Support the show:
https://www.patreon.com/branham
Available on Spotify, Google, and Apple Podcasts:
https://william-branham.org/podcast
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
John and Jed discuss the complex emotional and spiritual journey of recovering from high-control religious environments. John opens up about avoiding the topic of what he believes after leaving the group, explaining that attempts to share his personal faith journey were often hijacked by others with agendas. Jed shares his parallel experience leaving a prophetic movement, highlighting the pain of being labeled bitter for asking hard questions. Both reflect on the toxic expectations within their former communities that dictated how people were allowed to process pain, and how those expectations often forced people to suppress their questions or leave entirely.
Together, they explore the difficulty of finding community after leaving, the discomfort of joining new religious spaces, and the realization that many expressions of faith still carry exclusionary tendencies. Jed reflects on how certain Bible stories, once seen as acts of faith, now carry a very different weight due to personal experiences. John shares his journey into early church history and ancient writings in a search for understanding outside of denominational boxes. They conclude by affirming that healing requires space for doubt, sadness, and unresolved questions—and that real growth happens when those experiences are not dismissed but embraced with compassion.
00:00 Introduction
01:03 Why John Avoided the Question About His Faith
04:50 The Pressure to Explain Pain Without an Agenda
10:13 The Struggle of Rebuilding Faith in a New Context
16:04 Experimenting With Church Life and Denominations
23:33 Core Beliefs, Tradition, and the Question of Truth
29:18 Realizing How Belief Systems Shape Exclusion
36:07 Jed’s Divorce and the Intersection of Faith and Grief
43:01 The Ongoing Impact of Spiritual Trauma
49:51 Two Types of Christianity and the Difficulty of Belonging
56:10 The Need for Honesty, Sadness, and Healing in Spiritual Life
1:01:17 Final Reflections on the Journey of Belief
______________________
– 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
https://www.patreon.com/branham
Available on Spotify, Google, and Apple Podcasts:
https://william-branham.org/podcast
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
John and Jed discuss the complex emotional and spiritual journey of recovering from high-control religious environments. John opens up about avoiding the topic of what he believes after leaving the group, explaining that attempts to share his personal faith journey were often hijacked by others with agendas. Jed shares his parallel experience leaving a prophetic movement, highlighting the pain of being labeled bitter for asking hard questions. Both reflect on the toxic expectations within their former communities that dictated how people were allowed to process pain, and how those expectations often forced people to suppress their questions or leave entirely.
Together, they explore the difficulty of finding community after leaving, the discomfort of joining new religious spaces, and the realization that many expressions of faith still carry exclusionary tendencies. Jed reflects on how certain Bible stories, once seen as acts of faith, now carry a very different weight due to personal experiences. John shares his journey into early church history and ancient writings in a search for understanding outside of denominational boxes. They conclude by affirming that healing requires space for doubt, sadness, and unresolved questions—and that real growth happens when those experiences are not dismissed but embraced with compassion.
00:00 Introduction
01:03 Why John Avoided the Question About His Faith
04:50 The Pressure to Explain Pain Without an Agenda
10:13 The Struggle of Rebuilding Faith in a New Context
16:04 Experimenting With Church Life and Denominations
23:33 Core Beliefs, Tradition, and the Question of Truth
29:18 Realizing How Belief Systems Shape Exclusion
36:07 Jed’s Divorce and the Intersection of Faith and Grief
43:01 The Ongoing Impact of Spiritual Trauma
49:51 Two Types of Christianity and the Difficulty of Belonging
56:10 The Need for Honesty, Sadness, and Healing in Spiritual Life
1:01:17 Final Reflections on the Journey of Belief
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00:30Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.
00:00:36I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research
00:00:41at william-branham.org, and with me I have my co-host and friend, Jed Hartley, son of a prophet
00:00:47and former member of the International House of Prayer. Jed, son of a prophet, it's good to have
00:00:54you back, and I'm dreading this episode a little bit because this is a topic that I have largely
00:01:01avoided from January 1st, 2012 until now. There was a period of time when I thought I could answer it
00:01:08well, but as I'll get in and explain the reasons why, I somewhat avoid where my mind has went after
00:01:17the cult, and everybody wants to know. It's the number one email I get. You'll find it in the
00:01:22comment feeds. Everybody's thinking, how did it affect you being in this thing, and then after
00:01:27you left, what happened? And so you brought it up. I'm going to try to address it, and I'll do my best
00:01:34not to proselytize people in my belief systems. Well, and to avoid having to answer the question
00:01:43myself, I'll just keep asking you questions and prodding you deeper on your perspective.
00:01:49Right. Does that sound good? I don't know about that, man.
