- 17 hours ago
John and Daniel examine the 1904–1905 Welsh Revival, questioning the familiar story that places Evan Roberts at its beginning. They discuss Joseph Jenkins, Seth Joshua, the revival’s spread across Wales, Roberts’ intense approach to prayer, reports of burnout, and the unusual way the movement crossed denominational lines without becoming a new denomination.
They also explore the connections between Wales and Los Angeles through figures such as Joseph Smale and Frank Bartleman, including the influence the Welsh Revival had on the religious environment surrounding Azusa Street. Along the way, John and Daniel debate what should actually qualify as a revival, how renewal differs from religious excitement, and why the Welsh Revival developed differently from many later Pentecostal and charismatic movements.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
07:01 The Welsh Revival Before Evan Roberts
11:14 Welsh Influence on Early Pentecostalism
16:03 Evan Roberts, Performance, and Burnout
24:39 Why John Is Skeptical of Revival
30:07 What Made the Welsh Revival Different
42:05 Revival vs. Biblical Renewal
46:41 Personal Holiness and the Meaning of Renewal
52:43 From Wales to Los Angeles
______________________
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
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They also explore the connections between Wales and Los Angeles through figures such as Joseph Smale and Frank Bartleman, including the influence the Welsh Revival had on the religious environment surrounding Azusa Street. Along the way, John and Daniel debate what should actually qualify as a revival, how renewal differs from religious excitement, and why the Welsh Revival developed differently from many later Pentecostal and charismatic movements.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
07:01 The Welsh Revival Before Evan Roberts
11:14 Welsh Influence on Early Pentecostalism
16:03 Evan Roberts, Performance, and Burnout
24:39 Why John Is Skeptical of Revival
30:07 What Made the Welsh Revival Different
42:05 Revival vs. Biblical Renewal
46:41 Personal Holiness and the Meaning of Renewal
52:43 From Wales to Los Angeles
______________________
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
Category
📚
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.
00:42And with me, I have my co-host and friend, Daniel Bright, almost YWAMer.
00:47Daniel, it's good to have you back.
00:49And almost YWAMer, I think last time you said something like YWAM adjacent, and that's how
00:54we ran with it.
00:55But there's so many topics that you and I explore.
00:58And I'm actually excited for this one, because I have been asked by multiple people through
01:03the years to talk about the subject we're getting into, which is the Welch Revival.
01:08And as people know, my history usually starts around Pentecostalism just slightly before and
01:15then goes up through latter reign, New Apostolic Reformation.
01:18But I started to form this question whenever I began researching the Pentecostal movement.
01:25What if the person who began the Pentecostal, the most famous person in the Pentecostal Revival,
01:31what if he's not the one who started it?
01:33And that led me into Charles Fox Parham and some of the background into Dowie and Sanford.
01:40And interestingly enough, fast forward through time, I'm looking at the revival that sparked
01:45the Assemblies of God.
01:47And to anybody who's looked at the research that I've published, it's the same kind of
01:53thing.
01:53You have a revival.
01:54Well, the most famous person who's in this revival, or in this case, it's a group of people,
01:58they're not actually the one who starts it.
02:01And so I started seeing this pattern that's emerging, and I'm not saying that it's good
02:07or bad, but I was looking at the Welch Revival, and it has the same type of pattern.
02:11The most famous person in the Welch Revival is not actually the guy who started it.
02:16And this will be an interesting discussion, because for those who don't know, Daniel looks
02:22at the Welch Revival very favorably, and I look at it somewhat skeptically.
02:28I'll say it like that.
02:30It doesn't lead into all of the weird nonsense with sexual stuff that you have in some of
02:36the other revivals, but there is some weirdness in it.
02:38So I view it with skepticism.
02:41Daniel looks at it favorably, but wanted to tackle the Welch Revival from an open and balanced
02:47perspective.
02:49Yeah, and I should say from the outset, if anyone listening thinks Daniel's just biased because
02:55it's British, well, not necessarily, because I did do an episode with you about the
03:00Jane Lee, and she was awful, everything she led to.
03:03When I was looking into this, I emailed you about this years ago, and while we were discussing
03:11what we were going to do about this, someone emailed us again and said, you're going to
03:15cover the Welch Revival.
03:16And yeah, there's a lot to look at.
03:20From the cursory glance, it can be quite obvious to anyone who knows about Pentecostalism that
03:26there would have been crossover because the Welch Revival is from 1904 to 1905, and that's
03:32exactly when the Azusa Street Revival happens in 1905.
03:36On my primary research website I was using was the TheWelshRevival.co.uk, and they actually
03:44have a section on their website called The Welch Revival and Azusa Street, which really
03:50surprised me.
03:52Now, being British myself, I actually visited some of the churches in old South Wales, in
03:59South Wales, which sparked, well, didn't spark.
04:02That's the thing, they didn't spark the revival, the revival was happening all over the country.
04:07And I was, like many people, I would have assumed it started with this one guy, that he wasn't
04:14the catalyst to all of this.
04:16So going into this, I'll qualify our two different perspectives.
04:21I came up with an eight-point flimflammery index, which I think can work quite well to apply
04:28to any of the revivals when you're wondering, is this genuine, is it of God?
