- 1 week ago
John and Josh discuss Josh’s experience serving in leadership within an Evangelical Covenant Church and the events that ultimately led his family to leave. The conversation explores church governance, the role of leadership teams, the removal of a pastor, Covenant affirmations, and concerns about how authority and accountability function within local congregations. Along the way, they examine the challenges faced by Christians who take Scripture seriously while navigating conflict within their church communities.
John and Josh also explore broader questions about the shepherding movement, charismatic influences, critical thinking in church life, Matthew 18, spiritual authority, and the dangers of oversimplifying complex spiritual and organizational problems. Drawing from personal experience, church history, and theology, they discuss how believers can evaluate church structures, avoid unhealthy patterns, and move forward after difficult experiences without allowing those experiences to define their faith.
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
______________________
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John and Josh also explore broader questions about the shepherding movement, charismatic influences, critical thinking in church life, Matthew 18, spiritual authority, and the dangers of oversimplifying complex spiritual and organizational problems. Drawing from personal experience, church history, and theology, they discuss how believers can evaluate church structures, avoid unhealthy patterns, and move forward after difficult experiences without allowing those experiences to define their faith.
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
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LearningTranscript
00:31Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.
00:35I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research
00:40at william-branham.org, and with me I have Joshua Ruszynski, former member of the Evangelical
00:46Covenant Church.
00:48Joshua, it's good to have you on and to talk through some of the pros and cons of the different
00:54various groups.
00:55You're leaving the Evangelical Covenant Church, and you're coming to another group, so we're
00:59going to talk about that.
01:01But I got your email, and I was reading through it, and you struck a few interest points for
01:07me.
01:07So as you're talking, I'm probably going to throw you some questions, too.
01:10But maybe if we could begin by just telling everybody a little bit about yourself.
01:15Yep.
01:15My name is Josh.
01:16Josh, I am the father of four children, and been married for almost 20 years, and my wife
01:24and I are church groupies.
01:28We take a very serious role in our churches that we've always been part of.
01:34My wife has always been in music and music ministry.
01:39I can barely sing or carry a tune, but I sing enthusiastically, and she often can hear me
01:46from the stage.
01:47So we love the Lord.
01:49It's a very serious part of us, of our family.
01:53Our kids are, I'm humbled by how good my kids are, considering that I was such a bad apple
02:02when I was their age.
02:04They both participate in worship and at church.
02:09One runs soundboard, one plays drums, and the other two are too young, but they're budding.
02:16One's piano, one's viola.
02:19I think she might be more on my side of things, but that's okay.
02:26She has gifts, too, obviously.
02:29But yes, we experienced some rough stuff coming out of the Evangelical Covenant Church that
02:36we were part of.
02:37I was on a leadership team.
02:40Betsy was in charge of worship, and I sent an email to you, John, just, hey, we're going
02:46into the CMA, I'm a little bit concerned, given some of the CMA stuff that I've read from
02:55you and stuff now, to be very fair.
02:58Our pastor is pretty awesome.
03:02The elders is very awesome.
03:04It seems like the CMA, at least locally, has really cleaned up their game.
03:09But, you know, there's these just interesting aspects of the CMA, and I guess if there's
03:16something I'd want to get off my chest, as it were, it would be that church-heard experience
03:22and just, I want to approach it very delicately and not hurt anybody.
03:27But you might want to, you know, retitle this, The Book of Jude, right?
03:32Like, what happens is such a warning.
03:37So I'll just leave it at that, wait for a question or two to try to open up a little
03:44bit.
03:44I'm sorry, I don't really have a format or anything like that.
03:48Just, you know, to me, the most important thing is that this might help two people, one
03:59person, half a person, you know, if it even just buys some time for somebody, that's, to
04:07me, that made that experience worth it, because it was hard.
04:11It really was.
04:13And I came in there thinking, I've been asked for a leadership team.
04:18This is great, you know?
04:19And I really took it seriously, read my Bible all the way through for the first time, and
04:24I didn't stop, John, I read it maybe five or six times before I took on that mantle, a
04:32couple times while I was in the tenure.
04:34I didn't last out my term, though.
04:38Yeah, when I got your email, I was reading through it thinking, it's interesting because
04:43you're leaving a church that is deeply tied to various aspects of my research.
04:49I've not researched that group directly, but I've researched everything that influenced
04:53them.
04:54Oh, are you speaking, I don't want to interrupt too much, but are you speaking of the Evangelical
04:59Covenant Church or the CMA?
05:01You are.
05:02You researched the Evangelical Covenant Church.
05:04Yeah, well, not them directly, but I researched the things that influenced them, and it's kind
05:11of weird, because I was looking into the covenant churches specifically because I was studying
05:16the shepherding movement, and there is not a direct tie, at least not one that I could
05:22find.
05:23However, they seem to adopt many of the principles that the shepherding movement presented, and
05:30the ones that were apparently the more, the ones that led to the more destructive aspects
05:34of the shepherding, those seem to be the ones that were picked up by not only that group, but
05:39there were different groups that seemed to pick it up.
05:41So there was this weird time in the 1980s, and we're still dissecting that.
05:48I've actually just started a series with Pia Hugo, and we're talking through some of that.
05:53She has quite a bit of that history.
05:55She was on the inside.
