Faith Assembly 2024 Update Part 3 - Episode 182 William Branham Historical Research Podcast

3 months ago

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John and Chino discuss Chino's recent meeting with members of the Faith Assembly, a controversial religious group. They discuss the evolution of certain doctrines, such as Divine Healing and the Shepherding Movement, and how these have been manipulated or misinterpreted over time. The conversation touches on personal anecdotes, historical facts, and critical analysis, highlighting the discrepancies and issues within these movements. The episode aims to provide clarity and understanding to listeners, particularly those who have been directly affected by these teachings, encouraging a more thoughtful and informed approach to their faith and beliefs.

Chino's YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@chinodross

00:00 Introduction
02:01 Trip to Northern Indiana
04:01 New Building Tour
06:07 Auditorium Changes
08:39 Platform Repurposed
11:00 Ministers Meeting and Discussions
13:04 Word Ministers and Teachings
17:03 Obituaries and Updates
19:00 Theological Discussions on Faith
22:29 Controversial Teachings and Practices
26:05 Shepherding Movement and Influence
30:00 Critical Reflections on Leadership
36:16 Historical Context of Teachings
40:12 Personal Experiences and Reflections
45:29 Challenges in Questioning Teachings
50:36 Reflections on Authority and Truth
57:01 Final Thoughts and Outro

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Transcript

00:00You

00:31Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Branham historical research

00:36podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham

00:40Historical Research at william-branham.org and with me I have my

00:45co-host, minister, and friend Chinno Ross, the voice of the Understanding

00:50Scripture and Truth by Chinno D. Ross YouTube channel. And we're continuing now

00:56into part three of the Faith Assembly update. I think I've given you so many

01:02distractions, Chinno. I'm not sure we'll finish in part three. I'm

01:06probably going to throw up all kinds of red herrings for you to follow, but we're

01:11gonna give it a try and see what happens today. Hey, that sounds like a good plan,

01:15John. I'm sorry. I felt like an idiot afterwards when I looked down at my

01:19notes and thought, somehow, somewhere, by some means, either I got distracted or

01:26you distracted me from going through the rest of my picture. So I just thought,

01:32well, I'm willing to throw out the offer that I will take from here on out. I

01:38will take full responsibility for all of your mistakes. Well, and you and I had a

01:45conversation afterwards. My constant distractions reminded me of the Bugs

01:50Bunny cartoon, where you've got the big dog that he's set in his ways, and

01:54he's headed down a path, and the little dog is just dancing around him, yiping,

01:58drawing his attention everywhere. That's me and you, Chinno, me being the

02:04little yappy dog, I think. Well, we both have a lot of history and a lot to say, a

02:10lot of thoughts, and a lot on our mind. But from this most recent trip on July

02:15the 17th up to northern Indiana to meet with some ex-faith assembly ministers, I

02:22did a little sightseeing, a blast from the past, looked at some old places. So I was

02:28in the process of showing some photographs of the new building, which has

02:35now become the old building. It's so interesting that that's what they called

02:39it, because it didn't really have a name like a cool one like the Glory Barn. They

02:44just said it's the new building. Well, now it is definitely not the new building

02:48anymore. It is definitely the old building. And for the thousands of people that have

02:53visited that place in the past, and the several thousand that were members, I

02:58thought they might find it interesting. So the next picture I wanted to show you

03:03was where the baptismal pool was earlier. Now it's just a converted storage room

03:14where they keep bits and parts and pieces for this boat repair shop. And

03:20then once we got out into the main auditorium, it has been divided up with

03:25some full-height walls because they did not need that big of just an open space.

03:31They needed wall space to put bins and storage places on. But in this next

03:37picture, if you look over on the left side, which is kind of framed in, but this

03:43is the entranceway where Dr. Freeman would come out of the back room, come on

03:50to the platform, and come up to the podium. And you can also see there is

03:56just a little bit of the red and white sign that had the famous passage,

04:061 Corinthians 1 10, where Paul said, now I beseech you, brethren, that there be no

04:11divisions among you. It's interesting that that particular place, and I think

04:17they just follow in line with all other similar groups, would not want any

04:23divisions. They don't want anybody, they don't want me to be doing what I'm doing.

04:30I mean, that verse is an attack on me. No divisions, that you'd be

04:35perfectly joined together in the same mind, think the same thing, believe the

04:40same thing. And you know, we've talked about that verse before, John. It was a

04:45hallmark verse, one of the ones you had to subscribe to if you were going to be

04:50a part of Faith Assembly. But Paul's writing that to a church that had all

04:55kinds of divisions and separations in it. Yeah, you know, as many times as I've

05:01looked at the splinter groups that emerged from Branham or Latter Rain, they

05:05all seem to go right to that verse, and they say, you know, it's wrong to have the

05:09divisions. Well, their entire movement exists because they had a division from

05:13the main trunk, and they splintered off. So the whole thing, it's so ironic, man.

05:17It's all relative. It's just, you know, where are you going to draw the dividing

05:22line? You know, I think it's a beautiful verse, and it's definitely the goal in

05:26any local assembly that we all be of the same mind. But we've also got to face

05:30reality. Everybody comes from different backgrounds. They process the material

05:35they're hearing differently. There are stronger and weaker people in a

05:39Christian church, and we're clearly told that the stronger need to not flaunt

05:44their strength, but help the weaker, and if by no other means, drag them with you

05:50into the kingdom. You know, do what you have to do, but we all are in this

05:54together. We should all be helping each other. Then I think the next photograph I

06:01had is really interesting. Dan, who's the owner of the new building turned old

06:06building, got a big kick out of the fact that whenever he took possession, someone

06:11else, by the way, got the pulpit. I think I know who got the pulpit, or at least

06:15part of it, but the whole platform, the raised area upon which the platform of

06:21the pulpit was, and the speaker was, and the music guy and team were, that whole

06:29raised platform was taken down and taken apart, and Dan turned it into his sewing

06:36tables. So he did a lot of upholstery work for the seats

06:41and pontoon boats. So you'll see a picture of a big sewing table, and if you

06:47look on the ceiling above it, you see a couple of speakers, and Dan loved

06:53this too. He said, I've gone around and counted them, and I think

06:57there are a hundred and fifty speakers in the ceiling in this building. So this

07:01guy did not want you to get away from him. It didn't matter where you were.

