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 invites Brandon Kimber, director of the American Gospel series, to discuss his journey out of emotionally driven church cultures and into a clearer understanding of faith rooted in biblical doctrine. Brandon recounts how his upbringing in a charismatic environment shaped his early views, particularly under the influence of the Toronto Blessing and Word of Faith movements. John reflects on his background in a doomsday group and how he came to realize the performative nature of many spiritual experiences. Both highlight how emotional manipulation and fear were used to manufacture a sense of the divine.
The conversation then shifts into the historical roots and theological structures of the New Apostolic Reformation and related movements. They explore the influence of figures like John G. Lake, F.F. Bosworth, and William Branham, noting how much of their legacy is built on revisionism and folklore. Brandon shares his process behind the American Gospel series and the challenges of engaging dissenting voices, including a conflict with Dr. Michael Brown. Together, they emphasize the importance of exposing error, resting in grace, and recovering from spiritual systems that elevate man while obscuring the simplicity of the gospel.
00:00 Introduction
01:24 Brandon’s childhood, church background, and early media work
05:04 Toronto Blessing experience and emotional pressure
08:05 Leaving charismatic revivalism and discovering gospel clarity
13:04 John’s background in the message group and emotionalism in churches
17:42 Historical roots of modern revivalism: Lake, Bosworth, Dowie
23:20 Bethel Church, civic influence, and signs of decline
27:15 The burden of supernatural performance in faith movements
30:10 Why history gets covered up—and why it matters
33:06 False ideas about anointing and spiritual hierarchy
36:18 Todd Bentley and patterns of enabling false teachers
39:01 Seeking the supernatural vs. seeking God
41:30 Collaborating on American Gospel and its unexpected reach
42:42 From crime documentaries to theological exposé
45:10 Progressive Christianity and American Gospel Part 2
47:02 Scope of Part 3 and challenges documenting the NAR
49:07 Disagreements with Michael Brown and editorial control
54:03 The importance of honest storytelling and recovery
56:21 Final advice: rest in grace, not religious performance
58:54 Closing remarks and how to support the work
______________________
– 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:
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 invites Brandon Kimber, director of the American Gospel series, to discuss his journey out of emotionally driven church cultures and into a clearer understanding of faith rooted in biblical doctrine. Brandon recounts how his upbringing in a charismatic environment shaped his early views, particularly under the influence of the Toronto Blessing and Word of Faith movements. John reflects on his background in a doomsday group and how he came to realize the performative nature of many spiritual experiences. Both highlight how emotional manipulation and fear were used to manufacture a sense of the divine.
The conversation then shifts into the historical roots and theological structures of the New Apostolic Reformation and related movements. They explore the influence of figures like John G. Lake, F.F. Bosworth, and William Branham, noting how much of their legacy is built on revisionism and folklore. Brandon shares his process behind the American Gospel series and the challenges of engaging dissenting voices, including a conflict with Dr. Michael Brown. Together, they emphasize the importance of exposing error, resting in grace, and recovering from spiritual systems that elevate man while obscuring the simplicity of the gospel.
00:00 Introduction
01:24 Brandon’s childhood, church background, and early media work
05:04 Toronto Blessing experience and emotional pressure
08:05 Leaving charismatic revivalism and discovering gospel clarity
13:04 John’s background in the message group and emotionalism in churches
17:42 Historical roots of modern revivalism: Lake, Bosworth, Dowie
23:20 Bethel Church, civic influence, and signs of decline
27:15 The burden of supernatural performance in faith movements
30:10 Why history gets covered up—and why it matters
33:06 False ideas about anointing and spiritual hierarchy
36:18 Todd Bentley and patterns of enabling false teachers
39:01 Seeking the supernatural vs. seeking God
41:30 Collaborating on American Gospel and its unexpected reach
42:42 From crime documentaries to theological exposé
45:10 Progressive Christianity and American Gospel Part 2
47:02 Scope of Part 3 and challenges documenting the NAR
49:07 Disagreements with Michael Brown and editorial control
54:03 The importance of honest storytelling and recovery
56:21 Final advice: rest in grace, not religious performance
58:54 Closing remarks and how to support the work
______________________
– 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:
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
00:00:40at william-branham.org, and with me I have my very special guest, Brandon Kimber,
00:00:46director of the American Gospel Series.
00:00:49Brandon, it's good to have you on and to finally talk to you offline not about the American Gospel
00:00:56Series. We did some work in the past, but I've had several people who have told me through
00:01:03emails and comments in the videos, they say, you need to get Brandon Kimber on and let him
00:01:07tell his story. So here we are.
00:01:10Well, yeah, thanks for having me. Good to be with you on your show.
00:01:15Awesome. So for anybody who does not know you, and I'm sure that there's very few, but anybody
00:01:22who doesn't know you, maybe you could just introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about
00:01:27yourself.
00:01:27Yeah. I'm Brandon Kimber, born and raised in the Cleveland, Ohio area. I'm married to my
00:01:36wife, Stacy. We have four children, ages 12. Youngest is six, and all in between. Everyone's
00:01:45about to have birthdays, so at this point we are six, eight, ten, and twelve, but that's
00:01:52about to change to some odd numbers and make it harder for me to remember.