05:56But we were examining how the charismatic churches, it was very, very popular to spread the shepherding
06:03thing.
06:03And so people were picking it up who weren't even directly tied to the shepherding movement.
06:08So that's why I was studying it.
06:11However, the ECC, it's much more complex than just that one aspect.
06:17But that was the aspect that led me to it.
06:20That's fascinating, John, because believe it or not, the old timers that were really involved,
06:28I would say, in the church, and you could tell that they had roots of leadership in the
06:321980s, right, they all pined for the 1980s as, like, that was, I mean, my wife and I had,
06:40we were transplants from Illinois.
06:43We had no idea in Minnesota about any, what church even looked like in the 1980s.
06:49To us, it was like, oh, okay, pop culture in the 1980s?
06:54Yeah, that was fun.
06:55You know what I mean?
06:56Like, what is it that you're pining for?
06:58So I'm wondering if you could put in, like, one sentence or something what the shepherding
07:03movement is, and maybe the Sudoku puzzle in my head can, like, start to solve, right?
07:11Well, there were many names for it.
07:13You had shepherding, some called it discipling.
07:16And the concept itself is actually not that bad.
07:19The concept is we have new Christians, we want to help teach them, we want them to grow,
07:25learn, et cetera.
07:26But what happens is sometimes you get people who aren't really suited for that job, and
07:33so they want to become more than themselves.
07:36And it turns into a hierarchy.
07:38And just because of human nature, not because of structure or agenda or anything like this,
07:43just the simple human nature, you're going to have that happen, whether they intended to
07:48or not.
07:49And what happened over time in the shepherding movement, you had five people, one of them,
07:54Arne Baxter, was part of the Baxter-Branham campaign, so he's deeply rooted into my research.
08:00Five people decided they were going to do this thing right after the Jesus movement.
08:05So you had this huge audience of people who were new Christians, who were hippies and music
08:12lovers, all of this.
08:13We need a way to control these people.
08:15We need a way to establish governance and teach them and disciple them.
08:19And discipling in that framework meant the whip, you know?
08:25They're trying to whip people into Christianity shape, I guess is – I don't know how you
08:29would explain it.
08:30Because I think their agenda was actually – they had good intentions to begin with, and
08:35then it got horrific.
08:37You had adults spanking other adults in some of the more extreme branches that spun off of
08:43this.
08:44So I'm investigating all of that.
08:46Now, all that said, the ECC does not equal shepherding, and again, there's no direct ties.
08:54But it was becoming so popular that even John Wimber, who people will say he was never one
08:59of the shepherding movement.
09:01He is so interconnected and he's using the language, the verbiage, that it sounds like he's supporting
09:08the shepherding movement, and he's on stage with the guys, he's being advertised in their
09:13magazines.
09:14So you had this broad coordination where all of these different charismatic Pentecostal groups
09:19are coordinating efforts to work together to help train this massive influx of Christians
09:25from the Jesus movement, and it went awry.
09:28Interesting.
09:30You know, that does ring some bells, only because one of the last pushes that are – okay,
09:39so our lead pastor was pushed out.
09:41That was the primary trigger for things that kind of fell apart.
09:46Now, he was not pushed out in any sort of church constitutional way.
09:51It was done by insiders, right?
09:54So the church did have an elite structure, if you will, that I was oblivious to.
10:02And in fact, I remained oblivious to it until somewhere where maybe three to four months
10:09before I left the church that I was even starting to see the outlines of, right?
10:15So the church, it's going to – okay, I hate to be so parenthetical of like, let's keep
10:23backing up to describe the thing I'm trying to describe, but I think it's important if
10:29you look at the covenant affirmations that the ECC has, they interpret the living word
10:40of God, the famous Hebrews, it's even printed on – the quote, or the verse is even printed
10:48on my little Bible here, I can barely see it, but you know, Hebrews 4.12, the word of God
10:55is living and active, sharper than two-edged sword, able – now, look, that's one of my
11:00favorite verses, but you have to be really careful when you're talking about the word
11:05of God, what – if you're going to have a fringe interpretation of it, my opinion is
11:12it shouldn't make itself into a foundation of a church affirmation.
11:17In my opinion, that's what it was, it became the foundation of the church affirmation of
11:23the Evangelical Covenant Church, and it is to this day, back in 74, I believe.
11:32And what does this mean?
11:34Said a lot of words, what does this mean?
11:36This means that they took some instruction, and I'm going to go to this affirmation, of
11:44the centrality of the word of God, this all can be found at their website, from a character
11:52named Philip Jacob Spencer, who presented these ideas in – way back in 1675.
12:05Now, whatever he did, I don't agree with even how they interpreted what he did, but what
12:12they say is what was new in his proposal was not another doctrine of inspiration, right, not
12:20new scripture, or a new recognition of the authority of scripture, which was an issue
12:25back then, but what was new was his recovery of the living nature of the word of God.
12:35It sounds fairly innocent, but it goes on to state – and this is the one I have a problem
12:43with – the dynamic life-shaping power of the word of God has been at the heart of the
12:48covenant church since its founding, okay?
12:51But what they're saying – I'm trying to find this dynamic life-shaping – okay, when
12:59I say – or when the word says, John – get your take on this – when the word says
13:09in Hebrews
13:104.12, do you mean that, that the word of God is changing?