04:32Well, Moses said, if the prophet tells you something that happens and it doesn't, then
04:37you know they're not to be trusted.
04:38My list, much like the Bible, my list is much more extensive.
04:42So number one, as your granddad said, where's the money?
04:47And so from that perspective, I would say, thankfully, from 1904 to 1905, the Welsh Revival,
04:52there wasn't large amounts of money.
04:54Number two, who's having the sex scandals?
04:56Who's sleeping with who?
04:57No one, obviously, I imagine married people were, hopefully, but there was no one scandal-wise
05:03that was sleeping around.
05:04Number three, does the leader start it all with bizarre visions and then convinces a hard
05:11put on upon following?
05:12No, not so much.
05:14Earlier on, yes, but I'll get onto that.
05:16Do the main denominations kick them out and they get all in a huff and start their own thing?
05:20No.
05:21No, which splits and splits and splits.
05:24No, they stay in.
05:25Number six, can you trace various movements in the charismatic world back to this one
05:30dodgy guy, Evan Roberts?
05:32No, although qualified, perhaps in a sense because of Azusa Street later.
05:37Seven, most importantly, fake healings, fake speaking in tongues, fake the Lord told me your
05:42street address.
05:44No.
05:45The eighth one is specific to William Brannan, where he would always go to the next city and
05:51say, hey, back there, there were healings.
05:54There were revivals.
05:55It was all over the newspapers.
05:56That's not necessarily what happened really with the Welsh Revival.
05:59It was external newspapers coming into the cities and towns and villages in Wales to be
06:04like, what's going on here?
06:06There seems to be a lot of people converting.
06:07Now, where the interesting point of, I would say, tension between you and I there would
06:13be point nine, which I think is worth examining.
06:16How much did the prime instigators become burned out in a very standard way in the Welsh
06:24Revival?
06:24And that ninth point is a good probability, yes.
06:29So we were a bit opaque into who we're referring to.
06:34So the guy we're talking about or not talking about is Evan Roberts.
06:39And jumping right in there with the Star Trek reference and analogy, it's that in Star
06:44Trek, of course, they said, beam me up, Scotty.
06:46No, no one ever said, beam me up, Scotty.
06:49It just sounds like something they would say in Star Trek.
06:52But no, Scotty was in The Engineer.
06:54He was downstairs in The Engineer.
06:55But it just sounds like something they would have said.
06:58So likewise, with the Welsh Revival, we think it started with Evan Roberts in 1904 in the
07:03autumn, but it didn't.
07:04So I'm going to go back a little bit further.
07:07Way back to 1859, you have a guy called Henry Morgan, who's just come back.
07:16I might be mixing the names up.
07:18So anyone looking these things up, I might have mixed some of the names up, meets Evan
07:24Phillips.
07:25OK, it doesn't help that they're all called Evan, but Henry Morgan.
07:29Sorry, I said Evan Phillips.
07:30I meant Henry Morgan.
07:32Focus on the dates here.
07:33A guy goes to Wisconsin who is also Welsh and he then goes on to New York in 1859 and
07:41he's present there during the Fulton Street Revival.
07:44I had a cursory look at the New York Street Revival and it suffers a little bit from point
07:49seven, which is sorry, point eight over exaggerated healings and newspaper reports.
07:55But this guy doesn't quite do very well in New York.
07:59And he comes back to Wales in 1859.
08:02And then he, this isn't Evan Roberts, this is someone else.
08:06He ends up burning out and making millenarial prophecies which don't come to pass.
08:11So that first revival, well, one of the rivals in 1859 doesn't really work out.
08:16Evan Roberts spiritually and in terms of the timeline, he's a grandson of that revival from
08:211859. So that's very much still in everyone's memories.
08:25It's fresh in Wales.
08:27Then a guy comes onto the scene who actually sparks off the current Welsh, that Welsh revival in 1904.
08:34This is Jacob Jenkins.
08:36If I slip up later and say Joseph Jenkins, it's because I got his name mixed up with someone else.
08:41So I may say Joseph, I may say Jacob, but the important surname is Jenkins.
08:48So we're just calling him Jenkins from now on.
08:49He was in a place in northwest Wales, south of Aberystwyth.
08:54Wales only really has one coast.
08:56It's on the west.
08:57And he was in, drumroll, wait for it, the Calvinistic Methodist church.
09:03And now normally from what we've been looking at, these Pentecostal charismatic leaders,
09:08they start their own thing, or they just start their own church, or they got kicked out of
09:12something else.
09:12But what's unique about the Welsh revival here is it's happening within a very uncharismatic,
09:18un-Pentecostal denomination.
09:20You can't really get much more to the other side of things than Calvinistic Methodist.
09:25But the Methodist, remember, had already come out of revival from the Wesleyans who were in
09:29the Episcopal church.
09:30So this chap, Joseph Jenkins, he is the person who started the 1904 Welsh revival.
09:38It's famously from a young woman who stands up in the meeting and says,
09:44I love Jesus with all my heart.
09:46And then she sings a song in Welsh, which I'm going to butcher the first verse of,
09:55which is, here is love vast as the ocean, loving kindness as a flood.
10:01And that hymn becomes the hymn of the Welsh revival.