00:01:54All right. I'll jump into it with you, I guess. Awesome. So yeah, it's, like I said, it's been one
00:02:00of the things that commonly people want to know, and I guess I'll take back something that I
00:02:08previously said. There was a period of time when I was fairly open, and that whole YouTube site got
00:02:14brought down by the cult, so you really can't see it. So people only see what exists now. But the
00:02:20reason why it changed is after I had the first website and YouTube site, all of that, the information
00:02:29started getting out there. People started to be aware, hey, William Branham's a fraud. Look at all
00:02:33of this. And so people were starting to invite me to share my, they called it my testimony, but
00:02:41really, they wanted to pry in my head and figure out what I knew. But what I found is, after you got
00:02:48so deep into it, people wanted to use me like a guinea pig. And for a variety of reasons, people
00:02:55wanted to, like, you find these people that, and you've, I'm sure you're aware that they exist, but
00:03:01out on YouTube, you find people who are doing religious sort of podcasts, maybe similar to mine,
00:03:07maybe not, but they really, really have an agenda. And once you get on their podcast and they start
00:03:15talking to you, say, I have no agenda. I'm just sharing here the facts, you know. But once I get
00:03:22on there, they want to try to reinforce that agenda on my head. And it's just, it's so wrong. It is,
00:03:30it goes against every moral fiber for me to try to be that way with somebody who has just came through
00:03:36what we did. But after so many times of people playing guinea pig with John, I just said, okay,
00:03:43I'm, I'm just going to avoid the question altogether. That makes a lot of sense. And I,
00:03:48um, I kind of have been in the same, or I've felt the same tension, because the only thing that I have
00:03:56ever wanted to convince people of is that there were these huge issues that were going on and are
00:04:06still going on within IHOP and the corollary ministries, like the, my, the only thing that
00:04:14I'm like, okay, if you just hear me out on these things, is that like, this was the abusive tendencies
00:04:21that Mike Bickle was doing. These were the abusive tendencies that Bob Hartley was doing. And this
00:04:25is the prophetic history. And this is how it was manipulated. Like, those are the things that I
00:04:30feel a need to, um, I don't know, convince, um, to share the information that I have very, like,
00:04:39uh, persuasively and, and clearly as possible with the hope that people would believe me. And,
00:04:45but then from there on, I don't, I, it is not my prerogative to like, um, contend with what people
00:04:54ought to believe after that. And like, there's, I would love that if, if people identify with some
00:04:59of my struggles and experiences, but if people go into, even if they go back to IHOP, even if they
00:05:07go back to Bethel and, and are still a part of these organizations, like everybody's got their own
00:05:14journey and their own experiences. My, my job is not to like, convince that everyone has to see
00:05:19the world the same way that I do. Um, but it's very difficult because you have these questions
00:05:25and you don't know when people are asking you these questions of like, okay, tell me about the
00:05:30fallout. Tell me about how you have separated your faith from your father's faith or from your
00:05:35experiences with your father or with Mike Bickle. You don't know if they're wanting to do it because
00:05:41they genuinely are curious about your journey or if they have agendas of like, because this person
00:05:48is raising red flags about this, if I can discredit them here, or if I can, you know, um, argue against
00:05:56their belief system or whatever. It just, it is really difficult. It's a really difficult space to
00:06:02navigate. And I so appreciate you and I so appreciate this podcast. Um, and the, I don't, I don't think that
00:06:09I've ever broken the fourth wall and spoken to the listeners, but, um, thank you listeners who are
00:06:15listening. And, uh, I've had a lot of people who have reached out to me very weirdly where I'm like,
00:06:22I didn't, I didn't even know that people were paying attention. People were watching. And I knew
00:06:27that. I don't mean that about me. I know that you are quite famous, John, and that everybody loves
00:06:32your podcast, but, um, you know, just that people have been seeing this series and we'll reach out
00:06:40and, um, express that they appreciate what I'm saying. And that's, that's super meaningful. So
00:06:45like, if there ever is a time and a place to talk about some of these difficult questions,
00:06:51I appreciate that this is the space to do it. And it's a welcoming space. I think part of the reason
00:06:57why I get so many questions and why people try to proselytize. I'm saying that wrong,
00:07:02that word incorrectly, I think proselytize, proselytize. It's my tongue doesn't want to do
00:07:07that. But I, part of the reason I avoid it is that I remember just how uncomfortable it felt when
00:07:15somebody was doing it to me. And it, if you've ever gone through something like we've gone through and
00:07:22you have watched that person do that to you, you'll never do that to somebody else because it
00:07:27is the most offensive thing that you can do to a person. And, um, if you, I, I would love to have
00:07:34become a psychologist in my, if I had my life to do over, but if you study psychology, they talk about
00:07:41the negative effects of doing this to a person. You really limit their growth. And even if you,
00:07:47maybe your intentions are good and you want to lead them down the path that you think is the right
00:07:51way. Well, if you force them down that path, you may prevent them from actually making it
00:07:55down that path. So there's a lot to be said about letting people find their own journey.
00:08:02And that's why I welcome everybody. I, you know, what you believe, what you don't believe,
00:08:07even if you don't believe at all, you're welcome to share your story. And I've learned quite a bit
00:08:13from having a platform that was that welcoming. So I think it's, I think it's a good safe place for
00:08:18people to come and talk. Yeah, I I've said it. I've said it before. I think I've said it on this
00:08:24podcast, but it's, it's worth reiterating. Like there's this huge amount. I might have even just
00:08:30said it last week, but there's this, this huge amount of, um, expectation that is placed upon people
00:08:37who, um, are in pain, um, or people who have gone through, um, painful experiences within the church.
00:08:45And there's this sort of like right and wrong way to process that pain is how it is treated. Like,
00:08:55you know, just as well as I like it, there's so often people will be like, Oh, Jedediah is a bitter
00:09:02man because of the things that he experienced, or he's, you know, because I'm processing or because
00:09:09I'm having this pain with the world that I grew up in, people will label me as, as bitter,
00:09:15or angry, or can, you know, have all of these sort of manners in which I am measured. And like,
00:09:24of course, people are bitter. Of course, people are angry. Of course, people are hurt. Like I'm
00:09:29trying my best not to talk from a place of bitterness and anger and contempt towards everyone.
00:09:35Like I, I'm trying to, um, measure my emotions with, with wisdom. But again, it's this,
00:09:45it's just people have, people experience pain in different ways. And if like people are spend five
00:09:53years being purely angry because the, uh, spiritual father that they were raised with was like secretly
00:10:00grooming teenagers, that's a really fair and appropriate response. And we shouldn't get in
00:10:07this business of telling people how they ought to handle their own pain. Um, and I think that this,
00:10:14one of the biggest things in the church community that I was raised in that was pervasive throughout the
00:10:18whole community was that there was this really very toxic expectation that you, this is how you ought
00:10:26to handle pain. And this is how you ought to do it. Like you can have pain, you can have anger,
00:10:33but you can't upset the apple cart. And if you ask questions about God, or if you ask questions about
00:10:38the institution, or if you ask questions about the leadership, then, you know, it's okay to have
00:10:46those questions, but just don't do it in a way that, that ruffles feathers. And I think that that's
00:10:52really wrong. I think people should be given space to ask questions. And if people were given space
00:10:58to ask questions, and if people were given space to express their pain and be bitter for a little
00:11:04while, maybe not as many people would be leaving the church altogether. Because like, if you have a
00:11:10lot of pain and bitterness and you're not able to express it and under, you know, have any sense of
00:11:17working through it with the community that you love, then you're going to have to find another
00:11:22community. You know, you're either going to have to suppress it and pretend to be someone you're
00:11:26not, or you're going to have to find another community. Absolutely. And that's, you know,
00:11:32part of the reason why I do it in the way that I do is because of the community. People need to get
00:11:39involved in a community. Right. And I, I almost threw out some denomination names and I caught myself,
00:11:46but if I were to have joined denomination a, and right, then proudly told everybody who is asking,
00:11:53what do you believe now that I joined Christian denomination a, the sad truth is there are people
00:11:59listening who have been so bruised and burned by the cults, that they'll all flock to that because
00:12:05John said it. And I don't want that because, you know, this is a journey you have to make, I largely
00:12:11avoid it. And honestly, it's a journey that I'm still on. And I openly admit that I don't expect
00:12:20to land, you know, where most people usually come to some sort of position, what it is that they
00:12:27consider their firm foundation, probably about my age or maybe 10 years before. I never got that.