13:15I don't.
13:16I believe that revelation is completed.
13:21That's one of the most interesting parts and part of the reason why I went there just
13:26a little bit.
13:26Like I said, I've not deeply studied them.
13:29I am familiar with their – what is it?
13:31The six covenant affirmations or whatever.
13:34I'm –
13:34Very good.
13:34I'm vaguely familiar with this, right?
13:37But here's where it gets interesting.
13:39If you study those principles at face value, what they're describing sounds really healthy
13:46and sounds like it prevents the things that happen with shepherding.
13:50However, when you take those little twists on it – and what you've just described is
13:56one of the little twists, in my opinion – whenever you take something that the Bible says explicitly
14:01and then try to shape it just slightly differently than the Bible says, but keep it where it sounds
14:07biblical, what you're doing is you're actually injecting your own thoughts into it.
14:12And the problem with the – with that particular injection is that that is rooted in what the
14:19shepherding movement borrowed from Branhamism, Branham borrowed from his predecessors.
14:24It was the idea that revelation took precedence either along with or over top of Scripture.
14:34In the more extreme cases, the speaker, the preacher, they would often come and say,
14:40I have a message for you, a message from God for you, something like this.
14:44And they were – they were speaking this – what we call the spoken word of God.
14:49So widespread through the Lateran movement, you had all of these ministers.
14:52Jim Jones is another one.
14:53He would say that we have the spoken word today.
14:56And what he's saying essentially is we have the Bible, but now we have a clearer insight.
15:01So the Bible is becoming more active to us today.
15:05And if you read between those lines of what's in the Bible and what they're saying,
15:11what they're saying essentially is I have the power to interpret that you don't have sitting in the pew.
15:18Absolutely. Absolutely. It drives you insane too because anybody who reads their Bible knows how wrong that is.
15:26And it doesn't take reading it over and over.
15:29Just read it through once, conscientiously, slowly, so you're actually understanding what you're reading.
15:35Don't read it like it's your feed, right?
15:38You read it. You read it so you understand it.
15:41What does that mean to me?
15:42Well, it means to me, John, I sometimes reread the same thing five times and it would go down to
15:49sounding out the vowels in my head explicitly because I'm a stubborn man.
15:55I'm a, you know, I'm a fallen man.
15:57We're all fallen.
15:58And what you just said made me feel like rejoicing in a way, in a sad way, because it's just
16:04like, oh, there's some understanding here.
16:08Because when you go through it, it's so painful because you don't get a lot of friends in this.
16:16It's really tough, you know, especially if you're in a small town.
16:20It's not like a lot of people have all the time in the world like I do.
16:23I have like a, I have a, I am an architect for the state.
16:28I have time.
16:31Okay.
16:32I have time that my, my, my fellow parishioners at the evangelical covenant church really didn't have.
16:39And I had, and my hobbies were on top of it is studying the Bible, right?
16:45Like to me, that was great.
16:48Even in the best of circumstances, even with everybody's following Christ and everybody's in step with the spirit, uh, that's
16:55still rare that there's people just like, oh, I'm just going to keep reading the Bible.
17:01So yes, this caused a lot of problems and I'm trying to find the tale of the story where I
17:07was at.
17:08Um, but just even entering the leadership team was a serious red flag for my wife and I, because we
17:17were both like, well, why doesn't it say elder?
17:21Right?
17:22Because is there anything in the Bible that says leadership team?
17:27No, it's all under elder.
17:29And even the term elder had been hijacked by this centrality affirmation of the word of God, which just like
17:37so many laws in the books is the opposite of what the title is.
17:43This is the opposite.
17:45It is so funny.
17:47Um, but this happens time and time again, let's pass a law and see what happens.
17:51We pass the law says the good law that keeps people from stealing and the, your state will just explode
18:00with fraud, right?
18:01It did the opposite of what the statement said it does.
18:05And I don't know if that's fallen nature of us or what that is, but absolutely that was the heart
18:13of the matter.
18:13And I was very concerned anyways, back to the story.
18:18And now remembering, um, everything started to happen and snowball itself because there was elite families in the structure of
18:28the church that I was unaware of these hidden reefs.
18:32Okay.
18:34Going to Jude.
18:34I'm going to keep going back to Jude because to me, Jude is such a powerful, uh, what warning warning
18:42sign for followers of Christ.
18:44Please read Jude if you're suffering from church hurt, because it can, that alone can save you.
18:52You can discount everything I say or anything John says or whatever that alone is enough.
18:57It is enough.
18:58These hidden reefs that you hit and you're just like, why am I bleeding all over?
19:03How did that happen?
19:05And these, these, uh, elite families really did control the church and they wanted to continue to control the church.
19:14And they knew, or at least one of, uh, a couple of them got together and they knew they didn't,
19:20they didn't have the power of the good people.
19:23I want to emphasize the very good people, the very good flock of that church who were very good Christians,
19:29strong Christians, many strong Christians.
19:31They knew they didn't have the votes, but they knew how to undermine.
19:36And I don't know if that they did it consciously or subconsciously, but I really do believe, John, it's part
19:42of our sin nature to be able to ferret out that kind of evil without any plan whatsoever.
19:47You know, you just kind of just agree to disagree.