10:06Now, for this sort of Amazon Rings of Power retelling of the Welsh revival, she would have
10:10sung that without Evan Roberts in November 1904.
10:13But no, Evan Roberts wasn't on the scene yet.
10:16Joseph Jenkins was holding these revival meetings independently.
10:19Later on, Joseph Jenkins invites someone called Seth Joshua to preach at his revival meetings.
10:27That's where Evan Roberts comes into the picture.
10:29And Evan Roberts says that he wants to be bent by God and to be used by God most famously.
10:37And that's where we think the revival starts.
10:41I'm not sure why we focus on Evan Roberts so much.
10:44Maybe it was the, he just had better publicity and a lot of people talked about meeting him.
10:48So, to round off the beginning bit, to establish where we are, it starts with Joseph Jenkins in
10:551904, with a woman who sings, here is love vast as the ocean.
10:59Then it goes, then Seth Joshua preaches at the Calvinistic Methodist church.
11:03And then Evan Roberts gets in on the scene and is convicted in the spirit, in his words,
11:09to turn his life over to God.
11:11So, so far, so good.
11:13My perspective isn't to look at a particular movement, revival group as either good or bad.
11:20They're just a movement.
11:21They're simply that.
11:22Now, they may later turn into something that is destructive.
11:26I'm not going to say it did or didn't.
11:28But my perspective is we are all swayed by the influences that we come in contact with,
11:37no matter who you are.
11:38If you grew up in a Baptist church, you listened to Baptist doctrine.
11:41That was your influence.
11:42You listened to a Baptist preacher.
11:44You probably had Baptist parents.
11:45You had Baptist upbringing.
11:47You think like a Baptist.
11:49Whereas if you're Methodist, it's different.
11:51Or Pentecostal, so on and so forth.
11:53So we are a product of our influences.
11:56And like my studies with Christian identity, whenever I began to understand that Henry Ford
12:04helped to distribute this very anti-Semitic doctrine through his Dearborn Independent,
12:10and this began to sway Americans on that ideology, it was called the Protocols of the Learned Elders
12:19of Zion.
12:19This pamphlet goes all throughout the United States.
12:22Well, it had an impact, it had an influence, and it strongly influenced what would eventually
12:27impact parts of Pentecostalism, especially in Los Angeles.
12:32So that is one area of influence that I can say goes into Azusa Street.
12:37It doesn't mean that Azusa Street subscribed to this by and large, but it was a factor of
12:42their influence.
12:44Well, the Welsh Revival is also a factor of their influence.
12:47And there are clearly documented paths that you can find from the Welsh Revival into Pentecostalism,
12:53among other pathways of influence.
12:56For example, on the website, I think it might be on the Azusa Street Revival page, you can
13:02find a strange article about these weird Russians who are having a revival of their own, and they're
13:08doing many of the same things.
13:09So it's kind of odd when you think about it.
13:12Well, there was either a book or a pamphlet that was written about what was happening
13:19in the Welsh Revival, and it made its way into Los Angeles.
13:23And so there were connections because people were reading this.
13:28If I recall correctly, it was called The Great Revival in Wales, I think is what the book
13:34was called.
13:34S.B.
13:35Shaw's The Great Revival in Wales.
13:36Well, this influenced another figure that I've been asked to talk about, Frank Bartleman.
13:41And also, if I remember correctly, there was a Baptist minister who was strongly influenced
13:47by this book, so much so that he actually traveled to Wales and came back.
13:52Well, he's holding another Baptist revival adjacent to the Pentecostal revival.
13:57And so you see all of these things breaking out, and to each person who is in their particular
14:04revival, and they encountered others who were experiencing similar things, at that point
14:09in time, the answer to this logically is, there's a move of God around the globe.
14:14This must be the end.
14:16And that's the way the Pentecostal viewed it.
14:18You can look at the Pentecostal prophecies and predictions, and you can see this.
14:22They all think it's the end.
14:23And many of those prophecies failed, which is why I'm highly skeptical of the Pentecostal
14:29experience that happened there.
14:31Well, if you continue that line of thinking, it didn't succeed in the way that they thought.
14:38Well, what happens when it doesn't succeed in the way that you think, now you start to
14:43change and adapt to the times.
14:45And that's what happened with the Pentecostalism.
14:47I can see some similarities in the fact that if you study what, if you study the presence
14:55of the stage presence of people who are in the Welsh revival, especially when you're talking
15:01about Evan Roberts, he has a very charismatic stage presence.
15:04Like the Pentecostals, he's starting to link his, maybe not prophecies, but divine predictions
15:11of where a revival will be and how successful it will be based off of what he feels is the
15:16move of the spirit.
15:18And those things don't always come out as exact as he says.
15:22And so there'll be a revival and it'll just fall flat on its face.
15:25Well, he told everybody that it wouldn't fall flat on their face.
15:29To him, maybe it wasn't a prophecy, but to his listeners, to his audience, they thought
15:33it was.
15:34That's the way that this thing kind of works.
15:36So to his audience, those who got frustrated with the failures, there were some who backed out
15:42and said, this isn't really of God, this is a false prophet.
15:46Was he actually prophesying?
15:48I don't know.
15:49But it does, for me, it just raises a level of skepticism.
15:52And that's, I think, the only point I'll make.