00:01:56Sure. So yeah, I guess, yeah, I was born in this area and got into filmmaking at a young
00:02:12age, just making videos. My dad bought a video camera when I was in eighth grade, and from
00:02:20there, I kind of just took the opportunity to do a video for anything I had the chance
00:02:28to make a video for, whether it was a school project or I worked maintenance at a pool for
00:02:34a number of years, and we started creating these documentaries about staff life at the end of
00:02:43every year for our staff awards dinner. And it was kind of through that where I taught myself
00:02:48how to edit and do visual effects type of work. It was just mostly hands-on, but I did end
00:02:58up going to college for film production. On the religious side, I was born into a Christian family.
00:03:11Both of my parents became Christians before I was born, kind of out of really godless lifestyles. My mother
00:03:21would tell us she did all the drugs and just lived the party lifestyle. Her mother died of cancer when she was pretty
00:03:37young and it just spiraled her into this really bad lifestyle. She found Jesus and her life changed.
00:03:50My dad was an atheist and had a difficult childhood with parents divorcing, his sister dying of cancer at 23,
00:04:05his mother dying a few years later, also of cancer. And he kind of went on this journey of investigating
00:04:16and Eastern religions doing meditation and searching for his inner divinity, things like that. And then he
00:04:25was invited to a Christian couple's home for dinner. They shared the gospel with them and he became a
00:04:33Christian after a Christian after that point. So I grew up hearing these stories about their lives
00:04:41before Christ. And it was kind of the center of our household, just always hearing about Jesus and going
00:04:50to church. We were raised in assemblies of God, charismatic church. And
00:04:56in the mid nineties, the Toronto blessing revival happened. And this is a revival that has really impacted
00:05:12Bill Johnson of Bethel church, among other people who claimed to be apostles in the new apostolic
00:05:18reformation movement. So this revival happened. And, um, some people in our area went to it,
00:05:25came back and started having meetings that they were doing similar things. There's this kind of this
00:05:32idea that, um, you could catch the fire or this anointing of the Holy spirit and like transfer it to other
00:05:42people through, you know, the laying out of hands. And I remember as a kid, my parents took us to this
00:05:48meeting and we walk into this big, um, it was kind of like a, a dining hall that you could have a wedding
00:05:59in and, but they're having these church services there and there's this people lined up being prayed
00:06:05for people being slain in the spirit, uh, running around screaming and laughing like the Holy laughter,
00:06:12all these really bizarre manifestations of, or supposed manifestations of the Holy Spirit
00:06:20that I had never experienced before. And my parents said, you know, they had been prayed for
00:06:29previously and really felt like they experienced a change in their life.
00:06:34And to this day, my mom says that something really changed in their marriage. And she thinks
00:06:41that this experience kind of saved their marriage in a way, which I can't really argue with, but, um,
00:06:49they wanted us to get prayed for at this meeting. And, you know, you're seeing all this stuff. And in,
00:06:55in my mind, as a kid, probably around age 10, what goes through your mind is if,
00:07:01if I don't fall over like everyone else or do what everyone else is doing, you know, this peer pressure
00:07:09type of thing, they're going to think there's something wrong with me. Is Brandon not saved? Is,
00:07:16you know, something like that. So I ended up falling over and I think going along with it. Um,
00:07:23but our church kind of split over that movement and our, the pastor of our church was not in favor of
00:07:33it. And my parents ended up disagreeing and leaving with another group and, and joining this new church
00:07:41that was pro Toronto blessing where all of this stuff was just happening all the time. So it was just a
00:07:49normal thing. Um, you know, chairs in this sanctuary were all lined around the edges so that people
00:07:57could dance and wave flags and do all the crazy stuff you can think of. Um,
00:08:06after a time, my father took us out of that church because he recognized that it was not healthy
00:08:13as far as far as teaching, as far as like the emphasis was too focused on these manifestations
00:08:21and experiences and the gifts of the Holy spirit, not enough on the gospel. And, um, looking back,
00:08:29I have more thoughts about that, but, um, we were, we moved to a Nazarene church for a decade or more
00:08:37after that. And it wasn't until I was in college that I started, um, finding sermons on the internet
00:08:45where the gospel was much more clear. Um, previously, you know, I say I, I understood the gospel in the
00:08:57sense that Jesus died for my sins and that in some sense he was saving me from hell so that I could go to
00:09:03heaven, but it was to focus on a fear of hell and being saved from Satan. Whereas now, like I, I would
00:09:17still affirm that hell is a biblical doctrine. I think Jesus talks about it more than, than anyone
00:09:23else in the Bible, but our salvation, I view now more as being saved from God's justice
00:09:32by his grace rather than being like saved from Satan necessarily. There is a sense where that's
00:09:40true. But I think what I was lacking was kind of like a godly sorrow over my sin. I was,
00:09:47I think my parents took us to this play called heaven's gates and hell's flames where they,
00:09:52they basically, it's like a church play where they have these skits of people in their everyday life.
00:09:58They end up dying and they're either go to hell or heaven, depending on their relationship with
00:10:06Jesus. And at the time it was terrifying for me because, you know, seeing these images of people
00:10:14dressed up like Satan or demons dragging people into this, it was like a tent with this fake fire
00:10:20coming out of it. It was terrifying. And so they kind of encouraged this very, I would say it's an
00:10:26unbiblical, um, sinner's prayer idea where if you just pray this prayer, um, the, say the magic words,
00:10:37you go to heaven. Um, you know, I, I do believe that if someone has
00:10:46a recognition of their sin and a godly sorrow over their sin,
00:10:49they can say a prayer and express that like it, God have mercy on me, a sinner. Um, that's biblical,
00:10:59but it was more presented as these magic words that you kind of have to just keep praying every
00:11:05time. I would think that I would lose my salvation every time I sinned. It was just a very, um, fear-based,
00:11:11just having no assurance type of thing. So in college, I get this much clearer understanding of
00:11:21the gospel. And I also stumbled across, um, Justin Peter's ministry and he has this seminar called
00:11:33clouds without water, which explains the word of faith movement. And I then recognized that what
00:11:41I had grown up in was very influenced by the word of faith movement. Um, you know, my parents
00:11:49went to Benny Hinn crusades, um, had listened to Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland, things like that.