00:12:34I never had that, that, that experience. So I'm on a journey of learning. And I expect that what I'm
00:12:42going to learn may change what I believe and how. And that's the reason why all of these denominations
00:12:47exist in the first place, because people come up with different ends to end roads for their journey.
00:12:54And I don't want to steer somebody down one path or another. But what I can say is that when people
00:13:01ask me about what happened, what do I believe after I left, I usually point them back to what
00:13:07was erased whenever the cult brought everything down. Whenever we first left the cult, I told my
00:13:15family that I wasn't leaving Christianity at all, but I no longer believe this false prophet guy. And I
00:13:22said it in not those words, in a really nice way. I said, you know, I, we just no longer believe that
00:13:28way. But, and we told my family, which church we started to attend. And it was a local church.
00:13:35It's about, I don't know, five minutes that direction from my house. It wasn't long after
00:13:41that, that we started getting cult people drive up and stare at us and glare at us as we're walking
00:13:49into the building, trying to bully and pressure us. Right. So that was a big mistake. I should have
00:13:54never mentioned it in the first place. And then we started, I did openly talk about where we went and
00:14:01people started making the same decisions. And I realized this is just not the way to do it.
00:14:06And so now I just, I literally talk about, you know, after I left, we tried several different
00:14:12denominations, which is true. We tried everything from the, um, smoke and fog machine, miniature
00:14:20mega churches, which I'm not a big fan of. I will say that I will openly say that everything from
00:14:27there to some really small, you know, one step above a home church, but it was just a small group
00:14:33of people. And so we tried, I wanted a variety of experiences. We even tried some of the ones that
00:14:40the denominations that we were supposed to feel like they had grown apostate. We wanted to see
00:14:48what that was like. And we found out there's some really good people in there and they,
00:14:53they believe quite differently than I did. But as we started to understand why they did, they all,
00:15:00like any denomination, they can point you to what is their favorite passages from the Bible that
00:15:05supports what is their faith. Yeah. And did you, so when you found these different communities,
00:15:14these smaller church communities that had what you considered previously to be apostate beliefs,
00:15:21did that, were you pressured or felt maybe not even externally pressured, but just internally,
00:15:28did you feel this sense of like, I need to rethink what is, you know, genuine beliefs and what is not,
00:15:37or were you a part of that community and being like, they believe this, maybe I'll, I'll, I'll think
00:15:44about it, but they're going to believe that. And I'm going to still hold these principles. And it's
00:15:49really, I just need to be around people who don't share the exact same beliefs, but just share a sense
00:15:54of community. For me, because of my analytical mind, it was kind of, all of it was kind of an experiment.
00:16:00Yeah. And, and I say that loosely because we did join as a community. In fact, joining was a big
00:16:07deal for us. We were taught that if you joined a denomination, you had taken the mark of the beast.
00:16:12And once I proved that the man who said this was a con artist, I realized, okay, he lied,
00:16:18but in the back of your head, you have that fear. So one of my bucket list items that I had was I
00:16:24wanted to join and see what it was like. And I was expecting to feel this overwhelming doom,
00:16:30just like the shadow of something hit me. And it, it didn't, you know, it was nothing else,
00:16:37but I got to go hear the accounting and the financial reports every once a month in the,
00:16:43you know, after service, which that was kind of cool. They, um, in the Branham cult churches,
00:16:50you never knew where your money went, but in this particular church, it was right down to the
00:16:55rolls of toilet paper. They're buying, here's where your money is going. And they would hand you a
00:17:00stack of papers like that. So it was a, it was a journey. It was a learning experience, but to your
00:17:07question. So the problem came in probably, I want to say it took me two years before it really hit me.
00:17:15I didn't fit in. And no matter which church I tried, I didn't fit in. Yeah. That's a very common
00:17:21thing. Every single person in a support group says we, we tried it. We didn't fit in. And therefore
00:17:27we went to denomination X, which is like one step away from what they escaped. That's usually what
00:17:34happens. Right. Yeah. And so there came a point at which I decided, okay, I'm going to take this as
00:17:43though. I've been born anew and I'm a child. My parents are teaching me. I'm learning. What is,
00:17:50what is Christianity? What is my faith? And I started asking the dumbest questions. Like I'm
00:17:57sure they were annoyed with me, but I was asking just the basic things. So Jesus died and raised from
00:18:03the dead. Why do you believe this? And they would go to the passages. And what, what are the,
00:18:09what are the top 10 things that you think is most important to define yourself as a Christian? What
00:18:14are they? And denomination A would give me their 10. Denomination B would give me a different 10.
00:18:22It was like, there was some mixture, but it was like they each had their own idea of what Christianity
00:18:27was. So there, for me, there came a point at which I just, I took a step back from all of it.
00:18:33And I started studying to no end, studying the ancient early church as it was being formed.
00:18:41Who are the early church fathers? They're mentioning them in the sermons that I'm listening to. Who are
00:18:47they? What did they believe? And I found an excellent resource online. I can't remember the name of the
00:18:53website, but they had literally every of every one of the early church fathers, they had whatever
00:18:59writings existed and you could download PDFs. So I'm reading some of the strangest things by how
00:19:07the early church was formed, but that was their worldview and their mindset back then. And I came
00:19:13to understand as you're reading through it, you can kind of see how it evolves and shapes and becomes
00:19:19what it is today. So for me, I just finally took a step back and said, okay, I'm going to figure out
00:19:25for myself, what is, what is this thing that we call Christianity?
00:19:29I imagine that was not, um, uh, a quick process.
00:19:35Absolutely not.