07:08In the restrooms as well, you were going to have a speaker over your head, and he

07:13just thought, he got the biggest laugh out of that. He told me that story three

07:18or four times. Did I tell you? There's a hundred and fifty speakers in the

07:22ceiling of this building right here. So this guy was obsessed that everybody not

07:27miss a word of what he had to say, because it was the Word of God. It was

07:31the Word of the Lord that he was giving to you. Which in Branhamism, again, we're

07:36back to Branhamism 101. If you go to my grandfather's, well, and now it's not my

07:40grandfather's, but the Branham Tabernacle, they had it everywhere. I can

07:44remember clearly sitting in that restroom doing my business, and you could

07:48hear it right through the speaker in the bathroom. It's awkward too,

07:52because you get out of there, and you see other brethren. We called them brethren.

07:56Your first instinct is to shake their hand, and then you're like, no, wait a

08:00minute. This is not the right place or atmosphere for me to be doing this. It's

08:05so odd, man. Well, yeah, we're gonna be probably arrested, you and I, John, for

08:13just doing something illegal, and that's just having too much fun. We're just

08:17having too much fun. Probably a law against having as much fun as I have in

08:22my life. I'm very serious about my calling and about Christianity, but you

08:28can be serious and then not take yourself too seriously, and hopefully

08:32you'll find the right balance there. So there was a restroom picture in there

08:36also. Just note those are original stalls and sinks and everything that

08:43people who ever went there will, I'm sure, remember. All right, so enough of the

08:51family photo, the family album here. So we were talking at the end last time, John,

08:59about this ministers meeting of some ex-Faith Assembly ministers and myself,

09:04and I had read one of Jim's newsletters back in the mid-1970s, where at that time

09:10they had a count of what they call 37, and it got higher than that, probably 40

09:16or the low 40s, word ministers or word ministries that went out. So these were

09:24ministers under Hobart at Faith Assembly, and they would travel just to

09:30different meetings. The next newsletter June sent out was this one

09:36from March of 1977, the very next one from the one I read last time. She said,

09:42since our last newsletter, a group from Iowa wrote us asking for us to send

09:48them a teacher. Beginning this week, Harry Albright will be flying there

09:54every other week to teach them. We have several pilots in our church who count

09:59this as a part of their ministry to fly our ministers to various states to speak.

10:04So far, the Lord has not led us to establish churches. And you know, I made

10:11the comment last time I found that interesting back then, and I found it a

10:17little inconsistent that we are supposed to have a five-fold ministry,

10:22but we have a one-fold ministry of nothing but teachers, all of whom are

10:28required to report back to headquarters. We do have a little denominational

10:34structure on our hands. There's just no way around it. And I guess all of us, what

10:40we were looking for, what I'm still looking for in any ministry, is

10:45consistency. Even if you want to be wrong, just be consistently wrong. You

10:50know, then we can trace things easily. It's the inconsistencies where you speak

10:55out of both sides of your mouth, where you say one thing and do another. That's

10:59where we end up having a lot of problems. That's what causes a lot of confusion in

11:04people's lives, at least I think so. Maybe no one ever thought of this back then,

11:09but I wondered, how is it we have a five-fold ministry, but we only have one?

11:15You know, we only have these teachers going out, and they're going out, I don't

11:20even have a full count of how many satellite groups there were. And we can

11:25define that term satellite, you know, more broadly or more tightly, but these were

11:30definitely satellite groups where a minister was leaving faith assembly,

11:35going to a little home group, a home setting, teaching them, and then traveling

11:40back. And let's face it, I mean, he's just carrying Hobart Freeman doctrine. He

11:45really is. I mean, Hobart was, oh my, you're gonna have to go somewhere else.

11:52To the audience who's listening without the video feed, there's a cat that just

11:57jumped in front of the camera, so we're dodging cats at this point. Okay, she's

12:02down now. I'm curious about, there's a phrase you mentioned. You mentioned

12:07word ministers, and this again is a term that I grew up with constantly in

12:12Branhamism. When you leave the cult and you go into a normal church, this isn't

12:16a phrase that you hear ever. It's just not said because it is a cult thing,

12:21and a lot of people who are in the cult or who have escaped, they really don't

12:24realize that. For in Branhamism, a lot of people also do not realize this. Branham

12:31taught the quote spoken word, which, you know, Kenneth Hagen got a lot of mileage

12:37out of it rebranding that to be what he called Rhema, and he started the Rhema

12:43Bible Training Center, all of this stuff. And he's credited as the father of it,

12:47but, you know, I can trace it back to Branhamism long before Kenneth Hagen

12:51would have ever even conceived such a notion. And where it gets interesting is

12:57there were men in the Full Gospel Businessmen's Fellowship International

13:01who were in William Branham's deity cult. They believe, like T.L. Osborne at

13:07William Branham's memorial service, he said that William Branham was God in the

13:12flesh. And he says, now, I don't care if you feel me sacrilegious for saying this,

13:17but William Branham is God in the flesh. So there was a group of men of which were

13:23key figures in the Word of Faith movement that were in the deity cult.

13:28And I'm curious about that phrase, word ministers. Were they using that in the

13:33Word of Faith way? In Branhamism, these would be ministers who were now speaking

13:38new spoken word.