00:11:59And, um, it was very eyeopening. And over time, the more I was exposed to like the biblical gospel
00:12:10and seeing these errors, I started just having this idea that I wanted to create a project to kind of help
00:12:19my friends and family understand like what we had been raised in and why this was not biblical. And, um,
00:12:29after I got out of college, I started working at, um, the company I still work for as an intern.
00:12:35My boss and I started having these conversations. Um, we both had like this hyper charismatic experience
00:12:43in our backgrounds and, you know, we're talking through these issues. And after doing a number of
00:12:51crime television programs and crime documentaries, um, he basically gave me the green light to do a
00:12:59passion project. And that's where the whole American gospel, um, project started.
00:13:06So it's interesting because you and I have similar journeys, but in vastly different environments.
00:13:12And with me, it was, I actually helped produce little videos and documentaries as well, but
00:13:19I worked on the audio side with my friends and I had built this, developed this thing that my friends
00:13:26called the Collins wire, which basically connected anything audio to anything audio. And I had built
00:13:33my own recording studio and was producing music and all kinds of weird things. But I was in the message,
00:13:41which was not, it was like one step away from what you were in, in the apostolic environment, but we,
00:13:48we called it going through the motions. We would all go through those motions. And
00:13:51and there came a point in my life when I realized that, you know, if you try to force yourself into
00:13:59a forced emotion, how is that coming from God? And I thought through that, you know, often,
00:14:07interestingly, my family was a very unemotional family. And whenever we would go to a church that
00:14:13had the wild craziness, they would strongly condemn it and say, that's just a bunch of show. That's not,
00:14:20that's not what it's about. So I had that in the back of my mind, right? I never realized that the
00:14:25whole thing was an emotional show. And though they did not accept other people's versions of the
00:14:31emotional show, they had their own type of emotional show. And yeah, what you're saying
00:14:36reminds me of my parents, my dad was kind of more like me, very quiet, more reserved. And my mom is
00:14:45complete opposite, outgoing. And I feel like their personalities had a lot to do with how they
00:14:52responded to different things that happened in church. Like my mom was all in, my dad was much
00:14:58more reserved. But a lot of times people would like question why my dad's not reacting as emotionally
00:15:06and kind of, in some ways, blame it on his past, like with his parents dying, as if he had this
00:15:14hurt in that wasn't healed, or he needed inner healing or something like that. I just don't think
00:15:20that's fair. Looking back, I just think a lot of this is connected to personality and how susceptible
00:15:27you are to like the peer pressure and psychological stuff going on around you. Not that like,
00:15:34you can't have emotion, a true emotion in your experience, worshiping God. I mean, I totally
00:15:42believe that's biblical, but music alone creates emotion, whether it is a Christian song or secular
00:15:54song. And I've heard tons of people describe how, you know, they realized like, I, I'm feeling the
00:16:03same feeling I feel in a worship service at church as I do in the secular concert. And it's, it's
00:16:09because it's the music. You cannot necessarily say that this is the presence of God. And I came to
00:16:16understand that pretty quickly. And I would notice, see, we went to different churches. I don't know
00:16:23that you and I have had this conversation, but I have mentioned on the podcast, but I went from Branham
00:16:28cult churches from Arizona to South Carolina and everywhere in between went to something like,
00:16:34I lost count. It's probably 13 different schools that I went to growing up. So I'd see all these
00:16:38different flavors of different environments that was in the same kind of Pentecostal apostolic,
00:16:44we call it the message cult, but there would be different types of emotions and people,
00:16:50the ministers, I would watch them prey upon the emotions of other people.
00:16:54And I'm very, I have a very logical mind. If you're a Star Trek fan, I'm the Spock of this
00:17:02world, right? I want to analyze everything and understand it. And so I would, like in my mind,
00:17:07whenever they would be preaching, I would calculate, okay, he's going to preach this.
00:17:13This opening is going to be a very welcoming, heartwarming,
00:17:16fancy story that everybody can relate to. Then he's going to get to a small subject matter.
00:17:21Then he's going to start screaming. And then at the end, he's going to put the fear of God in you.
00:17:27And are you going to make it? And he was just building up people's emotions so that he could
00:17:32tear them down. And I started noticing that you go to different churches, it would be like that.
00:17:38But fast forward to today's world, when I realized that this Branham cult had exploded and
00:17:47maybe not directly created all of the NAR, but strongly influenced it is probably a better way to
00:17:53say it. I noticed the same patterns happening today, but it's like, it's all the same patterns,
00:18:00but they're on steroids. Yeah.
00:18:02Yeah. I would say that I can recall the influence of different people that are called God's generals
00:18:17in the movement that we grew up in. And probably because of that book, I'm not sure when that book
00:18:23came out, what year, but, um, I remember some, uh, family of mine pointing out like the life of John G.