00:19:37I'm glad you got it figured out though. So if, you know, if you want to, uh, off air, you know,
00:19:42tell me what the top 10 things actually are. That would be great. Um, well, we'll, we'll draw it
00:19:49out to keep people keep, you know, you don't want to give all the answers to everybody and then,
00:19:54then they won't listen to the next podcast.
00:19:57You know, it's funny because they, because you said that we'll have people who say, well,
00:20:03if you can't be a Christian, if you don't believe X, Y, and Z, it must be right. And what's
00:20:08interesting is some of the things that usually they put in their top 10, you don't find them
00:20:13in all of the gospels. And so you're, you're faced with the question, well, if it was that
00:20:19important and this is a person who's testifying that this is Christianity, this is the gospel.
00:20:24Why didn't they include it in the gospel? And so that led me also to come to understand that some
00:20:30of the things that we were trained to believe was part of core Christianity. It largely exists
00:20:39because of a tradition and whether the idea is right or wrong, whether you believe it or you
00:20:43don't believe it, it's, it has become part of a tradition and it wasn't so important for the
00:20:49authors of the gospels.
00:20:51That's, I, the bit, one of the biggest, like if you had asked 15 year old Jed, what the,
00:20:58what is in the top 10 of the most important, you know, beliefs to, that make you a Christian,
00:21:06a good Christian. Um, one of the ones that I would have in there was that, uh, it was post
00:21:14tribulation rapture that not, not just that there's going to be, you know, not just dispensationalism,
00:21:21but like that there was going to be a tribulation and then there was going to be a rapture and that
00:21:27there was going to be an end times and that end times was coming quickly, but like specifically not
00:21:33the, the, oh, what was the, the left behind series, not the left behind series version where people
00:21:40are, uh, all the Christians are, are sucked up into heaven before the tribulation happens, but that
00:21:47we will suffer through the tribulation, um, and that we will be an army of God that is raised up to
00:21:54fight against the antichrist and stuff. But I remember having so many arguments and, and that was the
00:22:02main thing that I sort of had like a robust apologetic to, to defend, say where in scripture I could find
00:22:12it and why that fit with the narrative of who Jesus was and who God was and everything like that.
00:22:20And now I think back, well, not even now, I mean, I think in my twenties, I thought back and was like,
00:22:28why does this matter? You know, even in a day-to-day living, like if we're not in the tribulation,
00:22:35you know, it doesn't matter at all. It's good to have some of those theories in case,
00:22:41oh, we do enter into the tribulation. And if we don't get raptured, hey, I can be like, oh,
00:22:46this is why it's not because you're not Christian. It's because this is, you know,
00:22:50but like on my day-to-day life, did it affect how I was going about my life? And in only
00:22:57some senses, the, the, obviously the apocalyptic beliefs did affect how I lived my life for the
00:23:05negative, as we have talked about on many occasions, but it was just like, there are these,
00:23:11so we've talked so many times about these really minute little doctrinal differences
00:23:19that become something. I mean, people have died over what type of baptism is right. And when you
00:23:30should baptize someone like there's wars have been waged about these things that just don't really
00:23:40change your day-to-day living and experiences. And I like cannot fathom the idea of a God
00:23:48that we would get to heaven and it would be like the DMV, you know, like this is, this is many
00:23:55people's conceptions of like, I was raised with a DMV God, where if you didn't have the proper
00:24:01paperwork and there was no like clear, you know, documentation of exactly what paperwork you need
00:24:07to be on. Everybody had, you go talk to every pastor and they're going to give you a different
00:24:12list of what you need to bring into heaven. But you have to have this belief and this belief and
00:24:19this belief. And if so, then you will be rewarded in heaven. Or depending on your view of salvation,
00:24:29you might not even get into heaven on this. And I was like, I just cannot, cannot imagine that I,
00:24:36any version of a God where I'm like, I really tried my best to love people and love others and
00:24:41love God. And I believed that baptism was this way. And that's what my community told me. And God
00:24:51is like, uh, nope, you had to be dipped in this particular way, or you had to be this age before
00:24:58you were baptized. I just can't imagine not only that God would be like that, but why people would
00:25:06want to have, why would you want to worship a version of God like that, that it's legalistic and
00:25:13is, um, exclusionary trying his best to make sure that people don't make it. And I do, I do realize
00:25:22I am going to be ruffling feathers by saying all of this. And I hope that you guys get mad at me and
00:25:29not John on this one. Um, but I, this, I just wish that there was this, this, um, a much more
00:25:41compassionate spirit of acceptance. And we understand why there isn't a spirit of acceptance in the
00:25:47Christian community, because for some reasons, this isn't, I'm not saying this is the only reason,
00:25:52but acceptance was, was the
00:25:56kryptonite to cults. Like you could not lead a cult and have people with a
00:26:06general sense of appreciation and acceptance, even for other Christians, like in our cults that we were
00:26:14a part of, whether you were playing stringed instruments or whether you were listening to
00:26:20secular music or whether you believed in the post-tribulation rapture or the pre-tribulation
00:26:25rapture or whether you were dispensationalist or you were, you know, um, whatever the, if you believe
00:26:34to that revelations was already fulfilled and in, uh, 300 AD, you know, these, these different beliefs,
00:26:43these are all sort of exclusionary beliefs that if you believe them, that you couldn't be a part of the
00:26:48community. And this was done in order not to get people into heaven, not to make them better people, but to make them more
00:26:59malleable and to make sure that they don't leave the community, that they keep their heads down, that they stay within the
00:27:05cult, that they're scared to leave, that they're scared to talk to the other group. If the church down the road is just as
00:27:14acceptable as IHOP, then why would, then people are going to leave the International House of Prayer? You know, why are you
00:27:22going to be in a place that requires you to spend 40 hours in the prayer room when you could go down to the Baptist church
00:27:29down the road and find good community there and find good, you know, spiritual fulfillment? So they had to
00:27:37have these thick boundaries upon what was accepted and what wasn't. And I, and I think that this
00:27:48cascades through all of Christianity in America right now. I don't think that it's just the, obviously it's
00:27:55extreme in cult communities, but I have had a lot of people, um, even in more conventional mainstream, uh, religious
00:28:03communities have the same sort of symptoms of these exclusionary, you have to think the way that I think, otherwise you
00:28:10can't be a part of my community. And I just don't understand it.