13:39That's a good question. I don't know. The way I always interpreted that was they

13:44were a...they had a teaching ministry, like one of the guys named his ministry

13:49was Sound Teaching Ministries. I always took it as a teacher who had a teaching

13:58ministry, and they were traveling out to the different satellite groups because

14:04these groups were far enough away. Some people chose to move to Indiana. A large

14:10number did, but I'm sure the majority chose not to. Hobart used the term all

14:14the time. He is in word ministry. And there was a big scramble. There was a

14:21big scramble for that. Here's a story hot off the press from the ministers meeting

14:27that I just remembered. One of the ministers there, and I said, I'm going to

14:31keep all their names anonymous for now. And they didn't ask me to, but for now,

14:35we'll do it. Maybe it's best for everyone. I don't know. But one of the stories they

14:40told me that I would not have any way of having known had not a minister, an ex

14:46minister under Hobart tell me this, but he said they had like a trial preaching

14:51night one time. I mean, it was in front of the church, but every minister was going

14:55to get 15 minutes and see how they did. And you know, so Hobart is, you know, it's

15:01like America's Got Talent. You know, you got a judge. Hobart's a judge here, the

15:09lone judge and each minister, you know, give me your best, give me your best shot

15:14for 15 minutes. That'd be pretty hard to do. 15 minutes knowing your mentor is

15:20sitting out there, you know, grading you on how you're doing. And this guy said

15:29that Hobart told him he did pretty well. And I'm sure he did. And I think there's,

15:36you know, in that group of ministers, some of them were definitely better than

15:41others. I think the majority of them weren't very good at all. But my point in

15:46our study last time was that, you know, they really, what they objected to was

15:51that statement I made where the ministers under Hobart couldn't fight

15:54their way out of a wet theological bag. One time in our meeting when we, when I

15:59was up there two weeks ago, I left out the word wet. I said the theological bag

16:06and one of the guys corrected me and he said, you said wet. You said wet

16:11theological bag. And I did, and I love those brothers. I hope they're not

16:16throwing things at the screen as they hear me right now. I mean, they didn't,

16:20they were wonderful. They were kind and generous to me. Got a little testy at a

16:25point or two, but you know, it's supposed to get a little testy with a group of

16:29grown men who think they know it all. You know, it's supposed to get a little

16:32testy. That's what makes it fun. But hey, an update before I go any more for

16:38anybody who knew Harry Albright. Harry Albright passed away a couple of years

16:44ago, October of 2022 at age 75. I didn't know Harry personally. I just knew he was

16:52the minister that was going out to, I think it was Clinton, Iowa, somewhere in

16:58Iowa. He was going out to a regular meeting. And another update for Faith

17:03Assembly people, and my condolences to Harry's family and friends and everyone

17:08that knew him and loved him, was there were a couple of brothers who were

17:12ministers. Jim and Joe Brenneman were two of the well-known ministers at Faith

17:17Assembly back in the day. And just, I think it's been only two weeks ago, after

17:24I came back from the meeting in northern Indiana, which was on July the

17:3017th, Joe Brenneman passed away. And his brother Jim, I think the next morning,

17:39sent me a text and shared with me the obituary. And some people from

17:45other states have already told me that as well. So my condolences and love and

17:50sympathy to Joe's family and his children and all the people that loved

17:56him. You know, none of us are getting any younger. And apart from Jesus returning

18:02during our lifetime, which we all hope for, but apart from that happening, we're

18:06all aging and eventually going to die. So, you know, I was thinking after our last

18:16conversation, John, about, you know, just, I know I struck a nerve when I said what

18:23I did. I did not mean to offend anyone, hurt anybody's theological or biblical

18:29sensitivity to say at that time, I don't think they could fight their way out of

18:33it, that wet theological bag. But as we were concluding last time, you know, my

18:39point was, and I still feel that way as I look back on that time period 40 years

18:44ago. And what I said was, had they known what they should have known, they should

18:51have objected. And if they did know back then something was wrong, then you have

18:58to say shame on you. You know, you should have objected. If you didn't know, you

19:04don't know. If you do know, you need to say something about it. And I remember

19:08one of the things that I know Dr. Freeman was most upset with me over was

19:14he had taught, we're gonna have to go back in our mind to like the mid-1970s,

19:21there was a movement called the Shepherdship Movement. It was called

19:25Shepherdship. It was called Neo-Discipleship. It also went by the

19:31title of Covering Movement. That was led by a group of men, Don Basham, Charles

19:39Simpson, Ern Baxter, and I think he came out of Ladder Reign and maybe even had

19:45connections with William Branham, Derek Krantz. There were a group of men that

19:50were teaching this philosophy that you Christians can't just be out there on

19:55your own in life. You can't just be interpreting Scripture on your own. You

20:00need to be under a covering of a higher authority and they're the ones that, you

20:07know, set you straight and tell you right doctrine. And I was, as I watched Faith

20:13Assembly develop, I thought I'm seeing the exact same thing. And Dr. Freeman had

20:21a series of tapes, three of them, and then a fourth one, which was an update,

20:25and you had to buy all four to get any of them. And it was a scathing, and

20:32correctly so, denunciation of the Shepherdship Movement. And then I saw,

20:38aren't we dealing with the same thing if we have a final authority figure and

20:43you're not allowed to disagree with him? And if you disagree anything seriously,

20:50you're gonna be put out. You know, he was not open to being challenged. He was not

20:55open for discussion, for the most part, about anything. I thought we probably

21:01have shepherdship on our hands. And so, me being me, but again, I was in my mid-20s,

21:07I questioned Dr. Freeman about it. I said, I don't see a lot of difference between

21:14the way Faith Assembly is now being constructed and the Shepherdship

21:20Movement. And of course, the only response I could get is what you would suspect.