00:18:35Lake, for example, and pointing to what they had read about his life and responding to that, which,
00:18:47you know, I believe that John G. Lake was a charlatan and his life story was mostly a work of fiction
00:18:55at this point. But this person responded to that with kind of a despair, like, why can't I achieve
00:19:04this level of power or like anointing with the baptism of the Holy Spirit as John G. Lake as if
00:19:15this, this unattainable standard based on fiction was creating this despair in their life. Um, and I,
00:19:27I just realized how important it is to investigate these people and understand like what actually,
00:19:37what is the actual history. And so a lot of what I'm doing in this current American gospel project is
00:19:44trying to dive into that with some of your help. Um, so far, um, you know, John G. Lake is a huge
00:19:52influence on Bill Johnson of Bethel church. And you can, you know, the, the students at their school
00:19:59of supernatural ministry are required to read, um, his sermons, which are in a book compiled by Kenneth
00:20:08Copeland. And so a lot of, you know, this little gods language, the idea that man is on par with Jesus
00:20:18or equal to God, you hear that in Kenneth Copeland and Bill Johnson, but they're getting it from people
00:20:27like John G. Lake. That's the language you, you read and in those sermons. So it's just, um, yeah,
00:20:37I mean, if you've, if anyone has watched at least the four episodes that we've just released, there's
00:20:44lots of John G. Lake references, but in the future, I, I hope to dive in, um, deeper into his
00:20:52backstory as well as William Branham and other, other generals as well.
00:20:58Right. I went backwards in my research from Branham to Bosworth to Lake. And I was, it kind of spun out
00:21:06of control whenever I was trying to determine the, how the connection happened between John Alexander
00:21:13Dowie and William Branham. Bosworth is the key, obviously, but I didn't realize the significance
00:21:18of it. When I first stumbled upon it, I had traced from Branham and Branham held these, you know,
00:21:24revivals everywhere with Bosworth and Bosworth was out of Dowie sect. I'd connected all of that.
00:21:30The piece that I had missed until maybe five, five or six years ago that Bosworth had created a sub
00:21:38cult. He joined a sub cult in Dowie's Zion city that was led by Parham, Charles Fox Parham. And John
00:21:46G. Lake was in that community and they were trying to birth what eventually came to be the deliverance
00:21:54movement of today. But they believed that they could exercise demons from people by physically
00:22:02assaulting them. And there were people who died in Zion city. You're familiar with all this research,
00:22:06I'm sure. But the piece that I had missed is that there came a point in which the heads of Zion
00:22:15that weren't in the sect wanted to eradicate the whole thing. And they realized that people were
00:22:21being murdered in Zion city. So they started working with the authorities. And it's about the same time
00:22:27that Parham gets exposed for his sexual misconduct with the young man. Well, it appears based off of
00:22:36everything that I can see in the research is they all kind of fled because they were scared that they
00:22:41were going to get convicted on manslaughter charges. And it looks very much like John G.
00:22:46Lake went to South Africa to just hide out. Bosworth hid on the road and the revivals and
00:22:52all of that interestingly turned into modern Pentecostalism in one way or another. And there's one
00:22:59photograph, you've probably seen it where it's got William Seymour, John G. Lake, F.F. Bosworth,
00:23:05Tom has my health. That is William Joseph Seymour with that sect, that particular sect of Pentecostalism.
00:23:12So not many people understand the significance of that. Wow. Yeah, that's that's interesting.
00:23:18Um, the, the whole connection between Dowie and like what's going on with, um, Bethel and Reading,
00:23:29California, I think has been pretty interesting. Um, I, you know, I included some of your content
00:23:39in some of these episodes that I'm working on, on the topic of grave soaking to kind of introduce,
00:23:44um, what he did with Zion city and how he tried to convert New York and things like that. Um, it's
00:23:56just, it's just crazy. This idea of, um, you know, bringing heaven to earth. So like my first Reading,
00:24:06it's called Bethel Reading part one. We try to show how Bethel has grown in the city of Reading over the
00:24:14years and they've gained influence on the city council to the point where they kind of forced
00:24:22one of their council members into the position of mayor and she's now the mayor of Reading. So you have
00:24:32Bethel is like in control and using that power and influence to, you know, buy favor in the community
00:24:39to get their new 96, it's probably like $99 million building project approved at this point. Um,
00:24:51but thankfully, um, from what I hear, and I think a lot of this started with COVID, but
00:25:00their influence has begun to die. As far as like the number of students that they have now,
00:25:07um, they were having, I think between two to 3000 students a semester. And I'm hearing now that it's
00:25:17around 500 at this point. So I don't know. Again, I think maybe, um, the, uh, COVID stuff probably
00:25:29impacted that, but also just the more that people like us are exposing this stuff. I think more people
00:25:38are becoming aware that there are problems and more people are speaking out who have been
00:25:44in the movement. And, you know, I think that's, that's the best evidence because I always get accused of,
00:25:53you know, not having any experience in what I'm critiquing, which isn't true, but I always try to
00:26:02interview people who were in it. And so it just, the critique doesn't make any sense because, um, you
00:26:11know, I've interviewed people that were former Bethel students and they're speaking from their own
00:26:16experience. And so, yeah, that's just, uh, a big part of what I do. I do have a, I would say probably
00:26:28similar to you. I kind of have a fascination with history, but it's more on the family history side.