00:28:14Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism
00:28:20transition through the latter reign, charismatic, and other fringe movements into the new apostolic
00:28:26reformation? You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website,
00:28:32william-branham.org. On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John
00:28:39Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio,
00:28:46and digital versions of each book. You can also find resources and documentation on various people
00:28:53and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the
00:28:59podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top. And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to
00:29:05the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching. On behalf of William Branham Historical
00:29:10Research, we want to thank you for your support. So in your DMV example, it would be a situation where
00:29:18if you don't believe in the rapture as I do, you're not going to drive and Jesus is not going to take
00:29:23the wheel this time, buddy. Right, right, right. You know, so one of the churches we visited and
00:29:30attended for a while, it was the same way that you're describing. They were very adamant that you
00:29:35believed exactly whatever it was that there was their doctrine. I'm not going to say what it was.
00:29:40And the minister would give examples of how he would be like on the subway in New York City,
00:29:48and he would just look at the person next to him and say, hey, did you know you're going to hell?
00:29:53And that was his way of proselytizing them. And I'm sitting there thinking, you know, number one,
00:30:00if some freak did this to me on the subway, I would just look the other way. I would ignore this guy.
00:30:05And number two, I don't know that God wants him to behave this way. This is not how you treat other
00:30:11people. And it was a learning journey for me. That was a major milestone in my journey coming to that
00:30:19realization because I began to realize that the version of God that was being portrayed, not just
00:30:26in the cult, but even like you said, even to some of the mainstream religions, it was such a weak God
00:30:33that it required the human to intervene. And Bob Scott and I have talked about this some. I don't
00:30:41think we've hit it really hard. But in the ancient world, there was this idea of the divine council.
00:30:47And in the pagan worlds, there were, you know, gods and goddesses. Whenever you're in a
00:30:53polytheistic religion, they often had chaos because the gods would be at war with each other.
00:31:00And they would portray it as, you know, lightning has come or famine has come. It's because the
00:31:05gods are angry. They're in chaos. But in the Israeli divine council, it was different. It was
00:31:11monotheistic and Yahweh set supreme and everything was in order. It was order against chaos. And a clear
00:31:19example of this is the book of Job, where he tells me, he asked the adversary, where were you?
00:31:24And the adversary says, I was running to and fro. And he says, go, go give Job a hard time.
00:31:31And that's, you know, God is in control of everything in the Bible. But I started attending
00:31:37churches. And again, I'm learning everything new, but from the mindset, not quite of a child,
00:31:44because I had read the Bible. And I just started reading and rereading and rereading. And here I am
00:31:50reading about a divine being that is in full control of everything, where it doesn't matter if
00:31:56I, if I were to go do something really bad, God is in control, you can bring me back. Or if I
00:32:01just blatantly say, okay, I don't like you anymore, God. Does that mean I'm going to hell? No,
00:32:07it's a father child relationship. If my son were to tell me, I don't like you anymore, dad,
00:32:12I'm going to do everything I can to bring him back to me. And that's a divine being that's in
00:32:18control. But I was listening to sermon after sermon where the God wasn't in control. You need
00:32:24to get up here and have these altar calls in some churches, or you need to do X, Y, and it was like
00:32:30the work was on the shoulders of the people. And so I came to realize that, sadly, I reached a point
00:32:39where I didn't fit in. And so it led me on my journey. But the more I read, and the more I
00:32:44understood, the more I also still didn't fit in.
00:32:48Yeah. Well, and unfortunately,
00:32:52that's the problem is that the more you read, and the more you learn, the more you didn't fit in,
00:32:59because, you know, that there's all these different permutations. And to choose any particular one of
00:33:07them, you have to be making all sorts of leaps of faiths. You know, you don't not just a singular
00:33:13leap of faith. It's one thing to be like, I don't know for sure that God died and or that Jesus
00:33:19was crucified and raised again, like that requires faith to believe it. That's the whole conversation
00:33:26with Thomas of like, until I see the wounds in his hand, or sorry, the wound to the side and the
00:33:31holes in his hand, like I will not believe there. And, and Jesus comes to him, shows him and says,
00:33:37now do you believe? And blessed are those who believe or did not see and still believe I can't
00:33:45remember exactly how it but the premise being like, have faith. And I get that that's, there's this core
00:33:52sort of leap of faith that all Christians sort of have to do of believing that there is a God in
00:33:58heaven, and that Jesus was his son, and that he rose, again, from the dead, or rose from the dead.
00:34:06But then there are like a million other leaps of faith that you have to have to be a part of
00:34:13particular denominations. You have to believe this, you have to believe this, you have to believe this.
00:34:18And it's like, even the ones that you're like that, that's probably true. You can't have this sort of
00:34:24epistemic uncertainty about it, if you're like, ah, even let's say something like the inherent word
00:34:32of like, biblical inerrancy was something that always messed with me, because I could just never
00:34:38get my mind around it. I was like, there's contradictions in some of these chapters, like,
00:34:44how does this make sense? You know, and, and I, and I'm not saying that no one ought to believe in
00:34:51biblical inerrancy. But like, it was a difficult leap for me to make, because I was like, I just
00:34:57think that it was written by flawed human beings. And, and some of it might be wrong in these senses.
00:35:03And I understand why that threatens a lot of people. But it was just like, I just,
00:35:07it is a whole nother leap of faith to believe that like, the Council of Nicaea didn't have
00:35:14political motivations that, you know, all of the writings of Paul or the writings that are
00:35:21attributed to Paul were actually relevant and should have been included like that. That's a whole
00:35:27nother leap of faith. And I think these are very normal ones, obviously. And then we get into
00:35:34more extreme ones of like leaps of faith of that God is speaking to the prophet Mike Bickle,
00:35:46or like that took a leap of faith to believe that Mike Bickle and that, that Paul Bickle was going to
00:35:54be raised from the dead again, like that took a leap of faith to there's all of these sort of things
00:35:58where it's like, if I'm being purely rational, I do not have the evidence sufficient to believe
00:36:04these particular things. And so, but there was no ability to be epistemically humble in my community,
00:36:13there was no way that I could just be like, that's really good. I hope that Paul Bickle gets healed.
