would be sitting there in the

01:03pew, and you would know that you were getting whipped from the pulpit.

01:06In fact, I think I've mentioned this.

01:08I remember clearly as a, I think I was in my teens, I walked outside of a church building,

01:13and I was walking, you know, the men would walk to this corner, the women would walk over

01:17here.

01:17It was kind of odd now that I think about that.

01:20But I walked over to the men, and they said, boy, we sure got a good tongue-lashing today,

01:25didn't we, brethren?

01:26And everybody's just laughing about it.

01:28And I think about how different that is.

01:31Once we left that and went to a church where they actually preached what's in the Bible

01:36in context without loading specific passages to have all of this hidden meanings.

01:41And it's just such a different world that we left and that we went to.

01:46And hopefully that there are other people who can leave the whiplashing and enter into

01:51something that's peaceful.

01:52Well, that's, I think that's such a good example of what we'll talk about today, of that sort

01:57of using the Bible to contextualize things that are happening in life, either to excuse

02:05behavior or to condemn behavior.

02:10And it's totally up to whoever is making the narrative.

02:15It's so apparent, especially when you get outside of the community.

02:20But despite it being so apparent, so on the nose, it is used so frequently within all of

02:26these circles.

02:28It reminds me so much of the different things that I had to grow up with.

02:33The verse that I mentioned whenever we first began the last podcast, over and over in my

02:40head, I think of this every time I drive past the place where we used to go to church, because

02:45they would take verses like that and just beat us over the head with it.

02:49And then when we left and we started attending real churches, and I'm saying that with the

02:57straightest face that I can.

02:58We left a fake church and we went to a real church.

03:01In the real church, they were trying to give you passages that made you feel peace and security

03:08and all of the blessings that God intends to give you.

03:11That's what the new churches had.

03:13The old churches, you just simply felt like you're being beat over the head while you're

03:18sitting there in the pew.

03:18Yeah, and there is no consistency.

03:23If you have a church that has no integrity, and it is not about building consistent behavior,

03:38but it's about building power structures, you have these verses, or just the Bible in general,

03:48is used as a whipping tool.

03:51It's about keeping people in line.

03:53And so the consistency of it is totally all over the place.

03:59And so I know that we've now probably spent several of our podcasts talking about Jen Johnson's

04:07response to, if people haven't seen the previous ones, Jen Johnson, the daughter-in-law to Bill

04:15Johnson and one of the leaders and primary musicians at Bethel Music had an interview where

04:24she talked about some of the people who have recently had very significant scandals involving

04:35sexual indiscretion, sexual, like, grooming, and serious, serious behavior.

04:46And I always want to say sin, because just that's what I grew up with.

04:51It's so impossible to rework your language as you grow up.

04:59But everything that I can think of is when I say people who were caught in severe sexual

05:05sin, that's just the, that's the way they talk about it.

05:09And that's the way it's hard for me not to talk about it.

05:11I think that it at times minimizes what is going on because, again, the way that sexual

05:20sin is used is so broad that it can refer to, there's a large scale of that.

05:28But anyway, the point is, is that there was several people who have had some really significant

05:36scandals and individuals who have come forward, victims who have come forward, who have told

05:42really heartbreaking stories.

05:43I'm not going to rehash all of that if people want to go back and watch those episodes again

05:50to get a better understanding of the context.

05:52But I really wanted to continue to address how Jen Johnson responded to it because I think

05:58it gives such a poignant example of many of the things that we have talked about and many

06:03of the things that you and I, John, and other people who grew up in New Apostolic Reformation

06:08communities faced with this judgment for you, but not for me, where we see people who are

06:20involved in really horrific, abusive situations who are perpetuating some serious abuse who should

06:34be being held accountable for their actions, and yet somehow they're off scot-free.

06:40So, I talked a lot about the specific things that Jen Johnson spoke, but I have one paragraph

06:47that I'll read, and I don't think that, I don't know if you've seen this or watched it, John,

06:52yet, but it, I mean, I'm quoting her verbatim, and it's all in one paragraph, and she gets like

06:57four examples of this in one single paragraph, so it's, it's a very poignant example of exactly

07:04what I'm talking about, what we've been talking about, but in, when referencing Ben Armstrong

07:10and, and Sean Bowles and these, um, my, my own father, these individuals who, um, have been

07:18accused of extremely serious things, um, and she, she gives a sort of defense, um, where she

07:29says, you know, we have all sinned, we have all fallen short. He who is without sin cast the first

07:37stone, and so I think there's a lot of difficult things that people are trying to accomplish on the

07:41internet that need to happen again, like Paul said, face to face, and need to be tried and executed

07:47and processed in court, and not just opinions flying around on the internet. So that, that was

07:53her statement there. So in that statement, you get, well, three biblical, uh, allusions there,

08:00you get, we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. She doesn't say the full passage,

08:05she then goes straight into, he who is without sin cast the first stone. So you have a little bit