19:52And so they went around the leadership structure to our, uh, uh, organizational structure.
20:04I don't know what you'd call a polity that's above the church, right?
20:07It's like our association.
20:11I don't know.
20:12I'm not, I'm not that versed in church structure, to be honest, which is sad, but.
20:16So you're an architect and I can say this and you'll understand this and I'll have to, maybe I'll break
20:21it down simply for the listeners.
20:22Maybe the, maybe this is a good example.
20:24So a counterbalance, if you understand what a counterbalance is, you've got a balance, you've got something that's weighted and
20:31there's a heavy weight.
20:32And instead of having the bulk of the load of the weight on the one side, you put a counterbalance
20:38and it makes things for, for simplicity sake, I would say like, um, uh, a hatchback hinge.
20:47You lift, lift the hatchback up and today they have pistons, but in the old days they had a counterbalance
20:52and it just really, really easy to lift.
20:54So for somebody who can understand that, if all of the weight was on the, the side that you lift,
21:00you're really struggling to lift that thing.
21:02But with the counterbalance, it's really, really easy.
21:05Yeah.
21:06There is a, a problem architecturally.
21:08If you architect the counterbalance and give it twice the weight that it needs, because then suddenly the things just
21:16doesn't work right.
21:17It's, it's too light, right?
21:20I have studied, after we left the cult that we escaped from, I went to several different varieties of churches.
21:27I wanted specifically to learn even the ones that I knew I would never continue attending.
21:34I wanted to learn what they believed and why.
21:36So we went to a few different ones and I went to the, the ones where they wear the collars
21:40and they're all formal and all the way down to some that were just one step away from what we
21:45left.
21:46And what I found was this, they all believed in the new birth because the Bible talks about the new
21:53birth.
21:54And when you're talking about the new birth, I'm going to frame it that it is the actual weight, not
21:59the counterbalance.
22:01Those that took the Keswickian way.
22:06Oh, wow.
22:07The word, the way in which you're looking for the new birth, but the counterbalance is if we don't detect
22:14it, you don't have it.
22:15That's the counterbalance.
22:17Right.
22:17Those that focused so heavily on the counterbalance, they were so out of balance that they focused so heavily on
22:24the negative.
22:25If you left, now it opened the door for shunning.
22:29They left because they didn't have the counterbalance.
22:31They left because they didn't have the higher life.
22:33They did the new birth.
22:34The higher life.
22:35And so what it does, without that proper balance, it develops into a cult, right?
22:42So groups like the one that you left, like the one that I left, we heard sermon after sermon after
22:48sermon in the group that I left about those that left because they were not of us.
22:54They didn't have what we have.
22:56We have something the church down the street doesn't have.
22:58They're talking about that higher life, and that influence, for me, it's devastating to a church because especially if your
23:07children raised in that environment, you're raised to fully support the counterbalance and not the actual thing that you're supposed
23:15to support.
23:15Worse, John, in my opinion, is that even in the covenant affirmations, they actually codify that type of behavior.
23:25They really do.
23:26Because they'll go on to say the church is a fellowship of believers in a way that almost implies like
23:32you're an other if I'm going to say something where I push you out of that circle.
23:39Now, I'll give the credit to the covenant church, the evangelical covenant church affirmations, at least, doesn't go so far
23:46as to believe that if you don't are fully in line with us, they don't say you're not a Christian.
23:51They just say maybe you don't belong here.
23:54And that part is in the reality of the freedom in Christ, which is one of the last affirmations.
24:01It is the last affirmation.
24:02And what they actually say, which blows my mind, is that there's enough freedom in Christianity where, you know, it's
24:14almost like if you're orthodox, maybe you just don't have an open enough mind to really be part of our
24:22fellowship 100%.
24:24Maybe you should find another place.
24:28And that's more a personal part of the tale why Betsy and I actually, that's my wife's name, why we
24:35actually wrote a letter to why we were resigning.
24:39And eventually, we should have just left the church then.
24:42But we're stubborn.
24:43Everybody's stubborn.
24:44Let's try to make this work, you know.
24:47And about two months later, we were out the door anyways, as anybody with half a brain could tell.
24:54So, except for the one you're in it, you don't have the brain.
24:58But, you know, again, to the underlying story.
25:02So, these family members got rid of this Bible teaching awesome pastor.
25:12Awesome.
25:14And a critique of the system that the ECC uses, which is a lot of other system, is if you
25:21could imagine a skyhook that just comes and grabs people in need, that's what they offer their pastors when there's
25:31trouble.
25:31Is they can just go down and say, hey, we have another church that needs a pastor, grab the skyhook,
25:38and no questions asked.
25:40We'll just throw you out of that church into another church, no questions asked.
25:45And I still consider that pastor a friend.
25:48But because of that type of way of handling things, nothing is ever handled.
25:54And all this types of stuff, when you take the Word of God and you twist it like a Rubik's
26:00Cube, it's not the Word of God anymore.
26:02It's just a messed up cube.
26:04It lost its perfection.
26:06And what I saw is that there was problems like a plate of spaghetti of problems that have been plaguing
26:15the church, in my opinion, for decades, if not lifetimes.
26:19And because those were never, ever addressed in a healthy way, it exploded.