00:36:19But I don't know if I believe it. I hope that Mike is telling this. I don't know if I ever actually
00:36:25hoped that Mike was telling the truth, because a lot of what he was saying was pretty bad. But you know,
00:36:30this idea of like, well, they would be great if revival came to Kansas City, but like, I don't
00:36:36know if that's what God is saying. And no adult or no child was able to have that opinion and still be
00:36:44a part of the community. It required everybody to believe a particular thing. And I think it's so hard,
00:36:50like, if I think what you're expressing and what I've experienced is then I went to different
00:36:56churches. And I left the community that I was raised in. And I tried to find different churches,
00:37:02and then they would have their own list of things, maybe it wouldn't be as extreme. But their own list
00:37:08of things that I had to like make more leaps of faith. And once you make enough leaps of faith,
00:37:15and you fall and hit the ground and break your legs, you kind of get tired of making those jumps
00:37:20again. And just to trust someone is kind of it's kind of like if you know, if you fall in love with
00:37:29someone you believe in them, and then they you have an affair or something, they break your heart, it's
00:37:33hard to fall in love right away again. Like it's it's hard to, to make the leap again and to believe in
00:37:39someone because it's like, I have pain here. And one of the one of the most difficult things that I have
00:37:47experienced is having people tell me that I'm not allowed to have that pain, or that I need to
00:37:54separate that pain from God. This is a, this is a huge thing that people will say is like, okay, so you
00:38:03were a part of this cult community, and they will recognize and agree like, okay, IHOP was a cult
00:38:08community, Mike Pickle was doing these bad things, your dad was being deceptive, like they will grant all of
00:38:14that. And they will be like, but you have to separate that from God, you have to separate that
00:38:19from Christianity, you have to separate that from your understanding and experience with God.
00:38:25And only recently, I was talking with someone and I kind of came to this point where I was like,
00:38:30I will never, ever be able to separate that. No matter how long I live, no matter what, how many times
00:38:39I read the Bible, no matter what denominations I go to in the future, I will never, ever be able to
00:38:49separate my experience and understanding of Christianity from the history that I was raised
00:38:57in the from the the community and experiences that I had that formed my under very understanding
00:39:03of what Christianity was originally. Now, I'm not saying that that is what Christianity like, like
00:39:11that they're, I'm not making a larger statement that they were or weren't Christian. I'm just saying
00:39:18my own personal journey will always be affected by the things that I saw and experienced. And like,
00:39:25I will always have a limp from that first leap of faith that I made, and I fell and hit the ground,
00:39:31like, I will never walk without a limp from those experiences. And there's this expectation
00:39:38that I need to, that I have to just pretend it didn't happen, that I have to wipe this slate clean. And
00:39:46I have a, I have a story, I've mentioned this story before, I've never told it in full detail, but
00:39:59I actually don't know if I've ever mentioned this on the podcast. But I, for a very brief period of
00:40:06time, I was actually married in my mid 20s. I don't know if, have I ever told you that, John?
00:40:12No.
00:40:13Yep. So I was, I got married when I was about 25, 26. In the height of my spiritual turmoil,
00:40:22not a great time to get married, wouldn't necessarily advise it. And it was really difficult,
00:40:28because my wife was Christian, and she was like, firmly evangelical Christian, and was really
00:40:41struggling with a lot of the questions that I was dealing with. Plus, there was just a lot of,
00:40:48we got married too quickly. And there was a lot of issues with like the family. And it was just,
00:40:54it was just a hard relationship. And in the midst of our marriage, there, it became very clear that
00:41:04like, she couldn't go with me on the journey that I was going down. And I actually totally respect
00:41:13that. Like, you know, I think marriage is a different thing where you do different than a
00:41:17community, you may need to be aligned on a lot of your, like, if you're making leaps of faith,
00:41:22it's good to be doing that together. And so anyway, all that to say, it was very, very difficult
00:41:30relationship and ended my, I gotten divorced. And it was, it was very heartbreaking. She was
00:41:38having an affair for some of the time that we were married. And it, I, we tried to go to counseling,
00:41:44it was just, it was just a very, very emotionally difficult time for me. And spiritually,
00:41:48like very difficult time for me. And I remember, I had these close family friends who were close with
00:42:00both me and my ex-wife. And we were, I was, I met with them during the process of the divorce or when
00:42:12we were separated. And I remember having a conversation with them. And it basically, there
00:42:19was this some sense in which, like, at the core of it, what was causing a lot of the separation was,
00:42:25was my lack of faith. And is that, is that, that was how it was kind of being presented to me. And I kept
00:42:34being like, but like, this is what I've seen with my dad. And this is what I've seen at the
00:42:39International House of Prayer. And like, trying to deal with like, this is, this is honestly me just
00:42:46very, barely having an understanding of the cult community that I had come out of. And I wouldn't
00:42:53even have called it a cult back then and had very poor language for it. And me having to reckon with
00:43:01the world that I grew up with. And I remember the, it was a couple and the, and the man who was talking
00:43:09to me was like, he interrupted me. I was like telling, I was like pouring out my heart about
00:43:17some of my experiences with my father and how that related with my faith. And he was like, okay,
00:43:25well, you got to just stop talking about your dad. And I remember, and, and then we kept talking and he
00:43:30was like, that's not, that's not Christianity. That's not. And I, and it's like, that's news to
00:43:34me because like, I, that always was Christianity for me. And he was just so impatient on this sort of
00:43:42like, you're bringing all your bitterness, you're bringing in all your, you know, anger and pain
00:43:48that you have had from your father and from the community that you were raised in. And, and you're
00:43:55bringing it into your view of what God is. And I so wish that, you know, I wasn't a kid back then,
00:44:04but I feel kind of like a kid in my memory, you know, because I was just so, I was, I was so new
00:44:10to the world because I had just come out of a cold. I literally just finished writing the book about my dad
00:44:19like two years previously. And so anyway, I so wish I could go back to my 26 year old self and be
00:44:27like, it's okay to be angry and be like, you will never ever stop thinking or talking about your dad
00:44:36and, and how that affected your, your, um, faith. I wish that I could like reaffirm that younger version
00:44:44of me. And I hope that people hearing this too, can like feel that as well of just like,
00:44:51you can't just ignore the pain and experiences that you have in these worlds. Like that will
00:44:59always shape. I will never be able to pick up the Bible and read through it and not remember some of
00:45:04these things like the, um, story of Abraham and Isaac. That's always been hard for me because like,
00:45:11I, I grew up feeling like my father sacrificed me on the altar of his faith. Like, like, and
00:45:17the scene, the action of like Abraham leading Isaac up to the, to slaughter him is like,
00:45:24is not an act of faith in my sort of experiences. I understand that it's written in Hebrews as one of
00:45:31the greatest acts of faith, but like, that's hard for me to read because I see it as a narcissistic
00:45:38parent seeing their child as only a measure of their legacy and not as like an independent
00:45:44sentient being. Same with like the book of Job when like everyone, all Job's, uh, sons and daughters
00:45:51die in, um, whatever. I can't remember what it happens, but the building collapse and collapses and
00:46:01all his sons and daughters die. And then at the end of the story, God is like, well, but I blessed
00:46:07Job and gave him more sons and daughters. And it's like, yeah, but I'm the one who was caught in the
00:46:12rubble like that. It's like the, my experiences of, of the world will always affect how I view the
00:46:22world in the future. And this expectation that we have to divorce ourself from our previous pains
00:46:29and experiences is not only unreasonable. Um, it's kind of cruel. It, like it, you don't give people
00:46:38space to heal. And like, for sure, what that man said to me, who like, I, I had not, I had been faithful
00:46:46in my marriage. My partner had had the affair. Like I, it wasn't my lack of faith. Like there was a lot of
00:46:52reasons why our marriage wasn't falling apart, but I, for years always like blamed myself for not
00:46:59having enough faith. And that's horrible, like downright cruel. And I'm glad that like I have
00:47:07healed since then. But, um, yeah. So whenever anybody asks the question of like, how do you separate
00:47:16it? And how do you, how do you heal? Or what do you believe about Christianity after it? It's like
00:47:25such a personal question. And it's like, I, it, it always will be painted by my previous experiences.