08:12of

08:12Romans, you have a little bit of, I think it's John 8 with the, the story of, of Jesus, um,

08:19with the

08:20adulterous woman, and then she references something which I was thinking, I'm, I'm, I have no idea what

08:27she was talking about when she said, like Paul said, face to face and need to be tried and executed

08:32and processed in court. I, I have no idea what that reference is to. I don't know if she's confusing

08:40things. Like I know there's the Matthew 18 that Jesus talks about, you know, a process that this

08:46Matthew 18 we've talked about in the past, because I hop used it a bunch of like having to have

08:53the

08:53victim go face to face with their accuser, which was a poor, it always was a poor, um, use of

09:02Matthew

09:0218. But here, I don't even know what she's referencing when she talks about Paul, because that was Matthew.

09:08So I don't know what she's talking about when she says, Paul said face to face and need to be

09:13tried

09:13and executed and processed in court, but she's clearly appealing to a sort of biblical authority

09:21in this, um, uh, paragraph. Uh, I mean, it wasn't written, it was spoken, but in this little section

09:31that she was talking about, she's clearly using an appeal to biblical authority in order to condemn

09:42internet voices who are speaking against her friends and these leaders who have been accused

09:49of these things. Which again, I think we, we talked about this a lot on the previous episode,

09:55so I don't want to hammer this point again, but when she talks about the internet people,

10:01she's talking about you and me, John, and she's talking about the victims. Those are the people who

10:06are talking about this and you and me and other, uh, it's not like we're the only people who are

10:13talking on podcasts about some of the things that is going on with Bethel. But everybody that I know

10:20who is talking about this was involved with these communities to some point, like I was directly

10:26involved and was very close and I would speak to Bethel directly if they gave me the option to.

10:33And then you have the victims who are clearly involved in this situation and they're speaking

10:39up. And then you have other voices like the Mike wingers who are trying to amplify the voice of the

10:45victims and have spoken directly to the victims or spoken to people like me who were directly,

10:52you know, firsthand accounts of some of the abusive, um, patterns of, of, of some of these abusers with

10:59my father and with Sean Bowles. And anyway, the point being is like, there is, she is using biblical

11:10allusions to silence and condemn critics while also contextualizing them, pretending like they are

11:21random people talking on the internet instead of people who are directly involved with these things.

11:27And it was so, when I watched this the first time, it was so infuriating to me because

11:40I just have seen this pattern happen many times before where people, I, we're talking about

11:52accountability of individuals who have groomed and abused, sexually abused people. This is not the time

12:00to throw in obscure biblical references in order to contextualize and condone these horrific behaviors.

12:10And yet, the first instinct is, oh, someone who I like and who I care about is being accused of

12:16something

12:17horrific. And rather than coming to terms with the fact that, oh my goodness, I might not have

12:22known this person like I thought I did, or, oh my goodness, this person did something horrible.

12:28Um, and I have to come to terms with that. Instead, it's this reactive, I am going to reference a

12:35verse

12:35that I don't really even understand or am thinking about in the moment in order to quiet my own cognitive

12:42dissonance and, um, reaffirm my position of authority within this community. Because if this person is

12:50held accountable, then my power structure begins to dissolve, people begin to question Bethel, and my

12:57own position of authority becomes, uh, minimized and whatnot. And so, and it's so clear that that's

13:03happening. I mean, there is not any semblance of, um, anything other than, like, this is explicitly what is

13:14going on. And people are so emboldened in these new apostolic reformation communities where leaders are

13:23so emboldened to use these passages, biblical passages, as whipping posts, you know, to either

13:31condemn people or to absolve people, basically, without any, any consistency.

13:39Darrell Bock I was thinking as you were talking and struggling not to laugh if you couldn't tell,

13:44because it struck me funny all of a sudden, what you're describing, I call apostolic sermon salad.

13:50And, you know, if she's not a minister, then it would be just apostolic word salad. But they like

13:55to take a verse here that they have already overloaded the meaning. So in your head, you're

14:00programmed, just that phrase has an entire book of meaning. And they start communicating like this.

14:06So if you're part of the congregation, and you have learned all the loaded language,

14:12then you understand all of it. But picture an outsider who comes in, like, wait a minute,

14:16those two verses don't really go together. What are they talking about? And it reminds me,

14:21you can, this will go probably way over your head, and most of the audience too. You can tell a

14:27true

14:27Star Trek fan, if you say, shock up when the walls fell, and they know what you're talking about.

14:32And I'll explain it for those who aren't, because I'm sure most of you are not.

14:37The Enterprise encounters this entire civilization where they talk like Pentecostal people.

14:43They use phrases like this, and that phrase has significant meaning in this culture.