26:25Because everything, when you reinterpret the Word of God, abusers love to cite Matthew 18 as like the be-all
26:34of, well, if you didn't go about it this way, well, look, you have to be appropriate.
26:39That is a personal sin from one brother to another brother, right?
26:43Example, John, I lied to you about something I sold your son, right?
26:48It hits you personally.
26:49It's a sin that I did.
26:51I have to repent of that directly to you, right?
26:54And if we don't meet and there's a problem in the body between us, that's when other people get involved.
27:04That doesn't apply to teachers or people that are in the public.
27:08We should not pretend that it does.
27:12This is a huge, huge problem.
27:15You see it at Bethel.
27:16You see it.
27:16All these things are exploding.
27:18Oh, well, did you go to him as a brother?
27:20Well, look, if I have a public, what, audience, it should be handled in a public way.
27:30It's not appropriate to use this.
27:32It's not appropriate to use the Bible anyways to hit over the head of other Christians.
27:37There's nothing in the word that I ever saw that was like, you know, the word sharp and active, you
27:45know, it's a two-edged sword.
27:48So, stab your fellow brother in the heart.
27:52You know, like, that's not, that's not, how is that biblical?
27:56How is that loving?
27:58You know, I made so many mistakes, too, in this leadership role.
28:03I am not a saint.
28:04I am a sinner, too.
28:05Okay, I made lots of mistakes.
28:10But I had nobody, well, people did side me in the leadership team, and we had a majority, but that
28:18was very short-lived.
28:19And then I was sort of like, well, we have to accept this as our lot, is basically what it
28:26kind of boiled down to, and never addressed that this pastor was pushed out.
28:31I was just asking for, like, look, like, I finally got to the point where I'm pleading with whom I
28:37thought was the problem.
28:38We're not going to name them.
28:39But I'm just, like, pleading with them.
28:40I was like, can you at least, for the good of the body, could you stand up and just say
28:45you're sorry that this happened?
28:47Like, to me, that would have been, there would have been so much grace for that man that it really
28:55would have helped.
28:56But, again, the last thing that could happen is you never air anybody's laundry to the point where all of
29:04our clothes stink.
29:05I mean, it just, you just can't operate like that in a Christian way.
29:11And so when I wrote the letter, I was coming out of the frying pan.
29:17I was like, am I going to get boiled in this kettle of CMA?
29:22Because this horrible experience with what it looked like on paper, a really awesome orthodox, meaning not orthodox, you know,
29:32but orthodox in belief, church, nice cup, to something that was like, well, that's actually sort of charismatic, this EMA.
29:43It has charismatic beginnings, and it has this guy who's A.B. Simpson who kind of was real shady on
29:53how he collected money.
29:54And there's two books, and it's like, oh, my goodness.
29:58Yes, thankfully, but we don't have a lot of choices in a small town, right?
30:04It's either this, the Catholic Church, we're not Catholics, although my wife works for the Catholic Church at their covenant,
30:14which is funny.
30:17But we're not Lutherans.
30:19So, you know, you have to, you have to, unless you're willing to travel hundreds of miles, and some people
30:27say you should.
30:28I don't think you ever should, honestly, but be that as it may, John, I took up a little bit
30:34of time there.
30:35You know, it's just, it's just so wild to me.
30:38So, when you said those words, like, oh, wow, not only you actually did research to the CMA, or not
30:47the ECC, which I really think it's the point of problems.
30:52There's so many problems.
30:54If you just let the Word of God speak through your spirit, you eliminate so much problems.
31:00Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started, or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter
31:09reign, charismatic, and other fringe movements into the New Apostolic Reformation?
31:14You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org.
31:21On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery,
31:29John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.
31:35You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.
31:42If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the Contribute button at the
31:48top.
31:48And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or
31:54watching.
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32:00So you being an architect opens the door for me to explain everything in your email in one summary.
32:07Everything about A.B. Simpson, everything about both the groups that you're talking about, and ironically, everything about everybody else
32:14that I talk about.
32:16And not everybody can get this, because not everybody has an architectural mind.
32:20Oh, I love this.
32:22People who have an architectural mind struggle in church, and they don't know why.
32:27They're sitting in the pews.
32:28They're listening to the sermon.
32:29They don't know why they're struggling.
32:31And they'll go from church to church.
32:32I know this because I do it.
32:34Church to church to church, and you can't put your finger on it.
32:37Something's off.
32:38What's off?
32:39Something's off.
32:40And it is this architectural problem, which you'll understand, and I'll have to explain it to the audience.
32:47There is a concept in architecture called oversimplification.
32:51What it means, you have a complex problem, and you're trying to give it a very, very simple solution, usually
32:58with only two sides.
32:59And the problem that emerges from this is the two-sided solution can't solve the ten-sided problem.
33:08When you're hearing a preacher, often they're trying very hard to make their sermon appealing to the itching ears.
33:17Like it or not, I don't care if it's a big church.
33:20I don't care if it's a small church.
33:21They do have to get income to pay the light bill to keep the church going.
33:27They have to do it.
33:28And if they were boring as heck, everybody's going to leave, and they're not going to come back.
33:32They're going to go to the church down the street.
33:34So everybody does it.
33:35I've not yet experienced a church that did not.
33:38So what they do is they try to take an ancient problem that is being addressed by an ancient letter
33:46that is to the church today, but is addressing a problem to the church of a millennia ago.