00:47:31And that's really the crux of it. So whenever I was in school, they had these literary classes,
00:47:39you would read literature, some, sometimes Shakespeare or whatever, and you'd read through it. And then at
00:47:45the end of it, there would be the series of questions that was supposed to be thought provoking
00:47:50and it would basically help you understand the story more. So the more you, the more you ask
00:47:56questions in your mind, the more you thought about it, the more you understood the story and you began
00:48:00to really connect with the author because you could see what the author was trying to tell you
00:48:06in between the words by this way. Right. And I've learned in my journey post cult that there are two
00:48:13categories of people. There are people who read the Bible like that and they'll read a passage and
00:48:19they'll think about it. And in their mind, because that's what normal people do in a normal situation,
00:48:25you, you read and you ask questions in your head about, okay, what did I just read? What is this?
00:48:30Then on the flip side, there are people who have read the Bible, maybe countless times,
00:48:36who have no idea what is actually in the Bible because they don't read it and they don't really
00:48:43think and process what it is they've read. They just read it and it becomes like a verse
00:48:48memorization tool. That's all the Bible is to them. So they don't understand. And the complex problem
00:48:56exists that much of the Bible is written about an ancient culture during a time when the culture was
00:49:04significantly different than what we have today. When people did not have the lifespans that we
00:49:10have today. And some of the ancient world, you can read not just in the Bible, but you can read
00:49:15and study other ancient civilizations. They, it was an honor for them to die. So in the story of Abraham
00:49:22to the reader during the era in which it was written, that was a wonderful story. But to,
00:49:31to the child in modern times, they're looking at their parents saying, Oh my gosh, is dad going to
00:49:37take me out with a knife? And yeah, sadly, I have a family member who may or may not have done
00:49:44something like this. So I won't talk much about that. But where I'm, where I'm going with this is
00:49:51it really takes two types of people to have a religion and how they coexist will baffle me for
00:49:58the rest of my life. Because if you critically think and critically understand what it is you're
00:50:03reading, it is a totally different book than if you use it as a memorization tool and don't think
00:50:10about what's in it. And I'm not saying that that separates you from your faith. In many, many ways,
00:50:17if you critically examine the Bible and read it, it can strengthen your faith, but it also strengthens it
00:50:24in a way that's not really taught in the churches because you're connecting directly with the author.
00:50:30You're not connecting directly with the pastor who's on the platform. It's two different, you know,
00:50:36two different types of religions. So all that in mind, once you leave a cult and you're basing your
00:50:45experience off of the cult. In the cults, they have their favorite go-to doomsday nonsense and very
00:50:53authoritarian control nonsense. And they have their key passages that they go through.
00:50:58And so in your head, you're programmed to know those passages that are usually not the ones that
00:51:04the other side, the people who just read, you know, as a verse memorization tool,
00:51:10they really aren't the ones that they think about. Because you're being taught a half of the
00:51:15Bible that the other half of the people isn't reading. So you escape this. And here's the
00:51:21biggest problem that I have faced. I've read the Bible so many times. I mean, I can't tell you how
00:51:27many. I lost count. It was 10, 15 times. In that method, read it, study it, study the culture,
00:51:34study what was the other contemporaries in the ancient world. I really studied a lot. And then
00:51:41when you leave to the people who use it as a verse memorization tool, it is such a...
00:51:48And I'm going to be slightly offensive because this is my opinion. It is such a dumbed down religion
00:51:55that they have because they're not reading the whole thing. They're not understanding the whole
00:52:00thing, nor the complexities of it. And so you may know way more than the person who you're talking to
00:52:08who's been a Christian all their life. But you escaped a cult. So from your mind, you're listening
00:52:14to this dumbed down version of Christianity. And from their mind, they're thinking, well, he escaped
00:52:20a cult. So he doesn't understand it at all. I'm going to learn him something.
00:52:25Yeah, totally.
00:52:26And we're in a world where there's something like 3,000 or more cults in the United States. And I think
00:52:33there's like 10,000 globally. So the chances of you escaping a cult are pretty high comparatively.