14:47And they keep saying it, and everybody on the, aboard the Enterprise, scratching their head,

14:51thinking, what are they talking about? None of these things make sense. And then later in the episode,

14:56they find out, oh, they're taking phrases, and this phrase has verbiage that is loaded language,

15:02and they mean this thing. And so I have come to terms with the fact that most of the religious

15:08faiths that were built off of this Pentecostal thing, they do this. Here's a phrase from the

15:13Bible. We've loaded the language. I can say it, and I don't have to tell you what it means. Let's

15:18go to

15:18the next phrase. Let's go to the next. Well, what happens when you take two phrases that don't have

15:23similar context and you piece them together? Well, like the Star Trek thing, you've got an

15:30entirely different language that means nothing. It's word salad, right? And take it a step further,

15:35if you don't have the loaded language, or especially for the teenagers growing who haven't yet adopted

15:42the loaded language, they're just so confused. What is this thing called the Bible? And why is it like

15:49a puzzle they're preaching from? And none of it makes any sense. But it goes back to what I said

15:54earlier about the way that they use the Bible as a weapon. They weaponize the phrases. And so when

16:01she's talking about Paul, I can't say what's in her head because I can't ask her at this moment. But

16:07more than likely, it's similar to other things that I've heard. When people weaponize those languages,

16:12they'll take a phrase like this that is meant to say, everybody's a sinner, take another phrase that

16:19is, to God the glory, God's going to forgive you, and take, I think it's the part where Agrippa is

16:26coming, or Paul is standing before Caesar's judgment and all of the defense comes up and Paul

16:33says something to the effect that, if it comes to an execution, I'm ready to die, something like this.

16:39And when you pull all those phrases together, you can trail it along and make it make a story.

16:45But it's not a story that's actually in the Bible, because you've gone to different books,

16:49right? And the sad truth is, they do it so much that, in effect, they're writing new Bible books

16:56and don't realize they're doing it. And you grow up in that environment. I grew up in that environment.

17:01I was a little surprised whenever I stopped reading the Bible, according to phraseology,

17:07which is what we did, and just started reading it from chapter to chapter, verse by verse,

17:12all the way down through. I started reading it as a, here's a letter, here's a book, let's read the

17:17book, let's read the letter. And it started saying different things than they were saying whenever I

17:22was listening to these sermons. Well, that's what they're doing. But to your point in all of this,

17:29it's insidious because they are dumbing down things that really need attention. And it destroys

17:38accountability. Because when you have a situation where somebody potentially has done something that

17:45is criminal, you can't really use those phrases and make them apply. Instead, you should be saying,

17:51we have a potential criminal act. Please keep your kids away until we determine it. Was this,

17:57did this really happen? Did this not? Keep your children safe. And then separate that from the

18:02context of the gospel that should be preached on Sunday. But what you have instead is they try to do

18:08this word salad piecing all of these things together. And then they piece that in with it.

18:12Well, they're rewriting a new book, which has forgiveness, has all of the things that the gospel has.

18:19And then here's the situation that might be criminal. And what do you do with this? You

18:23lump it all together and say, he's part of our body. He's part of the elite. He's part of the

18:28forgiven. He's part of the chosen ones. And what does that say to every single person who has left?

18:35They're further victimized after leaving because now they're thinking, oh my gosh,

18:40every single person who's left doesn't have that same sympathy from them. And some of them were

18:45truly victims according to what has come out in the news and in the court trials that have happened

18:52around some of the similar situations. So in my opinion, you can't keep doing this. You can't

18:58keep taking phrases and making new books. Otherwise, why do you carry the Bible to church? If you're not

19:03going to read the Bible, you're going to make new books. You don't even need the Bible. You just,

19:08you start speaking Shaka when the walls fell.

19:11Darrell Bock Right. I mean, well,

19:13and when you're reducing the Bible down to like these little kitschy phrases and whatnot, I mean,

19:19you can, you can just piece those together to say whatever you want, which is, that's the strategy.

19:25That's not, like, this is not just criticizing Jen Johnson. Although I want to be clear, I am

19:31absolutely criticizing Jen Johnson for how she responded. Like, this is very personal in that

19:37respect too, because, you know, this is serious stuff. And I think that she is speaking in a way

19:44that really minimizes what is going on at Bethel. And in a way, also minimizing the voice of the victims

19:57and the voice of you and I and other people who are wanting to see change and, and addressing some

20:03of these systemic issues there. So, I mean, this isn't, this is about her, but also on a larger

20:10sense, this is just the structure of all of these communities. So I don't, I don't fault her

20:18specifically for having this whimsical sort of like, let me just mosaic

20:26half of paraphrased verses from the Bible and put them together to weave my own little new narrative

20:36in a way that is obviously inconsistent with how I handle other situations when people are outside

20:42of my community or outside of the leadership of my community. But it is, it is, it is

20:53something that you see quite often. Are you familiar, John, with the Dunning-Kruger? I think

20:59I may have talked about this, but the Dunning-Kruger effect, have you heard of that?

21:05It may have been from you or Brantley. I've heard it, but I can't recall what it is.