21:26Well, we're not like them because everything I'm saying is correct. You

21:31know, I'm not leading anybody astray. Well, that's, you know, how convenient is that?

21:35And I just saw that that's not right and that's not gonna work. And let me just

21:41give you one example from the minister's meeting, and I won't say who said it, but

21:45I'll just, here's a prime example. One of the things that Hobart began teaching or

21:50he taught in a message in October, two months before he died, and maybe we can

21:57discuss this in a later podcast, he outlawed hunting. He knew he had a lot

22:03of men in his church that were hunters, and he said, I believe, this is what God

22:09has shown me, that we overcomers, everything was about the man-child, the

22:15special elite Gideon's Army group, overcomers, we overcomers are not going

22:21to want to cause any pain or hurt to God's creation. So, you know, we're, so

22:29Hobart really outlawed hunting. And one of the ministers in the group that I

22:35met with told me that, or I might have brought it up, because that was a big

22:40problem in my mind. That's a totally unbiblical teaching, and it's totally

22:45wrong for a minister to use the platform of the pulpit and try to get people to

22:52do things you want or stop doing things you don't want them to do. And he said,

22:57you know, when I heard that, even though I was a hunter and even though I didn't

23:04really see how that could be biblical or scriptural, because he was my pastor, I

23:11decided to put away my weapons and just submit to what my pastor said. And, you

23:19know, look, John, part of me appreciates a kind spirit of someone willing to, you

23:24know, I'll lay down because my, part of me appreciates, you know, a kind spirit, but

23:30there's another part of me that says, that's the very thing you can't do. What

23:35I have learned in life, what people who are survivors of cults have learned is

23:41that cult leaders are bullies. And the only way you can deal with a bully is

23:49you hit them square in the mouth. I don't mean physically, metaphorically, you hit

23:54them square in the mouth. Hey, speaking of physically, we all know, John, I

23:59remember back in my school days, when I was a kid growing up, I was in this

24:03idyllic neighborhood, walked to my little school. It was just like Mayberry RFD. It

24:11was perfect. When the Supreme Court decided to institute this busing stuff,

24:15then my whole neighborhood got turned upside down and my little pristine

24:21middle school, elementary school and middle school, it became a war zone. And I

24:27found out in a hurry as a young kid, there are bullies. I was just like a

24:31normal kind of passive kid, but not everybody's like that. There are bullies.

24:36And I found out though, in a hurry, that the only way to get the bully's respect

24:42and to get him off your back, literally, you've got to fight. And I remember one

24:49time, people having to come and break up one of my fights because I wasn't gonna

24:53be bullied by these bullies. And bullies, basically, they're cowards anyway. They

24:59rule by fear and intimidation. And I found if you hit them in the mouth, if

25:04you hit them hard enough, they don't bully you anymore. That was back in my

25:08school days. I don't go around hitting people in the mouth now. But my point is,

25:13and you know this is true, John, you can't let these cult leaders just slide under

25:20the radar, their little pet ideas and pet peeves, and get everybody to, you know,

25:25buy into that. Somebody has got to say, we've got to stop the madness. We've got

25:32to stop the madness here. Exactly. I had a similar experience when I was in grade

25:38school, and I had to be pried off. And it's a story I won't get into, but it's

25:43the one and only fight I got in my life. And I'll say I won it pretty good. But

25:50you know, there's some complexity to it for me. In fact, just last night, I

25:55finished the last page of the manuscript for the book I'm working on, on Christian

26:00identity. And I have a chapter devoted to the shepherding movement. And what

26:07happened is so very strange. And in today's world, you wouldn't really even

26:12consider this. But towards the end of William Branham's life, in the latter

26:18brain movement, the deity cult was emerging. Like I said, T.L. Osborne, he

26:23worshiped William Branham as God in the flesh. He openly did. And it's very

26:28difficult because this was a secretive group. You don't know how many others in

26:32the full gospel businessmen were doing the same. They all had, I'll say it like

26:37this, they all worshiped him whether they knew it or not, because they gave him

26:40such undue reverence. And none of them critically examined what he said. And

26:46then below this series of apostles and prophets that they had created were all

26:52the subordinates. And people were actually trained and manipulated, some of

26:55them from birth, to fear prophets and not be able to critically think or

27:01critically speak out. In other words, they knew, you know, even if they knew they

27:05were a bully, they were trained not to come up against the bullies. Well, the

27:10history gets really weird because Ern Baxter was one of Branham's closest

27:16campaign members. In fact, in the early years it was called the Baxter-Branham

27:20campaigns. They toured together. He, Baxter, F.F. Bosworth was touring with

27:28him. Plus you had all the white supremacy guys and all the Christian identity guys

27:32that were in it. Gordon Lindsay was a speaker at Christian identity conferences

27:37back whenever he was highly anti-Semitic. I've got newspaper articles of this.