00:52:39You know, if you compare it to Christian denominations, there's more cults than there
00:52:43is denominations. So the chances that you escape one is like this. But people who leave,
00:52:51especially those who are critical thinkers, they leave and they go into this world where
00:52:56it's such a... And again, it's offensive. I know it is. But it's this dumbed down religion
00:53:03with this weak and powerless God that doesn't match the Bible at all. And so you're sitting
00:53:09through sermon after sermon and you're thinking, well, the God that I read about in the Bible that
00:53:15has full control of everything doesn't need that money drive or whatever it is that they're pushing
00:53:21for, you know? Yeah. So you walk away thinking, not only do I not fit in, but you're thinking,
00:53:27well, what religion is this that I'm listening to? This is going to seem like a non sequitur,
00:53:32but have you watched the Pixar movie Inside Out? Yes. I'm going to spoil it for people who haven't
00:53:42watched it. But the premise of it is that there are these different emotions that control inside
00:53:52this little girl's head. And there's joy and sadness and disgust and anger. And they all kind of
00:54:00take different turns at the wheels guiding this young girl as she kind of gets older.
00:54:09Well, the kind of premise of the plot is the young girl starts getting overwhelmed by sadness and the
00:54:20joy who's the sort of protagonist character in it is like, no, we have to have happy memories. We have
00:54:26to preserve. And anytime sadness comes around, she distorts these memories. And so when you're talking
00:54:32about the people who just are memorizing scriptures, I remember too, in my YWAM days, there was like the
00:54:43devotionals. And not that it was terrible, but there was just a lot of finding little bits of
00:54:50encouragement in the Bible and memorizing those scriptures. And the only real emotion that was
00:54:56developed was this sort of like, reassurance or positive emotion of like, what God is doing. And
00:55:03that was just the sort of like cyclical thing. And it was very much the sort of like, joy in in
00:55:09Inside Out, like being like, we just have all of these like good, we got to collect all the good happy
00:55:13memories of the, you know, Bible or whatever. And then any experiences of sadness, or anger, it was
00:55:22like, let's shove those to the side, like there, we can't have this. And, and the profound moral of
00:55:29the story and in in Inside Out is that joy eventually becomes aware that like sadness is able to turn is
00:55:41able to like bring people in like when for community and like when the girl is sad, like the parents know
00:55:48that she's not doing okay. And like, there's a role that sadness plays and that there's a role that
00:55:53the pain plays in the development of this young girl's life. And I think this is a very, of course,
00:56:02I'm using Pixar to make a religious metaphor here. But I do think that this is that is what it is,
00:56:11is like, there was a lot of like, very profoundly sad, and disappointing and infuriating experiences
00:56:18that I had that you have had that many people have had, especially within cult communities. And
00:56:25because it doesn't fit into this sort of memorized cookie cutter, clean, positive affirmation, sort of
00:56:34understanding of the Bible, you have this sort of like, let's shove these people to the side,
00:56:41or shove their experiences to the side. And it, I believe, it leads to a, like you said, dumped
00:56:50down version of the gospel. And that's not even like, a matter of talking about the intellect of
00:56:57the individuals who do it, but just their own sort of process of like, you're not allowing yourself
00:57:03emotionally, to really experience and explore the depth of both the religion and the people
00:57:11who are within the religion. Like, you have to look like, I think, for that person who had told me
00:57:19to like, just dismiss everything with my dad, I think that like, it wasn't because he wanted me to
00:57:25dismiss it is because he needed to dismiss it, he didn't know how to come to terms with all of the
00:57:32things that I was struggling with. And so it was inconvenient for me to be expressing those things.
00:57:38And he was getting frustrated, because he was just like, I don't, I don't want to deal with these
00:57:43emotions regarding, I don't want to deal with fear and doubt, I don't want to deal with anger and
00:57:50disappointment in regards to my relationship. So I can just bully this person and tell them not to feel
00:57:58those things or to not express them to me. And that was the easiest way to move forward, which I believe
00:58:04is a dumb thing to do. It's not only is it, you know, insensitive, but it just, it dumbs down,
00:58:14it mutes that your entire experience and understanding of the religion that you're a part of.
00:58:21And had there been a totally opposite experience, like had there been an embrace of the pain that
00:58:30I was experiencing, had there been a patience for me to explore those things, there, my path could have
00:58:42gone a bunch of different ways. And my experience with Christianity could look very different now.
00:58:49And this sort of impatience with people's experiences drives people to either shut
00:58:59up and fall in line, or to leave the church entirely. And so I think that people have to
00:59:06start reckoning with it, even if they haven't experienced that sort of pain with themselves.
00:59:10Like, I think that this is something that it's just not going to go away. It's not, you know,
00:59:15you don't close your eyes and those emotions disappear.
00:59:19And that's one of the biggest things that I have told people as I work with them. There's this idea
00:59:24after you experience what other people see in you, after you leave a cult, there's this idea that maybe
00:59:31if I just never say that I was in it ever again, and just walk away silently, maybe my life will be
00:59:37better. But that's not true. We are who we are because of the things we experience both good and bad.
00:59:43And you really have to embrace it. And whenever somebody who doesn't understand what it is that
00:59:49you came out of tells you to suppress it, well, you've been in a world of being suppressed for so
00:59:56long, it's like a coiled spring. You're going to bounce, man.
00:59:59Right. Right.
01:00:01Ironically, on the subject of church, if you come into conflict with one of the doctrines in the church,
01:00:08especially in the top 10, whatever is this denomination, there's this idea that you're
01:00:15forcibly, you are forced to believe it in the way of thinking of many of the pastors, not all,
01:00:22but many. But whenever you're forced to do something after you've escaped a cult,
01:00:27you're often going to do the exact opposite. So people bounce from church to church to church
01:00:32because of this. So you have to understand really how people think and why. And I think that's the
01:00:39biggest thing. But you also have to, in my opinion, you can't really leave a cult and embrace a dumbed
01:00:48down religion. You're either going to walk away from it and never walk back, or you're going to
01:00:53understand that this is a much more complex religion than I was ever told. We were also in the cult,
01:00:59given a dumbed down version. We were just given the version that nobody else gets. So it's really
01:01:07odd when you think about how you have to transition. But the bottom line is you have to embrace it
01:01:13because the experiences are what molds us. So hopefully this has helped somebody. I know
01:01:19we've got a lot of questions and that people have asked about this. And I really don't know how to
01:01:24answer other than that. I'm on a journey where I end. I'm not telling you because I to myself don't
01:01:29know. Right. If you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the
01:01:34web. You can find us at william-branum.org. For more about the dark side of the new apostolic
01:01:40reformation, you can read weaponized religion from Christian identity to the NAR available on Amazon,
01:01:47Kindle and Audible.
01:01:57And I'll see you next time.