21:09So there was a study that basically, to summarize the study, was about how people respond

21:17with specific subjects or specific topics. The peoples reported their understanding of what

21:26they know of that topic, like how much they are an expert on that topic. And if you have like

21:33a

21:34XY diagram of this, where, you know, the X is actual knowledge of the specific material,

21:44Y is sort of your reported understanding of that material. There's this interesting sort of pattern

21:51where, you know, it starts out low, people who know nothing of something report that they know

21:59nothing of something. They start to learn a little bit about it, and then it shoots really quickly up.

22:06So you can have, you know, a three out of 10 of knowledge on this domain or subject, but think

22:12that

22:12you're a seven out of 10 or an eight out of 10, because you literally have not learned enough

22:17to know how little you know. And then you start cresting that and coming back down as you continue

22:26to press in and learn more about the subject. And you realize, oh my goodness, there's all of these

22:30nuances. You know, I think about my own, I love football and I have like, I delved into American

22:41football, like play calling. And I was like, oh man, I'm starting to get this. And I definitely

22:46went on that arc of being like, oh my goodness, I have no idea. You know, I have enough to

22:54Sunday, you know, if there's people around who don't really know much about play calling,

22:59I can be like, oh, well, you know, this is a Tampa two coverage that they're in. And people will

23:03be

23:03like, wow, this guy knows a lot. So I know enough to pretend like I know something, but I'm like,

23:09I have absolutely no, I never played, you know, college football or high school football even.

23:16So if there was anybody who actually was there, who actually had been like involved in coaching

23:22to some extent, they would be like, this guy's a total idiot and is a moron and has no idea

23:27what's

23:27going on. And I've started learning enough where I'm now, you know, they call it the valley of despair

23:35because you're just like, oh my goodness, I don't know. And I will never know because there's just

23:40so much information about any given topic. And the funny part of that is, that is the very reason why

23:47I modeled the podcast series like I did. I had somebody who told me originally, John, if you're

23:53going to do this right, you need to bring in the experts and have expert testimony. And I was thinking

23:58of exactly that, there isn't a single person who knows all of this history. You can't know all this

24:04history. And if you divide it into silos of the different groups that have emerged, you can't even

24:09have a person who knows a fraction of the history. But if you bring a bunch of people who have

24:14different

24:14experiences, different sets of knowledge, and then have everybody talk, you have a collective hive

24:19of information. And that's really why I did what I did.

24:22And I get why people don't, which, it takes so much work. It takes you like having to interview

24:30hundreds of people and having to have, you know, thousands of podcast episodes and doing all of

24:37these things and building out your entire website where you have all of these really, you know,

24:45so dense information and all these different things. And you would have the humility,

24:51humility, and you've demonstrated this before, even when talking about specific subjects,

24:56you, there will be many times where you're like, oh, well, I'm not an expert on that. I don't know

25:01who is an expert if it isn't you, but you, you know, have talked to people who know very specific

25:07slices of this world. And anyway, the point is, is that it requires one, epistemic humility of being

25:18able to recognize, like, oh, I just don't know that much of this. And epistemic humility is not a

25:25virtue that is encouraged in the new apostolic reformation communities. It just isn't. And I can

25:32get back to that. But it requires humility, but it also requires effort. And it's not convenient.

25:39Because, and so if we talk about something as vast and complex as understanding and knowing

25:47the Bible and knowing how verses are used, I remember when I first experienced this as a young,

25:56I don't want to say minister, but like in the new apostolic reformation, I was just as qualified as

26:01anyone because it was just anybody can speak. There was no, you know, credentialing or

26:09no process of being ordained. It was just kind of, if you have something to say, say it.

26:16And my dad would elevate me a lot. So there was times where, when I was in my early twenties,

26:22even in my teen years, I would go to different conferences and I would speak. And

26:27I thought, well, this is, I was building my young sort of ministering career. And my first,

26:34I think this was when I was in my late teens, early twenties, I remember my first

26:42message that I had. And I may have even referenced this in a previous podcast, but the first sort of

26:49sermon that I developed was around, um, Isaiah 60, um, arise, shine for your light has come and

26:57the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. And, um, and this sort of like, I can't even remember

27:03exactly what my point was for it, but there's sort of like, God has given us this moment, you know,

27:09kings will be brought to the brightness of your dawn and everything like that.