33:53And it's a much less complex issue than it is in today's world.
33:58Today's world, it's not an A or B solution.
34:01It's an A, B, C through Z solution in many cases.
34:04So they're trying to make that leap, and you can't do it because it's oversimplifying the problem.
34:11And instead of just pointing the people to say, here's what the problem was, here's how they fixed it, and
34:17we can do the same thing today in our more complicated scenarios, right?
34:22So because of this, now add to that complexity the mission of the church.
34:30And the mission varies from church to church.
34:32The CMA, obviously the Christian Missionary Alliance, their mission is the missionaries.
34:37The evangelicals, it's to evangelize.
34:41But now I'll add to that the complexity of the human mind.
34:47Not everybody is intended to be an evangelist.
34:50Not everybody is intended to be a missionary.
34:52And so you're trying to put these people in boxes that they can't fit, giving them a solution that is
34:58not the right solution for the architecture that you're building.
35:01And in the end, what happens is this.
35:04You get people who rise up into leadership who aren't really leadership for the mission of that particular church.
35:11And the example that I usually go to, and I hate to continue to use this, but it is the
35:17best one.
35:18I was in an evangelical church, and the minister was bragging behind the pulpit how he evangelized recently, like within
35:29the last month of that sermon.
35:30He went on a bus or a train or something, an airplane.
35:34He's sitting next to people who he has no idea what they believe, who they are, anything, and says,
35:40Did you know you're going to hell?
35:43And that's how he opened his door to evangelism.
35:45This is not a man who is cut out to be an evangelist.
35:48This is not a man who – you cannot do this.
35:52He's the wrong solution for the job, right?
35:55Yeah.
35:56Now, might he be somebody who can support a missionary?
35:59Maybe.
36:00Might he be a missionary?
36:01Maybe.
36:01But he's definitely not an evangelist, but he's in an evangelical church.
36:05So, he is not suited for the mission.
36:08He's part of the – part of this issue where you're oversimplifying things and trying to put everybody in the
36:14same box.
36:15The very reason why all the denominations exist is because each one does have a different mission, and there are
36:21people who are better suited to those missions.
36:24And those – even what I just said is oversimplifying it because now they also have multiple doctrines, right?
36:30Right, right.
36:31But at the heart of the problem is this – salvation is not an A or B simple answer.
36:39Whenever you look at somebody and they say, okay, they've got the new birth, they've just had the new experience,
36:43well, what if that experience is somebody who struggles with drug usage?
36:49An addict is an addict for the rest of their life.
36:52Once they get hooked, they'll get clean, but they're going to have that struggle.
36:56Every – you know, I've talked to addicts who are – in fact, I know a guy who – he
37:01still continues to go to the meetings.
37:02He's been clean for decades.
37:04But he says, John, I struggle every time I see it on TV, every time I think about it.
37:11I have tools now in my head.
37:13I have these tools that I use to not go back to where I was, but I struggle with it.
37:19But in some of these new-life Keswickian churches, that means that this guy is not saved because he's not
37:26had the new birth.
37:27He's still doing this, right?
37:29They're trying to fit – they're trying to oversimplify the problem.
37:34Now, take it another direction.
37:36Take somebody who maybe their sin is lying.
37:41They've got a sin of lying.
37:42They have the new birth.
37:43And, oh, I don't want to lie anymore.
37:45It's a little bit decreased because they don't have the addiction that's fighting and pulling on them until they get
37:52into a situation where they're – man, it's so much easier if I tell a lie.
37:56But that problem does exist.
37:58It's just decreased.
37:59So you've got different varying levels of issues with this.
38:03But the bottom line for me is the human personality is so complicated and so complex that when you listen
38:10to a church with a mission that doesn't fit that personality, you end up alienating people in your church.
38:18And many of the people will think they're not even saved.
38:21I don't understand this God that you have.
38:23This God can't be real to me because I don't feel it.
38:25They're just not really aligned with your mission.
38:27Yeah, that's – it's – what you said is very interesting to me.
38:32I do think that saving faith is simple because I think that we have – you can have somebody like
38:41Albert Einstein who's saved and you can have somebody with Down syndrome who's saved.
38:46But I'd agree that what that looks like is very different.
38:49I think a lot of problems stem from – and it's almost a modern addiction maybe more so.
38:56I don't know.
38:57But like trying to discern the motives of people all the time, like that's like – it's so corrosive.
39:06But it's like – it's almost something that ever since CNN or what have you – and I'm not saying
39:14CNN.
39:14I'm just saying they're the first cable news network, right?
39:17They had 24 hours a day to do news and you could – for a long time, if I don't
39:23remember, you probably remember these days, but every hour on the hour, it was like the same show because they
39:30literally had nothing else to say.
39:32But they would just spin it and they would just keep spinning the plate because it was a slow news
39:37day.
39:37There wasn't anything to talk about.
39:38So let's just beat this dead horse to death.
39:42And after a while, the news didn't – it wasn't news.
39:46It was just opinion.
39:48And then we kind of became a culture maybe of opinion where we're kind of swoling that out and templating
40:00on people in just really inappropriate ways.
40:03That new life is – yes.
40:06It's funny you've mentioned that because my wife brought up that because we can – and she went to Northwestern.