00:26:36You know, as I mentioned, my, my father's, um, mother and sister died young, so he never really
00:26:42like to talk about it too much because it was emotionally difficult for him, but he's always
00:26:49had like photos and artwork from them and letters. Like I found hundreds of letters written from my
00:26:57grandmother and my, my aunt. And that just kind of created an interest in, in history in general,
00:27:09and just kind of documenting things. So I think that plays a big part of why I like
00:27:15the documentary filmmaking stuff. And, and just in this sense, I'm trying to maybe capture
00:27:26what's going on in these discernment ministries that include people like you and me that have
00:27:33come out of these different movements and we're connecting with people that, um, also had the
00:27:40same experiences and trying to share those stories in a way that is compelling and, um, helps explain
00:27:49truth and error in contrast. So people can wake up because this stuff is, is really dangerous. And
00:27:59I just think as far as Christianity, it creates huge massive burdens on, on people like we're telling
00:28:10people, they're telling people in this movement that they have to basically duplicate Jesus and do
00:28:16greater miracles and quality than Jesus. And that's not a biblical mandate at all. Um, you know, there is
00:28:25that, that phrase about doing greater works. Jesus says that we'll do greater works, but the greater works
00:28:33I believe is about the gospel going forth in a greater scope to all nations, not doing greater
00:28:41miracles than Jesus. Like the greatest miracle Jesus did was to raise himself from the dead. How are we
00:28:47going to top that?
00:28:47Yeah. The funny part for me is that say I grew up in a doomsday call. We believe that any minute
00:28:56the doomsday was going to happen and America would be obliterated. And so for the first 37 years of my
00:29:02life, I had 0.0% interest in history, none whatsoever. In fact, I barely scraped through. I did get good grades
00:29:11in, in school, but I barely scraped through because right before the test would happen, I would cram
00:29:17for it and did not retain none of it. I retained none of it. And then after I realized, wait a minute,
00:29:25this is all fake. None of this is real. I became fascinated with history because I wanted to learn
00:29:31how we got to where we are now. And I started to learn the power of history, because if you can
00:29:38understand the mistakes that led to something that has happened, like we see today with the NAR,
00:29:45you can learn not to repeat those mistakes. And it was in doing that exercise of trying to learn
00:29:52this, I realized the reason why many of these ministries cover up their histories, because if
00:29:58you cover up all of the mistakes that got them where they are, then nobody can figure out that it's
00:30:03a big mistake. And so I started going down the spiderweb of paths, John G. Lake being one of them,
00:30:10go through all of their histories and say, okay, how much is being covered up? And sadly, I started
00:30:15realizing that many of the people that I thought were, I didn't use the term God's generals, but
00:30:21heroes of the faith, I guess I would have called them. I realized that a vast majority of them have
00:30:26covered up histories that, you know, some of them may have had good intentions, some of them didn't, but
00:30:32a large part of their histories have been covered up to make them into worship of heroes. And that
00:30:40became, for me, highly problematic.
00:30:42Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started, or how the progression of
00:30:48modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic, and other fringe movements
00:30:55into the New Apostolic Reformation? You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's
00:31:01website, william-branham.org. On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research
00:31:08of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper,
00:31:15audio, and digital versions of each book. You can also find resources and documentation on various
00:31:22people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support
00:31:28the podcast by clicking the Contribute button at the top. And as always, be sure to like and subscribe
00:31:34to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching. On behalf of William Branham Historical
00:31:40Research, we want to thank you for your support. The idolatry of these generals or heroes is a huge
00:31:48problem, and I think it goes down to their idea of anointing. I think the biblical view of anointing is
00:31:56that every believer is anointed when they become a believer, and that there's no, people aren't,
00:32:05you can't like gain extra anointings and become like this elite level Christian that is above the rest.
00:32:14But I think that is one of the core problems with this movement is this misunderstanding of anointing
00:32:22and just this desire to get more and more by, you know, it could be by going to different graves and
00:32:29trying to soak it, suck it out of people's graves, or through artifacts, like they, like Bill Johnson
00:32:37has this Revival Museum collection, Scott John G. Lake's Bible, Smith Wigglesworth Piano, where they think
00:32:46that that anointing can be taken out of it. It's similar to like the Catholic Church's view of relics.
00:32:56I mean, they're, they got, you know, body parts
00:33:00under altars, very creepy. Uh, and it's all, it's, it's based on this twisting of scripture. They'll use
00:33:10like the passage in, um, I think it's first or second Kings with, um, the dead man being thrown
00:33:20on the bones of Elisha and coming back to life. Um, or, uh, I think it's like Paul's handkerchief.
00:33:30Um, in those examples, God was specifically using the means of this object to perform a miracle to
00:33:42authenticate either a prophet or an apostle that they were actually his messengers speaking for him.
00:33:51You can't take that to mean to like, to conclude then that now that there's actually anointing
00:33:59lingering in all dead bones and objects connected to different saints in the past. And in this case,
00:34:07there are very questionable people who we would say aren't saints at all. And there's definitely no
00:34:13anointing in them if that was a possibility. Uh, it's just very disturbing. And, um, it's just, um,
00:34:25I guess I would say trying to find power through means other than
00:34:33the gospel or through God directly himself. Like if, okay, if you want healing, pray to God,
00:34:44go to him. Don't go try to suck up an anointing from a grave and for, or from other people. Like
00:34:52Bill Johnson always talks about going like how he went to Oral Roberts and, uh, it's just, it's really
00:35:00gross. Um, the whole, it's, it's the culture of honor. Like you said, it's in some ways they
00:35:09acknowledge there's some bad things that these people, these people did, but their, their view is
00:35:19like, you know, chew the meat, spit out the bones, focus on the good, ignore the, the, the sin. And yes,
00:35:29everyone sins and you know, people in the Bible, like King David sin greatly, but what we're talking
00:35:38about with someone like John G. Lake and Dowie, these, these are false teachers. When we're talking
00:35:47about, um, people who have this pattern of unrepentant sin and lying and fraudulent activity,
00:35:56just that marks their whole life. It wasn't as if they like, you know, stumbled and repented.