27:14And using that as a metaphor and a sort of like, it was some, somewhere in between

27:20a sermon and a self-help discussion and a, you know, like most new apostolic reformation, um,

27:27sermons are. And I remember at some point I was like, I really should probably read the verses

27:35and chapters that come before Isaiah 60. And then only in that context, did I recognize that it was

27:43literally a prophecy? Well, now I'm forgetting, but it was either a prophecy about, oh, see, this is,

27:50I'm fully in the valley of despair and have not gotten out of it, but it was a specific prophecy

27:55about either a person or a nation. And I'm using it in 2000 and, you know, whatever it went for

28:032010

28:05United States to talk about me. Like, it was not about Jedediah. And I'm not saying that you can't

28:13use some of these passages and prophecies to emulate and support some larger things. Like,

28:22this was a prophecy that was given about Jesus, but it is also true to us and who walk in,

28:27you know,

28:28the anointing of Christ. Like I, I understand that it probably was a nuanced way that I could have

28:32still given that sermon, but I recognized after already speaking to, you know, thousands of people,

28:41probably about that passage that I realized, I don't really understand what I'm talking about

28:46at all. And I started realizing like, I'm going to be a bad minister if I, if I have these

28:53hesitancies,

28:54because now if I go up and preach and I'm like, well, so this is kind of not really about

29:00us and,

29:01but it, it's something that we can do. And I give the proper caveat and I say, uh, full,

29:07you know, transparency. I haven't actually studied all of this. Everybody's going to be like, well,

29:11we're not listening to this kid. You know, I would need to go up there and preach with conviction in

29:16the same way. If I want people to think I'm smart when it comes to football, where I'm going to

29:21talk

29:21about Tampa two defense, even though they're in cover three or something like that, just because

29:27I don't actually know the terminology for the defense they're in. So I just need to sound smart.

29:34If the goal is sounding smart, it's a completely different game, you know? And I, I, I truly think

29:40that for ministers within this larger community, it is about sounding like, you know, what you're

29:47talking about. And it's sounding like you're referencing the Bible to emulate that you are

29:55someone in that seven, eight, nine, 10, you know, knowledge of Bible and biblical understanding.

30:02And it is so easy to pretend like you're there without doing any of the work and effort. And I

30:10say all of this, not to criticize someone like a Jen Johnson and being like, oh, she just doesn't,

30:18she doesn't actually know what she's talking about. It's not that it's, she is in a community

30:24that openly rewards people who do not delve deeper into the truth of what's going on because humility

30:32is not very conducive to structures of power that exist there. Conviction and authority is all that

30:42matters. And it is easier to have conviction and authority by staying in that realm where you only

30:51know a little bit, but you think you know a lot. And again, to learn anything more, you would have

30:59to

30:59start going on that journey where you go through the valley of despair and realize, oh my goodness,

31:04I have no idea what I'm talking about. And all of these verses that we are using, you know, the,

31:10we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That was in Romans where Paul was talking

31:18about Jews and Gentiles and talking about larger groups of people, not individual, and about equating,

31:24you know, the Jews and Gentiles as similar under this sort of banner of sin. And yet,

31:32that's not how it's used. And most people probably don't understand that and don't understand the

31:37context to it. And I don't even. Like, I'm saying that here not to be an authority of biblical knowledge,

31:43but to be an authority of biblical knowledge. Like, I don't know enough about these things because

31:50they're incredibly complex and, you know, incredibly dense. Like, the people who are

31:57truly studied on this know just swaths of the Bible and not the Bible entirely because it's just

32:03too much for people to totally have a perfect understanding of holistically. And yeah. And so,

32:14you have these people who are wielding it. I mean, this goes back to how people are able to use

32:21the

32:21Bible as a whip is using it in this sort of mosaic sense of, let me take this verse out

32:28of this context,

32:30pair it with this verse in order to construct my own new narrative that is completely inconsistent

32:36with what I say about people who I dislike and people who are doing sin that I want to criticize,

32:45who have stepped outside of the community that we are in, use it as a punishment on them, but then

32:53completely, you know, rearrange the pieces to then condone some of the most explicit instances of

33:01sexual sin that you will ever see. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started

33:07or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic

33:13and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation? You can learn this and more on

33:20William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org. On the books page of the website,

33:27you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon,

33:34and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book. You can also find

33:40resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you want to

33:46contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top.

33:52And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to

33:58or watching. On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.

34:04I took a client out to a gun range one time, open range out in the out in the field.

34:09And I set up a few,

34:10you know, Coke cans, and we went back a few yards, and I let him shoot. Well, he got really

34:17lucky and hit

34:18one. And he got so excited. He was holding the gun, I had trained him how to hold the gun,

34:23how to be

34:23careful, all the safety, all the stuff, right? He was holding the gun carefully, he shot it, got lucky,

34:28and he got so excited, he turned to talk to me and pointed at me, which is violating the number

34:34one golden rule. And I violated the second rule, which we should have stopped, and I should have

34:40taken it out of his hand. At that point, I calmed down. I said, Look, you can't do that. You

34:44can't

34:44point at other people. It's, you know, you want to aim there, not me, or anybody else here. Well,

34:51he did it a second time. And that's when I packed it up. And I said, We can't do this.

34:55You Yeah,

34:55you probably shouldn't be doing this that we're doing. Yeah. And I took it out of his hand.