27:43Well, when William Branham died, after having trained all of the people that

27:47they had to submit to the authority of these apostles, prophets, the fivefold

27:53ministry basically, they held the memorial service wherein they worshiped

27:57William Branham as God. And then T.L. Osborne was supplying training materials

28:03to Eldon Purvis, who was writing the New Wine magazine. Eldon Purvis was one of

28:09the most notorious religious Christian identity figures in the nation at the

28:14time. So Christian identities forming in the shepherding movement. They're coming

28:19with leaders who were in Branham's campaigns and they're being supplied by

28:23one who's in Branham's deity cult. I mean that's how weird this gets. So what they

28:30saw was an opportunity to take over and hijack the minds that were already

28:34programmed in Branhamism. They saw it as an opportunity awaiting because Branham's

28:38dead, let's go after him. So they created a movement to catch all the fallout. And

28:43what that did, based off of what I can tell, is it just created this fertile

28:48ground where apostles and prophets could be worshiped. Now in the manuscript I go

28:52further because you mentioned the man-child, which is the manifest

28:57sons of God. That was the Joel's army theme that emerged in early years of

29:02latter rain with some of those same Christian identity cult members. In fact

29:07one of Branham's protégés, Paul Cain, resurrected the Joel's army theme for

29:12International House of Prayer and brought it all again and then elevated

29:17the apostles and prophets of the NAR to become the shepherds and recreated the

29:22shepherding movement. Yeah you're totally on to something John. You mentioned the

29:26New Wine magazine. You know I subscribed to that when I was a teenager. I always

29:31was reading New Wine magazine. That was the magazine Jamie Buckingham had a lot

29:38to do with the magazine. I knew who Jamie Buckingham was but that was a

29:43shepherdship magazine right there. I think you're on to something and this it

29:47seems like we're beating a dead horse to death again over the fact that these

29:54ministers, they're just a pattern here that you don't find when you leave this

29:58and go to a normal church. You have a normal pastor and a normal teacher. They

30:02just don't try to lord it over you as these men do and I just I think it was

30:10incumbent upon the young ministers, the 37 word ministers under Dr. Freeman, it

30:18was incumbent upon them to challenge him and they didn't. So either they didn't

30:23know that he was wrong or they knew and they were too afraid to say anything

30:28and you and I had talked that we're you know we're I'm willing to give everybody

30:34a pass. We've all a pass. We've all in our past you know made mistakes, said things

30:40we wish we wouldn't have said. You know when you get high up to the actual

30:45leader, I think they get less of a pass. Not because they themselves have not

30:50been duped by someone before but because they're just negatively affecting so

30:56many people's lives you know. I'm just a small-time operator on the outside you

31:01know. I haven't had the influence that some of these other people have had and

31:06maybe that's been a good thing for me. I've been able to look at things a

31:10little more objectively and a little more critically but whenever I did and I

31:14brought something up, I was always just shot down by Hobart and the other

31:21ministers there just knew you know don't anybody have anything to do with Chino

31:26but somehow you know I was actually teaching messages. People can go on my

31:31YouTube page and see messages with Hobart Freeman's name in the title you

31:38know because I had taught some of his stuff to my people and I wanted to undo

31:42that and I wanted it to be clear and unmistakable. We're not going to dance

31:48around the issues and topics and personalities here. We need to be

31:53unambiguous. We need to be transparent. We need to be clear. We don't have to be

31:59mean-spirited. We can do it in a spirit of love but one of the one of the

32:04kindest things John that God ever does for any of us is to correct us. That's

32:11one of the kindest things that he ever does. He doesn't have to do that. He can

32:14just annihilate us like these prophets and apostles want to just annihilate us

32:20if we disagree with them over something. Well how many times in God's eyes have

32:24we been wrong and the kindest most loving thing he can do for us is to

32:30correct us like whatever means or method. Sometimes your correction comes from

32:34your friends and sometimes it comes from your enemies but by whatever method or

32:40Avenue just that God would correct us is a very loving thing. I would ask simple

32:46questions to Dr. Freeman like on faith. I thought Dr. Freeman had a terribly

32:55unbiblical view of faith and I'll just walk people they'd say oh no he was a

33:01faith teacher. He knew everything about faith. No he didn't and I'll walk you

33:05down a real simple logical path. So what Hobart would say is no one ever dies

33:10believing. You only die doubting and if you pray the prayer of faith you always

33:14get the answer and then he'd have people who are struggling and so they

33:19pray and something doesn't go the way they had asked the Lord for it to go.

33:23Hobart would say didn't have enough faith. They didn't pray in faith. They

33:28didn't have faith and then on another tape he'd be dealing with someone who's

33:33struggling with whether or not they have enough faith and he'd quote him Romans

33:3712 3 God has dealt to every man the measure of faith. You have faith and

33:42what's the measure? Well the smallest faith you could possibly have is

33:47probably a mustard seed and that'll move a mountain or wither a fig tree. So if

33:52you've got the faith is a grain of mustard seed you have all that you can

33:56possibly have and then oh the reason it didn't work is you didn't have faith or

34:01you didn't have enough faith. He did not he knew verses very well. He did not have

34:07a biblical theology of faith. He did not have a biblical theology of divine

34:13healing. Is divine healing in the Bible? It 100% is from cover to cover. Old

34:21Testament and New Testament people were healed. Hobart had a doctrine of divine

34:27healing. He had a doctrine that said based on Isaiah 53 the suffering servant

34:35passage that healing is in the atonement. That if our sins are

34:42covered by Christ's atonement so are our sicknesses and our illnesses. They are

34:48covered in the same atonement. They're covered the same way and they are

34:53available by the same means and that is by asking God. But what I said is wait a

35:00minute there is a huge difference. I'm not denying that healing is is in some

35:07way in the atonement. I'm not denying that at all but I said wait a minute

35:12there's a huge difference between sin which is in the atonement and sickness.