00:36:05And then this is completely different. So I think that, that is an important distinction
00:36:12to make that I see over and over again, you know, with someone like Todd Bentley, for example,
00:36:19this is a man who was involved in the Lakeland revival around 2008. And
00:36:27he was caught in an adulterous affair. And before that was known, everyone was saying
00:36:35that this is the new breed. He is, um,
00:36:39um, in this example of someone who is going to like do greater miracles than Jesus, he has this anointing.
00:36:50And once the sin was made known, it was obvious that, I mean, it was obvious to people who were in
00:36:56discernment who were calling him out before that was known that he was a false teacher, just based on the
00:37:02the false prophecy and the bizarre manifestations, like claiming that he's healing people by kicking
00:37:10them in the face with their biker boot. And just the constant talk about all these angels are visiting
00:37:16me and giving me this extra biblical revelation. These are all red flags that should show you
00:37:21this is a false teacher. It shouldn't take the exposure of an affair to say, oh,
00:37:28he's a fraud the whole time. But like men like Bill Johnson, they, after this was exposed,
00:37:36they tried to restore him into ministry because they felt like he had, because he was doing these
00:37:44miracles. Apparently he had this anointing and that God was still gifting him in these ways,
00:37:51despite the complete failures of morality, they're blinded by the miracles and the anointing aspect
00:38:02of it. And they're not even realizing that even in the Bible, there is such a thing as, you know,
00:38:11false signs and wonders that can be done through Satan or, you know, power other than God. It could be,
00:38:20it could be a trick like fake leg lengthening.
00:38:24Um, it's just, uh, it's a huge concern that I have and what I've tried to help people understand
00:38:36that just because someone has this alleged supernatural gift does not automatically mean
00:38:43that it's of God at all. They have built the equivalent of an architecture of bricklaying
00:38:50using all of these events based off of spirit, supernatural phenomenon that they claim to be
00:38:57supernatural that is intended to circumvent the move of the Holy Spirit. In other words,
00:39:05instead of the person going directly to the Holy Spirit, like you said, for, for their healing or
00:39:09praying to God for the healing, you've got to go through this man. You've got to go through this
00:39:13channel. I live not five minutes from Branham's grave. So when I'm driving past it, I get to see
00:39:21all the people who are bowing down and praying to it, or I've not yet got to see anybody who's soaking
00:39:27it, but I have seen the videos online and right. What's interesting. I've mentioned this before,
00:39:32but right across the river is Colonel Sanders grave and you don't find people going and trying to soak
00:39:38to make better chicken, right? If so, I would go do it. But it's just nonsensical. And I'm not a fan
00:39:47of horror movies. Growing up in this mess that we did, I really am uncomfortable with them. But I have
00:39:55seen a couple and there's a few that I've watched that had, I think they call it hoodoo, but down in
00:40:01this deep south, it's like voodoo, but it's a different flavor of it. The whole movement really
00:40:08reminds you of this because they're trying to channel spirits. And when I was in the message
00:40:15called this channeling of spirits, we thought was biblical and righteous. And Branham was talking to
00:40:22dead people who had crossed over to the other side. And I thought nothing of it. And I'm kind of
00:40:29slapping myself in the face over it because I read the Bible while I was believing all this nonsense.
00:40:35And it wasn't until after I left that I realized, wait a minute, if you read the Old Testament,
00:40:40it's the bad guys that are doing that. It's not the good guys.
00:40:43Yeah. And, you know, Bethel, for example, they call what is essentially necromancy,
00:40:53they call it the cloud of witnesses. And they're claiming that no, these people aren't actually
00:41:00dead because they're alive in heaven. It's the same thing that I think John G. Lake taught that
00:41:07it's okay to talk with the dead as long as they're in heaven. Not if you're calling them up from hell,
00:41:14basically, right? It's just, you don't talk to anyone who's dead because you can be deceived.
00:41:23You're not, you know, the dead aren't communicating with us. Yeah. Very disturbing.
00:41:28So you and I connected, we were doing part three of the American gospel, the spirit and fire.
00:41:35And, um, you were interested in the Branham history that I had. So we collaborated a bit
00:41:41and I'll be honest with you. When you contacted me, I had no idea what American gospel even was.
00:41:48I'd never heard of it, never seen it. And I was just casually mentioning to a friend that I was
00:41:53working on this thing. I had to go, go work the American gospel, their jaw dropped. So apparently
00:41:59in this area, it's really, it's really famous. They were apparently advertising it in some of the
00:42:04churches. And, um, so I had no idea how big this was. I, I had been contacted by several mom and pop.
00:42:12Hey, we want to do a documentary. And I go look at their YouTube channel. It might have five
00:42:17subscribers. So I was getting a line of these and then you contacted me and I had had so many of those.
00:42:24I honestly thought this was just some small operation. So after, after we're done and realized
00:42:31how big this was and what it was, I got the opportunity to go back and look into some of it.
00:42:37But the, that history fascinates me. So you talked about how you had the background in documentaries
00:42:42and how you created that. What drove you to continue that project instead of the, um,
00:42:50set of the crime stuff that you were doing? I would say just my own church experience, as I mentioned,
00:42:57growing up in kind of a word faith context. Um, and even in the church I was in at the time,
00:43:07I was making the first film I realized was very moralistic in the way they just, they preached
00:43:16and seeker sensitive to. And what I mean by that is that
00:43:19that the preaching was basically all focused on what you need to do, do more, love more,
00:43:29serve more. There was no hope of the gospel and, or you weren't being reminded that, yeah,
00:43:37you fall short of God's standard and here's what God did graciously for you in Jesus.