35:01I mentioned that they're using the Bible like this. People who don't know how to use the Bible are

35:06using it. Well, here's the difference. You have a bunch of people who are doing exactly what that guy

35:11did, but with the Bible. They're pointing it loosely, like a loose cannon at this person,

35:16at this person, at this person, where it gets really interesting. I don't know if you've seen

35:20this or not, but usually the sins of the person who's preaching, that's the sins that they're

35:26preaching the most about. Yes.

35:28The ones that they really struggle with, that's what they're going to preach about. And so you can

35:32really tell it. And they will often combine verses to show forgiveness for that particular sin,

35:38because they too want to be forgiven, which makes sense. But yet they're still holding the

35:44loaded weapon, and they're still pointing it randomly at all of the people, right?

35:49Here's the problem, because I know for a fact that this happens. I have seen this happen.

35:56Leadership doesn't really care whether you know the Bible or not. They watch people do this. They get

36:02excited because if you can combine two verses and make something beautiful that isn't in the Bible,

36:07it's a new beautiful creation. Let's preach about it. They love it. They especially love it if you,

36:13during the course of the sermon, pay your respect to the leader. So you get these group of people with

36:18loaded weapons that are pointing randomly, who give a blessing to the top elites in the cult.

36:25Well, suddenly they're favored, even though they don't know the Bible. And you watch them rise through

36:30the ranks faster than somebody who doesn't give praise to the leader. I've watched this happen.

36:35And at the same time, they still have a loaded weapon that's just pointing randomly. They don't

36:40know what they're going to hit with it. The leadership doesn't care as long as they pay the

36:44respects. The problem is there is no accountability. There's no structure. There is no training of

36:51theology. So as you're rising through the ranks, your rank and file member assumes falsely that they

36:57are studying and learning and being trained on how to preach. No, it's usually not the case. Although you do

37:03have a few theologians, but for the most part, the movement frowns on any type of biblical knowledge.

37:09So in my opinion, what happens is you rise through the ranks. And as long as you can pay tribute

37:14to

37:14the leader, they really don't care where you point that gun, as long as the gun is not pointing at

37:19them.

37:20I think of that analogy of the guy, like that makes so much sense. It's funny that you were saying

37:25it,

37:25because I remember an exact situation with my dad, where like my, despite growing up in the Midwest,

37:32in a conservative community. And so there was a lot of times where I went to the gun range and

37:38a lot of gun use, you know, because that's just part of the culture there. And my dad would go,

37:44but everybody within our community knew that he wasn't really allowed to

37:52handle the guns because he would do, he just wouldn't take things seriously. He didn't take

37:58rules seriously. And so he would shoot something and then he would laugh and kind of turn and

38:05absentmindedly then point the barrel of gun towards people. And it got to the point where it was like,

38:10literally like, no, Bob cannot, cannot have a loaded weapon. And he even understood some of

38:16this to some point. Like he wasn't, he probably was offended by it, but he stopped asking for it

38:24because he just could not fall the rules. And that was true of him entirely. And it's again,

38:32it's why he was able to rise to the top of places like Bethel, because he was able to shoot

38:38from the

38:39hip and just, and do whatever he wanted, go up, be bold enough to give prophecies that he had pulled

38:46off of Facebook. And it was rewarded at places like Bethel. I think that it's like, it actually

38:53is very appropriate that the people who cannot be trusted with weapons are also the people who are

39:00being elevated because they just have no shame or, or shame isn't the right word. I mean, that

39:09is the right word for my dad, but it's also not the right word for exactly this. They have no

39:13sense of responsibility. Um, and that is something that is rewarded in there. And I think of,

39:22I think of the people who metaphorically, who are, who are the ones wielding guns in my

39:32upbringing when it, when it comes to judgment, right? So I think the most poignant example,

39:37I think is, is Lou Engel. Um, because for other people like Lou Engel is, is someone who is this,

39:45another figure, um, who speaks about these things and is, uh, you know, he's a public figure for a

39:53lot of people. That's not how it was in my world. Like he literally was the dad of, of friends

39:59of

40:00mine. Like he was, um, um, I grew up with Lou Engel. He would go, he would speak to our

40:06like youth group,

40:07uh, a bunch before he even got, I don't know if famous is the right word, but before he got

40:14the level of authority that he does like Lou Engel. And he was always the way that he's,

40:19he is, you know, he's rocking with his voice that is, is thrashed and you can't totally understand

40:26him, but he had this ethos of just someone who was scary and he still demonstrates that. And every

40:32single time he talks, I mean, it is his, his entire ministry is about the weakness of America and

40:40it's politics. It's, um, anti, of course, LGBTQ anti-abortion, but not in a way that it's just

40:47political. Like he would talk about, um, the murder of innocent babies as like a Holocaust. And I,

40:54the way that he campaigned about these things and continues to do this is so intense,

41:03and so he was someone who, I remember my dad talked about Lou about, and he would talk about

41:10him having a justice chip. And this is something that Mike Bickle would say too. Lou just has a

41:16justice chip because he wants justice and he sees these examples of injustice. So just homosexuality in

41:25general being a measure of injustice or, or sexual immorality in general, just being injustice. And

41:31this is what's wrong. And we have to repent as a community. Hurricane, um, Katrina, Lou Engel spoke

41:39about how Hurricane Katrina was judgment on New Orleans for being a, a sexually lawless, um, town.