40:11I didn't go to any Bible school at all.
40:13It's all self-taught.
40:16And as far as drug use, I unfortunately could relate when I was a teenager.
40:21I had a huge problem with that.
40:23So thank God.
40:24God can break those chains.
40:26And I even think he can break addiction, but not for everybody and not for all circumstances.
40:32And don't feel bad if he didn't, right?
40:34There's no reflection on you.
40:36It's not.
40:38God has his reasons.
40:41And I do – my wife and I believe so heavily in the sovereignty of God, too, that we're looking
40:47at some of this going on and at the ECC of this ever-moving target of God's word.
40:53And it's like, that does not compute.
40:56That's not a loving God.
40:57He's not a mystery to us, right?
41:01He loves us.
41:02He didn't make the word of God complex in the sense of to be exclusive.
41:13So, John, I think you'll get a kick out of this.
41:16What do you think would not be helpful when you're kind of girding your loins to go against basically your
41:24whole leadership church when you have a dear friend who is a good Christian, but he's kind of like a
41:32five-fold ministry guy?
41:34What do you think would be the least helpful thing for that friend of yours to do in the privacy
41:40of your home one day?
41:43Well, your imagination is probably going crazy, but I'll just tell you, right?
41:47Cut to the chase.
41:48He anoints me with olive oil that I am a prophet.
41:54And I'm just like, I didn't even believe it because I was just way too reformed for that.
42:01I'm just like, I'm almost a cessationist.
42:04In fact, I flirted with being a cessationist.
42:07I also, at that point, was probably what they call, what, a cage Calvinist?
42:13I'm not anymore, but I just, it's just like, but, you know, you can't help that that affects your ego,
42:22right?
42:22You think in the back of your head, somebody who loves me anointed me to be a prophet.
42:32I don't know how I can even go about saying anything that happened after that fact, but it did happen
42:40in the privacy of my home.
42:41And my children were there, and he left the door out of the front door, and my wife is staring
42:48at me, and my older two boys are staring at me.
42:52I have four children, and they're just like, I don't know what that was, but that wasn't, I don't think
42:58that was good.
43:00I don't think that was good, Dad.
43:03And I'm thinking to myself, no.
43:08At that point, he was one of the only friends I had.
43:11Well, and that's very much like the example that I gave, right?
43:15It's doing the wrong thing in the wrong context because you're in the wrong mission.
43:20You don't understand how this works.
43:22You generally want to talk to somebody and at least know, are they going down that path or not?
43:28The problem is, and, you know, actually this might describe the reasons behind that.
43:34The problem is, when you're in that type of movement where everything becomes spiritual, you start to see spiritual things
43:43that aren't.
43:44Yes.
43:45And when you start doing this, you start to feel like God is in you, and you have a special
43:52revelation that the other guy don't have.
43:54This guy, I don't know he's a prophet.
43:55I feel it.
43:56I feel that in my bones, right?
43:59The problem is that goes to where people start saying God told me, and it gets to the point I've
44:07had people tell me God's telling them things that I'm just picturing God thinking God doesn't care about that.
44:15God doesn't care if he told you to go to the Kroger store or not.
44:18You go to the Kroger store because you need the food, you know, but they get to that level.
44:22And architecturally, it comes back to that thing.
44:27They're trying to fit a complex issue into this simplistic thing, sadly for the simplistic minds, because in the churches
44:37that do what you're describing, most of them have, over time, they have adopted the idea that you should suppress
44:46all critical thinking.
44:47And when you do, you have a simplified mind.
44:49The architects, if they break out of that, they're going nuts, because it does not fit, man.
44:56The things that you're saying, I know that you think the Bible says that thing that you're saying, but that's
45:00not really what it means.
45:03That's what happens here.
45:05And you just can't – I've said this a few times in the pot.
45:08You can't put God in a box, and that's what they're doing.
45:11I'm trying to put God in a box, give it to the people, and it's a box with an on
45:15-off switch.
45:17Yeah, you know, what's funny, too, is they'll use that language against you, too, though.
45:22They'll say, well, you can't put God in the box when you recite scripture, right?
45:26As if scripture was somehow not from God or didn't define on his – I was in the army, and
45:37you're trying to get your shots in between two posts, okay?
45:43That's, like, that's your range, right?
45:46Like, yes, it's obviously true.
45:49He's omniscient.
45:50He's all-powerful.
45:52He's eternal.
45:53You can't put him in a box.
45:55But, yeah, he gives us a tool to understand him, right?
45:59Because he does want us to understand him.
46:02So, yes, you put it very succinctly in a way.
46:05I was going nuts because I'm hypercritical thought.
46:12People kind of misinterpret that as me being criticism.
46:19Like, you know, I think you have a religious spirit.
46:23You, you know, throw out these things.
46:27And it's like, no, I'm not assigning motive.
46:29I'm really just trying to understand.
46:32I don't even care if we disagree.
46:36Like, to me, that's so unimportant in a conversation is if we disagree.
46:41I really want to know because I think a lot of times I'm wrong or I've been wrong in the
46:47past.
46:48And how can I be right is the only way is to do that architectural model and critically think through
46:56all those steps.
46:57And it doesn't matter how cherished that belief is that you landed on as the problem.
47:03You have to expunge it and you have to get rid of it.