15:54Yeah.
15:55And that's a very reasonable point because I think people would identify Evan Roberts with
16:02all of it.
16:03And what really struck me with researching this was I ended up with a lower view of Evan
16:11Roberts specifically, but a much higher view of the Welsh revival generally, because what
16:17was happening in Los Angeles and elsewhere in the charismatic world and, say, Jane Lead
16:23was one guy starts it, sometimes a woman, and it all just goes off the rails a bit.
16:28But what was really interesting with the Welsh revival is when they had newspaper people
16:32coming to visit Wales, they were like, where's Evan Roberts?
16:35Where is he?
16:35A lot of the time they couldn't find him.
16:37And sometimes he came anonymously into some of the prayer meetings.
16:41And, for example, Joseph Jenkins, who kicked it all off, he didn't have much to do with
16:46Evan Roberts afterwards.
16:48But you are right.
16:49That letter that he sent to Frank Bartleman, who I mentioned to you about a year and a half
16:53ago, he writes three letters to Frank Bartleman, and all of the letters paint a picture of
17:00a rather troubled young man.
17:03And it's really interesting looking into the timeline of what happened with Evan Roberts,
17:09because in October he starts off a prayer meeting in the church, but he doesn't get enough,
17:16they don't think he's going to get enough people.
17:18So he just has 16 or 17 people in the adjoining school building, and a lot of them are young
17:25women, which rings a few alarm bells in the Mike Bickle area.
17:29But no, it all went fine.
17:31It's just there weren't very many people there.
17:34When I was reading what Evan Roberts wrote about his expectations of the revival, he starts
17:41off by saying, I was very disappointed with the state of Christianity in Wales.
17:45And I was like, this doesn't, hang on, this isn't the story I was told about him.
17:51This isn't very positive, Evan Roberts.
17:53I'm quite happy with Christianity.
17:54It's me that's the problem.
17:56But during these revival meetings, he was quite, he was quite a bit kind of five-year-old
18:03boy, not really understanding how to play with anyone else.
18:07When people were singing, he sometimes said, stop singing.
18:11We need to pray instead.
18:13He doesn't quite get the flow of things.
18:16And then when people start talking, he's like, no, no, you can't be talking.
18:20You're interrupting the flow of the spirits, which for him just meant prayer.
18:24So he had one spiritual language, which seemed to be prayer.
18:26He would say, it feels like the meeting, it feels like the spirit is going out of the
18:30meeting and the meeting's on the way down, he used to say.
18:34It sounds very performance-based.
18:36And when I read that, I was like, yeah, this guy is, as you say, he's a stage act.
18:40He's trying to manufacture some kind of stage persona, some kind of performance here.
18:46And that's not very good.
18:49And what struck me immediately when I learned that about him was it linked to an element in
18:54William Branham's developments where you repeatedly use the phrase, you know, the wax figures.
19:00You go into these churches and everyone's just sat there.
19:02And eventually the William Branham movement was all jumping up and down, speaking in tongues,
19:08like pogo sticks, everyone's got purple hair.
19:09But then that solidifies, it turns to stone and everyone's just sat there listening to
19:15someone speaking.
19:16And there was an element of Evan Roberts, I think, that wanted an outpouring of the spirit.
19:21But when the spirit starts saying, now we're going to sing, now we're going to talk,
19:25that wasn't good enough for Evan Roberts.
19:27And that makes me wonder that Pentecostalists, those who call themselves Pentecostal charismatics,
19:32they actually have a rather liturgical small box that they want the Holy Spirit to fit into
19:38during these revival meetings.
19:40Whereas I suppose my form of low church Anglicanism would say, yeah, if you want to jump on the
19:45pogo stick, stand at the back, do some painting, speaking tongues, maybe a little bit, you know,
19:49it's all a bit of this, but it's a bit of a buffet, really.
19:52But for Evan Roberts, he had one thing on the menu and it was prayer.
19:56I think not a bad thing.
19:57But if you're someone who wants the spirit to move, why limit him so much and say he
20:01can't do other things?
20:03And that becomes quite characteristic of the charismatics later on.
20:06But instead of being open to stuff, it becomes quite limited as to who can speak for God.
20:12You know, Mike Bickle's famous phrase, 85% of all these prophecies are made up.
20:16You're the charismatic.
20:18You're supposed to believe in these things.
20:20Joseph Smith did the same thing.
20:21When things got too much out of hand, he said, no, no, the prophet can dictate what direction
20:26the spirit's going to move in.
20:27This doesn't sound very biblical at all.
20:31There was one phrase that really jumped out between the letters that Evan Roberts was sending
20:38to and from him and Los Angeles, where he said that the altar has been set.
20:47We're waiting for the fire.
20:49Ah, that's Elijah.
20:51And, you know, immediately my mind is thinking, you know, the Elijah generation, Joel's army,
20:57all this stuff bringing the springs to mind.
20:59And then he's saying that in these days, in these latter days, we are experiencing the
21:04spirit falling like rain in Wales.
21:07Oh, no, we've got the phrase there, the latter rain.
21:10And then Frank Barcliffe ends up using that exact phrase.
21:13He says, this is the latter rain.
21:14I was like, it's all come here from Wales.