41:48Now think about that. We talked about that earlier of, of how individually, how people's health will,

41:56will be used against them if you're, you know, having to go to the dentist because of a toothache

42:02that could be representative of like God punishing you for something that you did simply or, or sin,

42:09allowing sin to, to wreak havoc on you because of, you know, decisions that you have made.

42:15To be so bold as to say one of the most devastating natural disasters that happened in, uh, certainly

42:25within recent American history was caused because of the sexual lawlessness of a city. And as

42:32judgment, I mean, he compared it to, um, not, it wasn't Salam Gomorrah. He compared it to, um,

42:40to Nineveh and Jonah coming and speaking to Nineveh. Now Nineveh wasn't judged to, but because they

42:46turned from their ways, but he, he said that it was like a modern day Nineveh. And I remember this,

42:52I don't know if I could, I don't know if this public, I remember him saying it. This is when

42:57I was

42:57in still in high school and I remember him having that. And I remember thinking, oh my God, and

43:03believing him and thinking of like, wow, like that helped me form my opinion of who God is and was,

43:13was based off of this incredibly judgmental, um, thing that, that, that a leader in my community,

43:21um, a father in my community was saying. And ever since 2000 and 23, when it came out

43:33that Mike Bickle was perpetually and systemically grooming young women and have been doing this

43:40since, you know, the seventies or eighties, my mother being one of the victims of this,

43:48Lou Engel has not said a damn thing. There's so many people who have been bruised by this movement

43:53and are suffering and they leave and they go into another church and it's a gospel for the

43:59suffering. It's a gospel to lift up the people and lift their spirits. That's what the gospel

44:04is when you go to another church. But in this type of environment, this revival community,

44:09it's a gospel of entertainment. It's a gospel of, wow, it's a gospel of let's get excited.

44:14Let's get political, that kind of thing. And they do it, like you said, by stringing these

44:19phrases together and then marrying them together, making a new book of the Bible.

44:24What's what you're describing is one of the problems that comes from that type of mentality.

44:31When you're in a, uh, best way to say it is these revivals aren't really revivals. Revival is

44:38refreshing, renewing, becoming closer to God. This is a rally. These revivals are actually rallies.

44:44And in a rally, you have a rally cry. And that's what they're doing. If you can build the excitement

44:49up to rally state, then everybody gets excited. Everybody falls out. And they do it, like you said,

44:55by stringing loaded language phrases. Well, the problem is you can't have a rally while also

45:04appealing to the people who are suffering and giving them the, you know, the help that they need.

45:08That doesn't work. You can't have both. And so it's not a popular message. And as people rise

45:14through the ranks, you know, I don't know much of, of Lou Ingo's background, but I have seen others

45:20like him who rose through the ranks because what happens is as you repeat those phrases and you

45:25string them together, you learn which combinations excite the people and get them all worked up in the,

45:30they call it worked up in the spirit, but it's literally worked up in a rallying state.

45:35Yeah.

45:36Well, the passages for the broken hearted don't do that. And so they don't go to those. So those

45:42phrases aren't there. And what happens is you have people who are called quote unquote mature

45:47in the spirit who haven't really learned how to appeal to the people who are broken hearted.

45:54And so they don't know what to do. They get into a place like this. It may not be that

45:58he even,

45:59you know, maybe, maybe he wants to, maybe he wants to appeal to these people. I don't know.

46:03But many people like him just simply don't know how because they've never done it.

46:08Yeah. And it's not, again, it's not profitable because stirring up either frenzy against the

46:16people who are in your own community, right, and is not profitable as I have clearly seen myself,

46:25you know, where like I can speak very poignantly about people in my own life because it's actually

46:31from a place of like, this was wrong. And I would like to see this changed. And it's not,

46:35that's not gonna, if your goal is to gain power, where are you gaining power? You can't criticize

46:41the very structure that you are in because then you, you know, you, the tide recedes and you,

46:49your boat sinks with it. Um, so there's not, there's not profit in it. And like you said,

46:56there's not profit in then being nuanced and understanding and being like, okay, I understand

47:03I'm a Republican, but I believe that there's a lot of good people who are also Democrat. And like,

47:08they, I understand that there, this is a more nuanced conversation about sexuality and

47:13two consenting adults. Like you cannot have a compassionate understanding of the other side

47:21and sell tickets as much, right? It just doesn't, you can, you can like, you can, you can have some

47:28influence and you can do good things and you can still advocate for your political opinion and whatnot