00:43:43So you're kind of left with just despair. If you felt like you didn't measure up to what God required
00:43:54or pride thinking that you were self-righteously, um, you know, obeying all of God's law.
00:44:00And so I realized like a healthy, healthy preaching has a good balance of both law and gospel. So
00:44:13the law should show you for non-Christians, it shows people how they fall short and that they need a
00:44:22savior. For Christians, it shows you how you should live in response to the grace that God has given
00:44:31you. So, you know, you're no longer trying to obey God to like earn his love or to, to earn salvation.
00:44:41You've already been saved graciously by God, not based on anything that you've done. And now therefore
00:44:48obey because out of, out of the love you have for God, you should want to obey. And so I wasn't seeing that
00:44:56in my church. And a lot of the people I went to college with were coming back with a very progressive
00:45:07understanding of Christianity, where they were basically denying a lot of the essentials of the
00:45:12faith, but still calling themselves Christians, um, embracing teaching from people like Richard Rohr,
00:45:22who's this Franciscan priest, who's a big influence on Rob Bell. He's like a universalist who famously
00:45:31was denying the existence of hell through his book, Love Wins. So all of these different things kind of
00:45:36led me to wanting to create these films that tackled these different issues. So the first one,
00:45:43the beginning talks about the moralistic preaching, and then the word of faith movement. The second film,
00:45:51Christ crucified talks about progressive Christianity. And in that film, I actually interviewed
00:45:59people I disagreed with, um, who were either atheists or progressive Christian Christians that,
00:46:09as I mentioned, kind of deny different doctrines, like the substitutionary atonement of Jesus,
00:46:16that he died for our sins. Like there are people who are Christians that deny that they, they would view
00:46:22the cross more as just Jesus being our moral example of, you know, how we should love our enemies.
00:46:34And that there is truth to that, but that's not like, I would say that the cross has multiple images of,
00:46:41you know, of how you can interpret what God is doing in that, but they reject the core, which is
00:46:51Christ choosing to, and willingly choosing to take our punishment for our sins. So that's kind of the
00:46:59whole second film. And this third film is focused on the new apostolic reformation and the Holy Spirit.
00:47:07And this is different in that it's a docu-series, not a film. So it's multiple episodes, this first season
00:47:16of episodes, 13 episodes, an hour each. And I'll, the first season is mostly focused on Bethel Redding.
00:47:26Um, in future seasons, I will dive into other movements. Um, whether that's IHOP, um,
00:47:37you know, I have people involved in, in the prophetic that realized that they were false prophets,
00:47:47false apostles. Um, so there's all different angles that this, this movement, it's massive that
00:47:57you can approach this from. And I initially started off thinking that, you know, this was just going to
00:48:02be like a two part film. I have this problem where my films end up being pretty long. Like,
00:48:10the first one was two hours, 20 minutes. Second one was almost three hours. So I thought,
00:48:18I need more time. And the more I started researching the NAR, I realized like,
00:48:25this needs to be a docu-series. Like, there's no way I'm going to be able to explain what I need to
00:48:32explain and share. And there's so many different people that I met with different stories connected
00:48:37to this. And even going into the history, I think is important. Um, the latter rain movement,
00:48:46Branham and John G. Lake and, and Dowie. And I just think that will really help people understand,
00:48:53um, you know, seeing those parallels of what happened then and what's happening now.
00:48:58Um, so, um, yeah, I mean, John, your stuff will appear in the grave soaking episodes, um,
00:49:13this season, touching briefly on Branham and Dowie. But, um, it won't be probably until
00:49:22a later season that I dive deeper into that. And you ran into some issues publishing and initially,
00:49:29right? You, you interviewed people who weren't in the same, uh, opinion as you, and they apparently
00:49:36wanted to hold back. Can you talk about that any? So Michael Brown, Dr. Michael Brown, um, is someone
00:49:43who is in the charismatic movement and has been known in my observation was known for, uh, being
00:49:52someone who would actually respond to criticism of the charismatic movement. Um, he, during,
00:49:59I think the 2013 strange fire conference that John MacArthur hosted, he actually wrote a book in response
00:50:06to it called authentic fire and Michael Brown's known for his connection to the Brownsville revival,
00:50:15which happened around the same time as the Toronto blessing and in the nineties. And
00:50:22he has a lot of connections to like Christ for the nations Institute, which I believe connect
00:50:34themselves to, is it Gordon Lindsay who's connected to that? Yeah. If you watch a video on their website,
00:50:40they're connecting their history directly to Lindsay. And, um, Brown is also known for denying that the NAR
00:50:50exists at all. So I felt like he'd be a great person to interview. And when I interview people I disagree
00:51:00with, the agreement is to allow them to review the content and approve it before they sign an appearance
00:51:07release. So I can't legally use their content in the project unless they sign and give me permission.
00:51:14So with Dr. Brown, that was the most stressful thing I ever had to experience. Like, I think he's just
00:51:28a big gaslighter and he was constantly telling me that I was in great sin for daring to critique these
00:51:37ministries that are involved with NAR, including Mike Bickle, who's now out of ministry under, you know,
00:51:46they just had the investigation that he abused multiple women over decades, even Gateway Church,
00:51:54Todd White, who is now like all these people are falling like dominoes or being exposed for being
00:52:01abusers and frauds at this point. But Brown was telling me that I was slandering these good ministries.