21:17And then I was really panicking from it, thinking, hang on a second, I was expecting on the next
21:22page about Evan Roberts, all of the scandals come up, all the splits.
21:26It's not quite that bad.
21:28But it is a lot of source material for people who then go on to the revival.
21:35So to begin to link it towards what we'll be talking about in the next episode, halfway
21:39through here, you've got a guy who actually travels to Wales from Los Angeles, who is
21:46Joseph Smale.
21:48Joseph Smale.
21:49Joseph Smale.
21:49Joseph Smale.
21:51So he's been convalesced in LA.
21:53He comes to Wales in the early 1905.
21:57By which time, Evan Roberts, like any true YWAB, he's burned out.
22:02He's convalescing his sister's house.
22:04Because when Evan Roberts went through his conversion, as he would call it, his family
22:09were like, I'm not sure if this is very good for you, Evan.
22:12You don't seem very well.
22:14You're just going in seven days a week and doing your prayer stuff all the time.
22:18Inevitably, he ends up burning out, which I've seen happen a lot in my church with YWAMs
22:23who send me their prayer letters saying we're going all in for God.
22:26And then it turns out they haven't been to church the last year because, you know, they
22:30don't want to be pharisaical about church attendance.
22:32So Evan Roberts was a sort of YWAMer before his time.
22:36He just ends up burned out.
22:38So that's the kind of, that's the tortoise and the hare comparison.
22:43He went all in for God and then just gets burned out in his late 20s, which is very standard.
22:49So there, I suppose that would be point 10.
22:51No, sorry, point nine, getting burned out.
22:53That's very charismatic, very characteristic of the charismatics that they get burned out.
22:59So right there, March 1905, Joseph Smale comes in on the scene and he starts going around
23:05and looking at all this stuff that's going on in Wales.
23:07That's the link there.
23:08That's where Joseph Smale comes to Wales.
23:11Then he's going back to Los Angeles.
23:13They were saying that they felt that they woke up and they could remember people's names
23:19from these revive meetings.
23:20And I had instant Paul Cain memories remembering the names.
23:24Maybe they've got the prayer cards.
23:27But what happened was after the Welsh revival ended, these preachers, they said, we lost the ability.
23:33I thought, I haven't heard that before.
23:35I haven't heard charismatic pentacologists say, hey, it's gone.
23:38We had it.
23:39It's gone now.
23:40I thought it was very humble.
23:42That's a bit like the Aspie revival in the US a couple of years ago,
23:44where they said, no more revival.
23:45We're done with that now.
23:47So a lot of these preachers didn't burn out.
23:50They just, well, a candle burns out, runs out of fuel.
23:53It's not necessarily bad if the candle has any sense of self-awareness.
23:58But a lot of these preachers in Wales were doing it independently.
24:01I've got to stress that point.
24:02It was happening in North Wales, South Wales, Centre Wales.
24:04It wasn't Evan Roberts starting his own thing, whereas Azusa Street was just LA.
24:09The Welsh revival was the whole country, the whole nation, I should say.
24:13It wasn't one man.
24:15It was happening everywhere.
24:16You go to any small village, small town, everyone was, well, everyone.
24:20A lot of people were singing very independently of either Joseph Jenkins or David Morgan or Evan Roberts.
24:26That's why it's called the Welsh revival.
24:28So if anyone comes away with one point from today, it would be the Welsh revival was largely good.
24:34Evan Roberts was surprisingly unstable.
24:39Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started, or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism
24:45transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic, and other fringe movements into the New Apostolic Reformation?
24:52You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org.
24:59On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery,
25:07John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.
25:14You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.
25:20If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the Contribute button at the
25:26top.
25:27And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or
25:33watching.
25:33On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
25:38There's a reason why I'm skeptical about the Welsh revival and many of the other revivals.
25:43Everybody who knows me knows that when I hear the word revival, I hear the phrase,
25:47run screaming, run for your lives.
25:49That's how it goes in my head.
25:52And there's a reason for that, actually.
25:56So I escaped the Branham cult, which was a high-demand, high-control group, 2012, I believe it was.
26:03This is now 2026.
26:04So I'm many, many years past this.
26:07I have experienced many different church situations.
26:11We've tried different churches that weren't high-demand.
26:14And when you're in a non-high-demand group, you go to church, it's very calm, it's peaceful, you might
26:21hear something that stirs you up, or you might not.
26:24And you're okay with the might not.
26:26When you're in a high-demand group, the might not is Satan trying to take your soul, my brother.
26:32And what happens is, when I hear that there were people who were in this revival and got burned out,
26:38like you said, it matches the pattern.
26:41William Branham, same thing.
26:43Blatter Rain revival, he got burned out.
26:45To the cult, to the Branham cult, we would say he got burned out because God was using him so
26:51mightily.
26:52Now, on the other side of this, I think he got burned out because he was in a high-demand
26:58situation.
26:59And when you read the articles, it sounds very much like he had a mental break.
27:04And I've read some of the same things about the Welch revival.
27:07I don't know if they're true or not.
27:09I wasn't there.
27:09I can't say.
27:10But they look at the characteristics and they think, okay, there's a mental break here.
27:15Does that mean that the people involved who had the mental breaks were swaying people the wrong way because of
27:20mental health issues?