35:18One of those things we commit. One of those things we catch. They are not the

35:25same thing. We commit a sin. Sometimes you just get ill. You catch an

35:32illness. You catch a cold. You didn't do anything to deserve that or to earn

35:38that. It's just something that you call. So I said that right there tells

35:43me we need to do a deeper study of what does Isaiah 53 mean. And speaking of

35:49Isaiah 53 Matthew quotes it in Matthew 8 16 and 17 as applying during Jesus

35:57earthly ministry. He said it Matthew said in verse 16 of Matthew 8 when even

36:02was come they brought unto him many that were possessed with demons and that

36:05were sick. He cast out the spirits with the word. He healed all that were sick

36:10that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet. And he's

36:16quoting Isaiah 53 and this is long before Calvary. This is before the

36:21atonement and somehow something is being fulfilled at that time. And this isn't a

36:27theological podcast John so we won't delve into that but my point I hope is

36:33well taken. It was not a well thought out theology of faith and it was not a well

36:39thought out theology of healing. There were proof texts but a proof text

36:44without a context is a pretext for nonsense is what I've always taught my

36:49students. There is a local context for that proof text and there is a broader

36:56context which is the whole of Scripture. And Scripture is not going to contradict

37:01Scripture and Scripture has to be used to interpret Scripture and that just was

37:07not happening with Dr. Freeman's teaching. Have you ever wondered how the

37:11Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism

37:15transitioned through the latter reign charismatic and other fringe movements

37:20into the New Apostolic Reformation? You can learn this and more on William

37:25Branham Historical Research's website william-branham.org. On the books

37:30page of the website you can find the compiled research of John Collins,

37:35Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others with links to the

37:40paper, audio, and digital versions of each book. You can also find resources and

37:46documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you

37:51want to contribute to the cause you can support the podcast by clicking the

37:55contribute button at the top. And as always be sure to like and subscribe to

38:00the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching. On behalf of

38:04William Branham Historical Research we want to thank you for your support.

38:09You know I laughed and I shouldn't have. It was wrong of me but when you

38:13mentioned that the gentlemen were upset because of the wet paper bag, wet

38:19theological bag thing, you know the part of the reason I laughed is because in

38:26the Branhamism it's entirely different. It would be a compliment to have said

38:32that to a Branhamite pastor because they have no theological bag. They literally

38:37just quote Branham over and over like broken records. And those same ministers

38:41if they were to sit in a Branham sermon they'd stand up and say what are you

38:45guys doing man? You're quoting this dead guy from the 60s who had no idea. He even

38:50admitted he didn't know what was in the Bible. He said I don't know the book real

38:54well but I know the author and yet I'm gonna teach you everything about it. So

38:59you know it's ironic but I think if those same men were to just go to, you

39:05can go to yourself table.branham.org. It's the headquarters website. It's got

39:10all the Branham sermons that they allow you to see. You'll notice the very first

39:14sentence says we're getting some new gadgets for recording which means they've

39:19erased all of the sermons of the old gadgets. But in any case you can search

39:24them. Every single phrase that you've mentioned to this point in this episode

39:29of the podcast you can find it in Branham. It's Branhamism 101. Write down

39:35to the atonement. By his stripes we're healed. That actually came from

39:41John Alexander Dowie not Branham. But F.F. Bosworth who toured in Branham's

39:46campaigns and was Branham's mentor was a leader in Dowie's cult in Zion, Illinois.

39:50And Bosworth trained Branham to believe that that phrase mentioned meant that

39:57whenever Christ died he died for your healing too and healing and salvation

40:02come in the same package. It's a very twisted form of the dual atonement

40:07that they teach. So I'm not getting the theology either. This is this is really

40:12just blatant history and you can you can look it up on the internet. But they

40:15taught this version of divine healing that was completely false and anyone who

40:20rose up against them were seen as the enemy by this movement. And the

40:25real problem is they, and I guess this does border into theology, because of the

40:32way British Israelism morphed into Christian identity and impacted the

40:38latter rain movement. What they did was because they had this false notion that

40:43America's of the 1900s were the descendants of the twelve tribes of

40:49Israel, lost ten tribes of Israel, and certain specific passages from the Old

40:54Testament applied to us today. When you do that you have to totally eliminate

40:59the notion of a new covenant. So all through my 36 years of Branhamism they

41:05might mention new covenant but they really didn't understand what it meant.

41:08Well I believe what you're saying John. I do definitely believe in a message of

41:15faith and healing. I do believe that's taught in the New Testament but I just

41:20don't think Hobart ever, you know, he never developed it the way it should

41:26have been developed theologically for it to be consistent. You know he talked

41:30about healing in the atonement but then people weren't allowed to wear eyeglasses.

41:35Well unless that's macular degeneration, some kind of eye disease, that's not a

41:39disease or that's not a sickness, you know. And then it went further, then

41:43broken bones, you're not allowed to go to a doctor and have a cast or anything set.

41:48And then everything just continued to progress and they didn't even go to

41:54dentist, let alone go to a dentist to fix a tooth. They wouldn't go to dentist to

41:59get their teeth clean. I'll never forget one of the last times I got to hang out

42:05with June, Mrs. Freeman. I hadn't seen her in a while and she was a sweet

42:11lady but bless her heart when she opened her mouth her teeth were green and I was

42:18just shocked and I felt so sorry. Because even if, let's just grant your

42:24healing in the atonement, your sickness and illness, let's just grant that for a

42:28moment. That didn't have anything to do with eyewear and glasses and dentist and

42:35teeth cleaning. That's what I mean by the lack of theological clarity and precision

42:43in the area of faith and healing. If you're going to teach on that and you

42:48should, the New Testament is full of teaching on faith and healing. If you're

42:53going to do that, you need to be responsible and you need to have

42:57clarity and precision. Because when you don't and you just run to these verses,

43:03by stripes were healed. If you just run to the verses and you quote the

43:09verses, then what happens is because you haven't filled in background

43:15information, because you have not put the flesh on the bones, people just

43:20have to start figuring out in their own mind and they're watching what others

43:24are doing. Wow, okay, all of my healing is covered in the atonement and then it

43:29became real minute. Okay, well what actually is a sickness or an illness?