47:06If you don't, you miss the really point of critical thinking.
47:10And you're right.
47:11That suspension of critical thought is such a hallmark of not just the cults, but just churches that are in
47:20danger.
47:20You're right.
47:21Because at no time would I think necessarily that the church is even a cult, but it was cultish.
47:27Right.
47:28It has cultish characteristics.
47:31And there is definitely cult behavior inside of it.
47:37And that's what was so frightening to my wife and I was that this became an all-consuming thing because
47:45we took the church so seriously.
47:47And it got to the point where we're talking about it.
47:50And when your eight-year-old or your six-year-old is parroting back some of the stuff that you're
47:56talking about, maybe somewhat in confidence, stuff that, you know, it's adult, right?
48:02It's not adult-rated, obviously.
48:03It's just adult stuff.
48:05And your six-year-old's saying that because they recognize it that it's bothering you.
48:14It's okay to take the church seriously, but as a father, you know, you have to protect your kids, you
48:22have to protect your family, and you really do miss the boat.
48:26It doesn't matter how, at a certain point, you're Don Quixote.
48:31You are just at that windmill full tilt.
48:34You're just charging the thing, and you just have to stop.
48:38You just have to stop.
48:40And that's what it was.
48:42And I was kind of that guy where I thought, God is speaking through me.
48:48Thank God that he gave me the discernment, the gift of discernment, where at least I was filtering it through
48:54the Bible so anything that wasn't biblical was being chucked.
48:58But did it make me pretty sharp-edged during that time?
49:01Oh, yeah.
49:02Oh, yeah.
49:03I mean, I was like a bull through the China shop because in a situation where you have a leadership
49:09that don't know their Bible, and you do, and you have this fire in the bosom, you can be pretty...
49:19I don't know.
49:21Like, it's hard to say.
49:23I really think that as God is going to use this, he uses these things.
49:28I mean, it must drive demons nuts, right?
49:32Because in the end, they're always working for God, right?
49:35Like, think about...
49:38That's why they're so angry, right?
49:40They can't ever get it right.
49:41Because even when they do these crazy movements like the CMA starts this way or even William Brannon or whatever,
49:50God somehow used this for the force of good in the church.
49:54And it has helped so many people along the way.
50:00But, I mean, that's a crazy tangent.
50:02But I did not, during this whole point where I'm trying to keep our pastor, then he decides to leave
50:14anyways.
50:16Goodness, John, that wore us out.
50:18That wore us out.
50:19And I also, it's been on my heart to say, too, is that it's okay to be, to identify that
50:29you have been a victim.
50:31But let's be careful that we don't carry that through everywhere we go.
50:37We don't want the victimhood trophy, right?
50:40Because that does taint...
50:43After a while, I think it was Carl Jung, definitely not a Christian, to say the least.
50:50But he did say something that was super smart.
50:53And he was just like, what is it?
50:56The permanent victim cannot be trusted.
50:59And it's wise.
51:00You know, it's wise.
51:01Because I'm sure there's a biblical equivalent out there.
51:05It hasn't come to me.
51:07But if everything is a personal interaction, then obviously your perspective has been twisted.
51:21And I just say that for the edification for any listeners out there.
51:25It's like, you know, I think you do an important thing here, John, is that you let people who have
51:31been victimized speak out.
51:33But let's just remember that, too, is that that's not who you are in Christ.
51:40He wants you to take that, all the theology of suffering, to help somebody else, right?
51:48We're in the United States.
51:49We don't like suffering.
51:50But I have arthritis.
51:53I have pretty bad arthritis.
51:55And I believe that it...
51:58You know what?
51:58Look at it as a blessing.
52:00I can help somebody out there who has it, who's in the beginning stages.
52:05I can learn from somebody who has it in the advanced stages.
52:09I can use that to edify the body of Christ by equipping them with knowledge so that they can use
52:18wisdom with that awful thing that they've been burdened with.
52:22You know, and our heart wounds, our spiritual wounds, all the more so is their potency, is that you can
52:33take this thing that you had in your life, John, and you've been doing it day in and day out.
52:39Well, this has been interesting.
52:40We probably talked way over people's heads talking architecture.
52:44I was thinking, and the funny part I was thinking is you were talking about even the demons do God's
52:49bidding.
52:50Well, that's what an architect would call a managed risk or a managed effect.
52:54That's right.
52:55You know, they control the good and the bad, and I don't think the Masonic order has rights to have
53:03exclusivity on this, but God would have to be the master architect, and so he would have everything under his
53:08control.
53:09The problem that I have had since being in the cult and since even experiencing, to some extent, some of
53:16the other churches, they don't look at God as though he's the master architect.
53:20They look at God as though God needs them as the architects for the solutions, and that solution is their
53:27one-sided solution, and it's usually too oversimplified.
53:31So there's a bunch of architectural terms.
53:33Nobody's going to get it but me and you, but thank you so much for doing this.
53:38Thank you for all you do.
53:39Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web.
53:43You can find us at william-branham.org.
53:45For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to
53:51the NAR.
53:52Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
54:16More about the false i-guns and a semi- Dübers Border filos.
54:19No more than you would watch a dark side of the Old Apostolic Reification landscape.
54:19More than you dare to check us at william-branham as though we might hear from the
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