27:21Not necessarily, but it means it was high demand.
27:24And that's the big point that I want to make here.
27:27The second point is this.
27:29Picture the church situations that I was talking about before.
27:32And picture where at church something does happen that does excite us a little bit, which is out of the
27:39ordinary for some of the churches that I've attended.
27:41I'll tell you that.
27:43And say that something does happen.
27:45Well, we go home and we tell some other people.
27:47And they talk about it in their church.
27:49Well, say something were to happen in their church.
27:51They get a little bit excited about it, but they're not in a high demand church.
27:55It spreads.
27:56The news begins to spread.
27:58It's not going to make the newspapers.
28:01But when you look at these revivals, they all have one thing in common.
28:05It is so charismatic and so different than the other churches that it becomes newsworthy.
28:13And that's the reason why, for all of these revivals, you can go straight to the newspapers and you can
28:17see here's a very charismatic figure.
28:20He's exciting the crowd.
28:22And it's newsworthy.
28:24And if you're in the religious world, you think, okay, that's good.
28:27That's okay.
28:27They're doing this.
28:28But take religion out of it and just look at it like this.
28:32What if this were instead a political rally?
28:36Speaker comes out.
28:37He's on fire.
28:38He's charismatic.
28:39He gets the crowd all excited.
28:41He gets them worked up and they have to maintain that level of worked up.
28:46But then suddenly you realize, I don't necessarily agree with his politics.
28:50What do you do?
28:51You're in the crowd.
28:52Everybody's worked up.
28:53You're all part of this.
28:55And I look at this much the same way.
28:58But the difference is, because it spreads so vastly, like you said, this is most of Wales, right?
29:04The Welsh Revival.
29:05Well, because of that, you had a wide variety of people with a wide variety of issues.
29:13And the ones that get reported are like Evan Roberts.
29:16He becomes immortalized.
29:18He's not even the guy who started it, but he becomes the face of it, right?
29:22He's the face of this, but he's not the only one.
29:25There are other charismatic people, or otherwise it would never have spread like this, because
29:29he can't be in all cities at once.
29:31So what actually gets reported is Evan Roberts.
29:34But when you look at the vast scale of the revival, you had to have had good, bad, good,
29:40evil.
29:40You had to have all of these different categories of people.
29:43What happens over time is we have, in our minds, turned it into a legend because of what
29:50we have access to know about the revival.
29:53And like I've done with the Pentecostal revival and some of the others, there's a lot of things
29:58that people don't know until you really dig into it.
30:00One day, I plan to dig really deep into it.
30:03But at this point in time, I'm just, I have skepticism.
30:06Yeah, and you're absolutely right to, that it's a good yardstick, especially the burning
30:15out, because that's just not really something I see from the prophets in the Bible and certainly
30:22the apostles as well.
30:24I think I would like to paint a picture of what was happening in Wales compared to Evan
30:30Roberts.
30:30I think you had a lot of people just going to work, maybe going to a prayer meeting on
30:35a Tuesday evening and then going to church every Sunday and then just getting on with
30:38their jobs.
30:39And they were getting a good sort of two out of seven.
30:42But Evan Roberts' diary, I read it and he was exhausting.
30:45It was seven days a week.
30:47And, you know, no wonder he burned out.
30:50And thankfully, I think I would hesitate to bring God into these conversations.
30:58But maybe it was some kind of mercy of God that he didn't allow Evan Roberts to create
31:05his own movement of we'll do this seven days a week and we'll all get exhausted or we'll
31:10all end up sleeping together, probably, or start a political movement, whichever, or run
31:13out of money or something, you know, to pick your quest.
31:17But instead, Evan Roberts just burns out.
31:20And what happens to him later on is one detail jumped out at me.
31:25His dad tried to track him down through many different countries.
31:28And then Evan Roberts wouldn't open the door to his own father.
31:31That was tough for me to read.
31:33You know, I've lived in different countries.
31:35I wouldn't do that to my dad.
31:36It doesn't sound like a man who's got the fruits of the spirit so much there.
31:42And a slight sidetrack for anyone who's a bit confused as to where we're talking about.
31:48Wales is a principality in Britain.
31:52I'm sure you could put an amusing picture up here of how it relates to it.
31:56But what I haven't stressed is that almost all of this was happening in the Welsh language,
32:01which I think is important in a way because they weren't using loaded language in Latin
32:06or English, which happens in Norway, where the otherwise sensible Norwegians are just distracted
32:12by saying everything in English.
32:14But the Welsh, all of this, all of this is translated into English.
32:18So whenever Robert says, bend me, O God, he's saying,
32:20Plygvi or Agluweth, Agluweth is Welsh for God.
32:25And I think that had a bit of an effect on Wales, that it was very insulated.
32:31They weren't being affected by other people so much.
32:34I mean, no one in Birmingham understood what they were doing, let alone London.
32:37And so when the newspapers came, they often needed translations.
32:40Or when the locals started speaking English, the language they had was kind of toned down
32:48quite a lot from the more flowery Welsh that they were more fluent in.
32:52And so that's what's unique to this revival in the English-speaking world is that,
32:56well, it didn't happen in the English-speaking world, it happened in the Welsh-speaking world.