43:34What is that? What is just normal? You're confused. What's

43:40covered in the atonement? What is it? It's just easier to say, well, anything

43:44medical. Whenever Hobart at the end brought in how evil the MDs, the medical

43:51deities were, that they all have a background in sorcery and witchcraft,

43:55then for sure you don't want to have anything to do with them. So you've got

44:00these people dying. You have these people not driving. You have husbands

44:05whose wives could see and they couldn't, so they have to surrender their driver's

44:09license and their wives or friends drive them to and from work and their wives

44:14drive the family to and from church all the time. I mean, John, it was just a mess.

44:21So I was critical of Dr. Freeman's doctrine of divine healing and his

44:27doctrine of faith. Even though he thought he was the only man who had been

44:34given the pure uncompromising faith message for the end times, he could not

44:41fight his way out of a wet theological bag. If you sat down with a group of

44:48trained biblical people and you raise biblically valid questions on faith and

44:55healing with where Hobart ended up on his view, he couldn't have gotten himself

45:02out of a bag either. And let's don't anyone forget the man who taught all of

45:07this, God love him and bless his heart, but the man that taught all of this died

45:11of everything he said that he would not die from. You know, the way in which

45:18that this was presented in this movement was so twisted. There were a lot

45:25of people who were opposed to the divine healers, and they would quote it,

45:30divine healers as such. If you read through the newspapers, it got so

45:35tremendous that if you do a search for William Branham, you're going to find

45:39his halo photograph, you know, with the lighting above his head, which it's

45:43fully debunked. If you go to my website, these guys in the Full Gospel

45:47Businessmen Voice of Healing, they claimed that it was the only supernatural

45:51light ever taken, and they don't mention that basketball players and the Beatles

45:55had the same exact halo over their heads in the photos, because that was the

45:59lighting in the Sam Houston Coliseum. But that photo exists because of a debate

46:04between a Baptist minister, F. F. Bosworth and William Branham, wherein the

46:08Baptist minister said, I truly believe that God heals. The Bible clearly says

46:14that God heals. But there's nowhere in the Bible that says that I have to have

46:18a human being that is my intercessor between God and my healing. There's

46:25nothing that even remotely suggests this. And so they held this big debate, and

46:31ironically, Branham tells this story, and I think it may even be published in the

46:36one of the magazines, I can't remember which, but they say it's the only

46:41roll of film that developed. God would not allow the photographs to be taken of

46:46any of the debate except for my halo photo, basically. What I found in the

46:51newspapers back then, they had a whole slew of photographs, and the two men

46:56fighting, I started reading through the article, it actually broke out in a fist

47:00fight. The men on the divine healing side, they got so frustrated, I

47:06guess they got tied in a theological knot, because they, too, couldn't fight

47:11their way out of a wet theological bag. And so they decided, okay, we're just

47:15gonna take up fists, and we're gonna fight our way out of it. And they had to,

47:20the man's name was Reverend Best, they had to get him out of the building

47:25before they attacked him. It was that bad. And that's how this movement trains you.

47:29It trains you to be so polarized against somebody who doesn't think and

47:35see things the way that you do, that you want to fight them. And it's just totally

47:39wrong. This is not Christianity at all. Yeah, I mean, there's so many things there,

47:44John. I didn't want to fight Dr. Freeman or any of the other ministers, I

47:48just wanted a discussion. So let's sit down and debate and dialogue. And the

47:54William Branham halo, I just love the William Branham halo, because I was

47:5918 years old, I was a freshman at the University of Mississippi, and I've told

48:03you a little bit of the story before, but I had enough time to not only do my

48:08school studies, but I was just buying everything I could buy from all of the

48:13healing revivalists. And right at that time, a professor at the University of

48:18Alabama, Birmingham, Dr. David Edwin Harrell, had come out with this book

48:23entitled, All Things Are Possible. And it was going to be the factual history of

48:28the whole healing revival. And one of the pictures on the front cover was that

48:34halo over William Branham. And did I believe that was real? Absolutely, I

48:40believe that was real. And then you open it and you get the pictures inside the

48:44book. And I just thought, wow, well, I came later, not to believe that, not

48:50because I had any evidence, which you have provided us with. I just knew

48:55William Branham's a false prophet. So I don't, I don't believe anything about

48:59him. What do you do with the halo? I don't care about halos, you know, none

49:03of that means anything to me. I was able to reject all that stuff without

49:09historical proof. And then I see what you have been able to show people are

49:14pictures in that same coliseum of the same halo over other people. And when I

49:21saw that, I go, I knew there had to be an explanation. I didn't know what it

49:25was. It's either a demon manifesting, it's not God, it's either a demon, or

49:30there's some normal explanation. And thankfully, you were able to give me

49:34that. But, you know, Hobart criticized me from the pulpit. I did not want to get

49:39into a physical fight. But I did want to get into a theological fight, quote

49:44unquote, a discussion. I think iron does sharpen iron. I think we can all help

49:51each other. I think we all have blinders on. It's some part of our theological

49:58perception. And you need some, you need some help to get out of that. So yeah,

50:04the ministers did not like what I said. I think they probably can fight their

50:09way out of a lot of theological bags. Now some of them, the better ones can.

50:13Just not a weapon.