00:52:10And that's kind of the reason why he decided to back out of the project. Now, publicly, he portrayed it as
00:52:20that he asked me to make changes, but I refused to. And that's why he backed out. He also
00:52:28didn't want me to make any episodes about grave soaking because he thought it was a fringe of
00:52:33a fringe practice and I was blowing it out of proportion. But the truth of why he backed out was
00:52:42because he wanted me to change what other people were saying. He didn't like mentioning Christ for
00:52:49the Nations Institute because he was teaching there and Gateway Church or Todd White. And that wasn't
00:52:58part of our agreement for him to edit what other people were saying. He could add his own, you know,
00:53:07arguments to counter what other people were saying, but I wasn't going to like remove other people's
00:53:15stories based on his opinions. That's that just wasn't our agreement. So yeah, it was a big disruption.
00:53:23And he did allow us to post some roundtable discussions we did with him publicly, which
00:53:31are on YouTube now, but I'm not allowed to include them in my project. It's kind of a big
00:53:38financial hit. But thankfully, some people helped us make up for the loss.
00:53:45Yeah, it's just after just trying to work with him, it just left us. It just took away my desire to
00:53:57want to work with anyone I disagree with just because of how that experience went. Unfortunately,
00:54:02it all goes back to controlling the narrative to alter or change or try to cover up the history.
00:54:10And I've ran into the same issue. Initially, I was having conversations with people who were
00:54:16in the Branham cult or connected to it. And I realized that they're doing pretty much the same
00:54:20thing. So I have partners and friends who engage the opposite opinion, but I seldom do. I usually just
00:54:29bring people who have escaped the cults and want to talk about their stories. So this is a massive
00:54:36project. And I recommend anybody who has interest or anybody who has been affected by it to check them
00:54:44out. Where can they go to watch these videos? If you go to americangospel.com, that's our website.
00:54:50And we have three different pages for the three different movies, AG1, AG2, AG3. If you click on the AG3 page,
00:55:01you'll see a banner for Vimeo on demand. That's currently where it's available at this time.
00:55:09Four episodes of the 13 are available there. They can be purchased together for $15.96 or individually,
00:55:20I think they're $3.99 for each one. Um, that just helps us recoup our costs. Um, you know,
00:55:29filmmaking is kind of expensive when you're traveling and renting equipment and yeah,
00:55:38everything that goes with that. So yeah, we appreciate your support. If you can't afford it,
00:55:44um, one episode a month will is available on our streaming service called AGTV, which is watchagtv.com.
00:55:56Um, the first episode only has four more days to be up before the second one will be there.
00:56:04So they've, they've only been out about a month at this point, but I'm currently trying to finish up
00:56:10the rest of them and get those out sometime this year. If you had any advice to give people who
00:56:18have been affected by these movements, what advice would you give them? What, what I do with these
00:56:23projects is just, I'm, my goal is to try to help people understand a biblical view of the gospel,
00:56:31which I would summarize as rest, rest in Christ. The gospel is all about God doing everything for
00:56:41your salvation because he's gracious and merciful and there's nothing left for you to do to earn that
00:56:50salvation and love. And I think what this movement does is just add, they add to the gospel, they add
00:56:58burdens, um, requirements, you know, whether it's, you gotta do greater miracles than Jesus or,
00:57:10you know, they're promising physical healing now along with your forgiveness of sins.
00:57:17You know, that's usually the way that works out is
00:57:21you have to do something to unlock that breakthrough. It becomes this works based system
00:57:31where now what should be grace, a free gift of God, you have to now work to, to, to get in your life,
00:57:41to receive. And if you don't, there's something wrong with you. It's not God's fault. It's all,
00:57:46the burden is all on man. And I really think that that system just leads people to a shipwrecked faith,
00:57:54leaving the faith. And so that's, that's just kind of my goal is to point people to a biblical
00:58:01view of the gospel and to expose all these man-made errors in contrast, which are really
00:58:09focused all about the greatness of man and all about man's authority and power. And it's what false
00:58:18teachers use to control people and to build their religious empires, unfortunately. And I hope, um,
00:58:30I hope the, the Lord uses it or continues to use these to help people see those truths.
00:58:37I mean, he's done it in my life and I'm just trying to point to other people who've helped me and
00:58:44create these stories to kind of
00:58:48make a compelling case for the truth.
00:58:50Well, that's very good advice. Thank you so much for doing this.
00:58:54You're welcome. Thank you for, uh, agreeing to help. Um,
00:59:01you know, without looking into me, you know,
00:59:03John, you might want to do a little more research. I could have been a cult leader and you,
00:59:10yeah, you just didn't know.
00:59:13If you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web.
00:59:18You can find us at americangospel.com and william-branum.org. For more about the dark
00:59:24side of the new apostolic reformation, you can read weaponized religion from Christian identity to the
00:59:29NAR. Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
00:59:42Call us as if you wanna hold this for a good way to77 weaknesses and find additional
00:59:44benefits for the winning plan.
00:59:47Um, haven't been getting caught up XP kun, you know?
00:59:53And I'm not forced to disajże the sugar to be caught up.
00:59:55Yeah, I'm speculation.
00:59:57I'm not prophesies and so I'll be financially taught you all.
01:00:04I'm interested in reading a book by Gian Also,
01:00:07Right here in the future of the ElderLEs.
01:00:08Like, I hear about your favorite lore and incredible lore.
01:00:10Yeah, I'm part mirroring in the future of Babственноia fans.
01:00:11We'll see you next time.