33:00And so it was a revival on its own terms in that sense.
33:05And what you're saying about the high control groups is very important here for Wales
33:12because it happened over such a short period of time that a lot of people,
33:17when they look back on these revivals, they're quite disappointed that it was so short.
33:21But I think that's actually a strength, much like Asprey happened two years ago.
33:27That was only for a few weeks.
33:29And they said, let's put a stop to it.
33:30But the Welsh revival didn't have enough time or the right figure for it to coalesce into political movement.
33:38Thankfully, nothing politically happened.
33:41And the revivalists and the Christians at the time comment on this.
33:45And they say, how is it the case that the only two people that you can choose from in Wales
33:50are the Conservatives, who are Anglicans, or the Liberals, who were sort of low church?
33:55But the entire independent churches of Wales, they were Methodist.
34:01They didn't start their own political movement.
34:04The Labour Party movement really started in Scotland, not so much in Wales.
34:09It was affected by the Welsh revival.
34:12But the British political system doesn't have the electoral flexibility to produce great leaders
34:19because you need to be voted in by your local constituency, which can only be a few thousand people.
34:26So you can't vote for a national prime minister.
34:29So in that sense, the British revival system doesn't open itself very easily to a new political movement,
34:35apart from in Northern Ireland.
34:37There, everything you're saying about the political movement and revivals is true.
34:42That does happen in the 1960s.
34:44But here in Wales, it's altogether rather different in that sense.
34:52What you're saying about revivals that you balk at the term, I do as well.
34:57It was one of my strange fears growing up in our small low church, Church of England,
35:03that the preacher would suddenly start jumping around and say,
35:06we all need to go out into the street and evangelise and revival is coming down.
35:09But I was always thinking, well, I mean, when do you, when does the previous revival,
35:16when has that been too long ago and you need the next one to come up?
35:20And I was talking to my dad about this, shout out if he's listening,
35:23and he commented about the Cambridge Five or the Cambridge Seven,
35:27some people who were doing revival as well.
35:30And they said, after we prayed a lot, we felt that we'd received an answer from the Lord,
35:35you know, to have a revival.
35:37And that sense of discontent with the state of the church you're in.
35:44And as you say, if you're in a good church, there's a low control church that you show up,
35:49you have communion, I hope, and you listen to sermons, sing a few songs and you go home.
35:53You know, you know, some of the people in the church, you might go out to their houses.
35:57That's the sign of a good church.
35:59And what I was saying before about having the budgetary meetings, they're really boring.
36:02So that's a good church you can be at.
36:04And for me, I don't want to revive anything about that church.
36:08I think it's good enough as it is.
36:10You know, you're not going to go up to a random person in the street
36:12and he's plodding along and start giving them CPR.
36:15I'm trying to revive you.
36:16I'm not dead.
36:18So a lot of these churches don't need reviving.
36:22So I think as a Christian term, I don't actually,
36:26although I've called the Welsh Revival positive,
36:28I don't think the word revival is good because it implies that what you're in now is dead.
36:35Whereas if you think that Jesus is the head of the church,
36:38surely that means the church is alive.
36:40Otherwise, you just end up thinking it needs to be revived and the church is wrong.
36:44And that leads to William Branham saying, come out of her, my people,
36:47because if the church is wrong, you need to leave it.
36:51But actually, that is what's different about the Welsh Revival,
36:56use the word revival, is that no denominations come out of the Welsh Revival.
37:02Joseph Jenkins goes back to his Methodist, Calvinist chapel.
37:07All of these small chapels in Wales,
37:09they ended up in a denomination that was rather unrelated to it all.
37:14It was Presbyterian, but that's another story and quite boring.
37:17But they didn't, they all kind of conglomerated more than split.
37:22So Joseph Jenkins doesn't start his own church.
37:25Evan Roberts doesn't.
37:26Neither does David Morgan.
37:28After the revival ends,
37:30Joseph Jenkins just goes back to preaching every Sunday.
37:33And I've got a huge amount of respect for that.
37:36And Evan Roberts fades from church history.
37:41You say, so who did he sleep with?
37:43You know, where's the money?
37:44Where's the political movement?
37:45He just fades.
37:46And I've got a huge amount of respect for that.
37:50Whatever happened in 1905,
37:51he just closes that chapter of his life
37:55without needing to try and, you know,
37:57reclaim the mantle, you know,
38:00all these sort of pentagustic terms.
38:01He just goes back to the Shire,
38:03as Samwise does after his, you know,
38:07after his trip abroad.
38:08I know people like the Narnia references as well.
38:11So in C.S. Lewis' book,
38:13and Narnia, the children always appear
38:16when something's going wrong.
38:17And one of the kings says to the children,
38:20well, look, they've got a different timeline.
38:22There's like 10 times sped up.
38:24He said, look, for hundreds of years,
38:25we don't have any children coming here
38:27to sort everything out.
38:28We're just plodding along,
38:30just going to work and eating
38:32and having a good time.
38:33That's Christianity right there.
38:36You don't need a revival all the time.
38:38Just plod along, go to work, you know,
38:40just wonder if you're going to get a pay rise.
38:42And so that's what happens in Narnia.
38:44They don't need the children all the time.