50:16Okay, a weapon, let's include that. No, some of the some of these guys, and I

50:22can't speak for all I only know, the ones that I know, some of them are very

50:26sharp. One of them, especially in biblical languages like Hebrew, man, he

50:31could dance circles around me. You know, I'll ride his coattails for stuff like

50:36that. But it was hard, hard, hard for me as a 20 something year old minister, to

50:43think that my leader might have led me astray. And that was difficult. That was

50:49difficult to process. Because, you know, we all want to follow someone who's

50:54perfect. You know, we don't want to have to think for ourself. We all want

50:58someone that we can say, hey, you know, if he said it, you know, we can take it

51:02to the bank. But unfortunately, that's not true. It's not true for any of us who

51:07are leaders. And so everyone who's a follower just needs to beware of, you

51:15know, we need to be like the Bereans. There's such a thing as being a more

51:20noble versus a less noble person. And Paul said in Acts 1711, that the Bereans

51:26were more noble. And he described in what way they were more noble. They

51:32received what Paul said, but they didn't stop there. So they went home and they

51:37searched the Scriptures daily to see if what this apostle, the Apostle Paul, he

51:43was definitely writing what he said. They didn't take it at face value. They went

51:49home and searched the Scriptures daily to see if those things were so. But it

51:54was difficult for me to make the challenge, but I did it. And then a few

52:01years after that, let me just give you one more thing, John. I don't want to

52:05keep you on too long, but I told everyone before that Dr. John Davis, who was a

52:10student of Dr. Freeman's at Grace Seminary when Hobart was still teaching

52:15there on faculty, Dr. John Davis happened to get the exact same degrees as Hobart.

52:21He majored in Hebrew and Old Testament. And Dr. Freeman was his mentor. And in

52:27late September of 1983, Dr. Davis did a series of four articles for the Warsaw

52:34Times Union newspaper. And here is something he said. And when I read this,

52:40because I was still a young minister in 1983, when I read this, he said,

52:47you know, I think I'm doing okay. I think I'm on the right path. Here's what he

52:52said. Anyone contemplating leaving Faith Assembly is warned about various

52:58judgments which God would bring upon them. Jack Farrell, one of the associate

53:03pastors, put it this way in a recent message. A young man recently left our

53:09ministry and just upped and died. A crushing silence settled over the entire

53:15congregation. The implications were obvious. But in spite of the threats of

53:23doom, a number of former ministers, members, have indicated that with less

53:28and less exposure to Freeman, many would drift away from the assembly to other

53:33charismatic congregations. Because most of the ministers, Dr. Davis said quote

53:39unquote, in the assembly, he's talking about the 37 word ministries, have no

53:46formal theological education apart from that which they have received here and

53:51are at best a pale imitation of Freeman. Messages by his associate ministers that

53:59I have heard at the assembly or on tape, and I've heard more than 40, were shallow,

54:05poorly organized, full of biblical references taken out of context, replete

54:13with absurd generalizations about other churches or denominations, saturated

54:19with veiled threats, and redundant beyond imagination. That's coming from a

54:26graduate level teacher, a seminary level professor, who definitely not only knows

54:33his Bible, but he's professionally trained, he's professionally educated.

54:38That was his take, not my take. You know, this is the third party's take. That was

54:44his take on the 37 word ministers. And I happen to agree because I had felt the

54:52same thing before I ever read what he said. So look, to the ministers from Faith

54:58Assembly that I spoke with, I think they are good Christian men. They're in their

55:03own ministry spreading the gospel, teaching people the Bible, or decades

55:08later, I'm sure we all have much sounder theology than we did back then. You know,

55:14love to everyone who is going further and deeper with the Lord, but I guess the

55:23lesson learned is anytime a minister stands up and tells you something

55:28and then says, believe it because I said it, just walk out the door. He does not

55:33deserve an audience because you're not treating your people with the respect

55:38they deserve. They are people, they are Christians, they need to come to their

55:42own conclusion. Yes, you can help point them down the right path, but do it in a

55:48godly, biblical fashion. And you're just responsible for the input, you're not

55:54responsible for the output. You've given your input, that's what you're

55:59responsible for as a Christian minister. Let these people figure it out on their

56:04own. And they either agree with what you've taught or they don't. And God

56:10bless us all, John, in our pursuit of learning God's Word.

56:14You know, you made a comment earlier that I fully agree with. It doesn't matter if

56:19you're wrong, if you're consistently wrong. It shows that you're not trying to

56:25fool people. That's really for me. I have a real problem with ministers who are

56:31deceptive. Even today in my journey after we left the cult, I've tried several

56:35different churches. I'm not gonna lie, I sat in a few which I really felt like

56:40the minister was being a little bit deceptive. We walked out of the door and

56:44that was the last time that we went there. It's that bad. Not all churches are

56:48like that. And I'm a person who studies on my own. I really, the minister for me,

56:55a pastor is supposed to be someone who is helping you learn. And I take the

57:01initiative that I learn on my own. And what I've found is that I can find two

57:06respected ministers who everyone looks up to for their theology, who fully

57:11disagree on certain passages that, in my opinion, are fundamental passages that

57:17are really important. But they see it one way and the other guy sees it the

57:20other way, which you're gonna choose. And in the cult, you're taught a very

57:25black or white mentality. It's right or it's wrong. And in the real world, it's

57:30not like this. Not everybody sees things eye to eye, and that's why you have all

57:34of these Christian denominations. Everybody had their points that they saw

57:39as the most important, and they chose a denominational path that led them there.

57:45So to the ministers who were maybe offended by that statement, you have to

57:52think outside the box just a little bit because everybody has a difference of

57:56opinion. It's just that back then, Hobart is no exception to this rule. There

58:01was a lot of deception. The point I'm trying to make is try and be consistent.

58:07Like Cheno said, don't be deceptive. If you're wrong, admit you're wrong and

58:12change your ways. That's really the bottom line for me. Anyway, Cheno, this

58:17has been fun. I know it's an unusual series of podcasts, but for the

58:21people of Faith Assembly, I think it'll really, really help them. So thank you so

58:26much for doing this. I hope so, John. You're welcome. If you've enjoyed our

58:31show and you want more information, check us out on the web. You can find us at

58:35William-Branham.org. For an overview of the historical research of William

58:40Branham and the healing revivals, read Preacher Behind the White Hoods, a

58:43critical examination of William Branham and his message. Available on Amazon,

58:48Kindle, and Audible.

Faith Assembly 2024 Update Part 3 - Episode 182 William Branham Historical Research Podcast

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