47:34by being measured, but you're certainly not going to get as much money. Um, and I,

47:42I know that it seems crass to boil it down to all just money and power, but I think that

47:47that's why,

47:47you know, moths to the flame. Like this is why people like Lou Engle and Bob Hartley and Mike Bickle

47:54and Bob Jones and Bill Johnson and Chris Fallatin are drawn to these communities and drawn to this

48:04specific branch of Christianity. Because again, it is a hyper-specific, it's a leaf on a twig on a branch

48:12of a tree within a forest. Like this is a very specific subset of a subset of Christianity that

48:20is distinctly set apart from the rest of the subsets of Christianity, specifically because it

48:26is more judgmental. Because I, like my, uh, uh, Bill Johnson in one of his books talked about how

48:33cessationalists, like, so people who do not believe in the gifts of the spirit or believe that they ceased,

48:39um, are, oh, how did he say he, uh, it is a lie, it's a demonic lie that they're perpetuating.

48:48So,

48:48not even, I mean, it's one thing to be like, hey, people who are of a different religion are demonic,

48:54or people who are of a different political belief are demonic, which again, that is also pretty extreme,

49:00because you can, you can have differences of opinion without demonizing everyone who disagrees

49:06with you. But he even is, he even is, I mean, this is an example of someone who's being like,

49:13everybody without my, like, specific subset of denomination is all demonically influenced,

49:19and it's only us who have the chosen, you know, group. And same with, like, Mike Bickle and being like,

49:24hey, we believe that anybody who preaches pre-trib rapture is being demonically influenced. Like,

49:34that's how specific Mike Bickle was getting about some of these things. And I mean, the only reason

49:41you are drawn to those communities is because you want power and money, because it's profitable,

49:47because you want to feel like you are the forerunner for God, and you want hundreds of thousands of

49:53people to come to your conferences and say, this man is going to help usher in the end times. This

50:00person, Mike Bickle, he is going to be one of the leaders of the the forerunner church, the bride of

50:07Christ. And that stroked his ego. And I mean, with Mike Bickle, with my dad, with others, my dad loved

50:14feeling like he was the mouthpiece of God, even though he knew he wasn't, because he had gotten it

50:22off Facebook, even though he knew that this was not coming from God, that it was not a dream where

50:28God showed up at the foot of his bed. Like, he knew that didn't happen. He knew that he was

50:33on an iPad

50:34in the morning and had searched through someone's name and wrote it down and everything like that.

50:41Yet, the joy that it brought him to speak and have thousands of people think that God had showed up

50:49and spoken to him about these different individuals and to watch them double over with tears in their

50:55eyes and be brought to the point of, like, dropping to their knees because they believe that God is

51:02speaking through him. He relished and lived for that power. And that is what all of this, the mosaic that

51:13we've been talking about is breaking the Bible up into little sections so that you can say whatever

51:18you want is in order to seek out that power and that prideful position of feeling like you can speak

51:31and use God's language and you can be the mouthpiece of God. And the only way to actually do that

51:37is to

51:38break up what was said in the Bible in order to fit you and your beliefs unless you spend your

51:44entire

51:44life dedicated to learning truth and having, and as we've already said, there's a humbling process

51:51of going through that. And these people would rather skip that process or never engage it at all. And so,

51:57we have these very clear instances of people who are making a desecration of these biblical principles

52:07in general because it's not about the Bible. It's not about God. It's not about what Jesus spoke.

52:13It's not about any of that. It's about using the Bible to leverage their own voices because they

52:21like hearing their voices. They like, you know, speaking so loud, they hear their voice echo back

52:26and say, oh, listen, that's God. Don't you hear God on the air? And it is so infuriating how it

52:35is

52:35cyclical and it keeps going around and around and around. And people and victims are being silenced

52:42because of these prideful individuals who love hearing their voice so much.

52:47Well, as I said before, they're using the Bible like a weapon. They're shooting it randomly.

52:51But the good news is every single person who's in that building can diffuse it just simply by walking

52:56out. You walk out and they don't hear their voice. You know, you can speak to wind all you want,

53:01but whenever you don't have an audience, you kind of think, well, wait a minute. I wonder if what I

53:06said caused all of this. I wonder what I said caused them to leave. Then they start checking

53:11themselves and all it takes is one person to stand up and say, you know, you were stringing together a

53:16lot of passages that don't really go together. I want to hear the Bible instead. And that's really

53:22all it takes. So thank you so much for doing this.

53:24Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me, John.

53:26Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web.

53:30You can find us at william-brannum.org. For more about the dark side of the new apostolic

53:34reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR. Available on Amazon,

53:40Kindle, and Audible.

54:21You can find us at william-brannum.org. For more information, you can find us at william-brannum.com.

54:46You can find us at william-brannum.com. For more information, you can find us at william-brannum.com.

Bible As A Weapon: How NAR Leaders Silence Victims | Jed Hartley | Podcast Episode 654

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