38:46And so in a moderately sensible church,
38:51you know, lower the threshold,
38:53you don't need to be jumping around.
38:55You don't need a revival.
38:57You need a reminder much more
38:59than you need a revival, I would say,
39:01would be my quip of the podcast.
39:04And that's what happens in Wales afterwards.
39:07Everyone just kind of goes back to normal life.
39:09And that was the last revival in Wales.
39:12There hasn't been one since 1905 in that way.
39:16So thankfully, nothing political.
39:18Everyone just goes back to work afterwards,
39:20which is very much what I want to do.
39:23You know, I work.
39:24When I'm doing this research,
39:26a lot of it is me just listening to stuff myself
39:29and trying to regurgitate it.
39:31Because I'm streaming, I'm mowing the lawn,
39:33I've got a real life.
39:34Not to say that office work isn't real.
39:35But if you work Monday to Friday,
39:38it just means you're stuck in the real world
39:40and you're thinking about stuff
39:41in a much more healthy way.
39:42I wouldn't want to do this seven days a week,
39:45you know, or be a full-time Christian,
39:48as they say in YWAM.
39:50So to round off that bit,
39:53I would say that Evan Roberts was,
39:56he was a YWAMer without knowing it.
39:58He was YWAMer adjacent in a sense.
40:00He ends up burning out,
40:04which isn't good for him,
40:06but is good for us.
40:07And that's at that point,
40:10when he's at the end of his own revival
40:12and the Welsh revival is on the way down.
40:14Is it on the way down?
40:16I don't think it is.
40:17It's just, it was merging into something more healthy,
40:20which is just everyone,
40:20everyone went back to the normal life.
40:23That's when Joseph Smeal comes onto the scene
40:26and he's travelling around Wales,
40:28soaking it all up.
40:29And so I think the positivity
40:32of the Welsh revival,
40:35which was, I don't know,
40:35if we land on a finger,
40:36let's say 85% good.
40:38I think that mantle,
40:41if we can use charismatic terminology,
40:43is misappropriated by Azusa,
40:45where something organic
40:47that didn't really have a leader,
40:48which was everyone doing it,
40:50is what Azusa tries to copy.
40:54There was, there's one detail
40:56that always jumps out
40:58from researching the Welsh revival.
41:00And it's such a peculiar story.
41:02I'm inclined to believe it's true
41:03that in the mines,
41:05everyone was mining coal in South Wales.
41:07There's a phrase that's always repeated,
41:09the pit ponies,
41:10the horses that work down the mines,
41:12they were not working very well
41:14because all the men stopped swearing
41:16at their pit ponies.
41:18And it's just interesting
41:20that that's the one story
41:21that's come out of the Welsh revival.
41:23You know, it's not,
41:25it's not William Branham's halo
41:27or, you know,
41:28reading a hundred people's addresses
41:30after you've copied the prayer notes
41:32or the, you know,
41:33bits of chicken coming out of people's mouths.
41:36It's nonsense that Branham came up with.
41:38How can you believe that?
41:39But the one thing that everyone talks about,
41:41the Welsh revival,
41:42is the ponies, the horses,
41:44whether or not it's true.
41:45It's just a very peculiar detail to remember,
41:48which is the biggest contrast
41:50between this and charismatic silliness.
41:53You talk about everybody
41:54who went back to doing what they were doing.
41:57Interestingly,
41:58you have made the point
41:59that I was trying to build up to.
42:02And you made it for me.
42:03I didn't even have to do it.
42:05That is one of the most interesting things
42:07about this revival,
42:08is exactly what you said.
42:10And for this reason,
42:11instead of going to Star Trek or Narnia,
42:13I'm going to go straight back
42:14to the Old Testament instead.
42:16Oh, the Bible.
42:17Very, very rebel if you jump into the Bible.
42:19Let's go back to the Bible.
42:20And just simply, you know,
42:22not even theologically,
42:23let's talk historically.
42:25If you read the Bible,
42:27you find cases where Israel goes into idolatry,
42:30they start human sacrifice,
42:32all of these things.
42:33It's just awful what they get into.
42:36And you don't find some charismatic figure
42:38stand up and draw a crowd
42:40and say God has sent a revival.
42:42Instead, you get a prophet that says
42:44you need a revival.
42:47And the biblical term for revival
42:48is a renewal.
42:50You're renewing your faith
42:51and devotion to Yahweh, to God.
42:54That's what the Old Testament has
42:55as a revival.
42:56Same in the New Testament.
42:57You're renewing yourself to God.
43:00And it's not something that God sends.
43:02It's actually something that you do
43:03because you were off the mark.
43:05You're in the wrong place.
43:07That's probably my biggest argument
43:09against the Welsh revival.
43:10Everybody, they were doing something
43:13that wasn't that bad.
43:14Like you said, there weren't a lot of reports.
43:17We don't know what happened
43:18in the broad scope of the revival,
43:19but there weren't a lot of reports
43:21of wrongdoing.
43:22I'll just say it like that,
43:23and somebody might have history
43:25that corrects me.
43:26But what you see is
43:28people were living their Christian lives.
43:31Suddenly, it got high demand
43:32and burnt people out,
43:34and then they went back
43:35to the thing that they did before.
43:36Now, in Israel's case,
43:38they were doing awful things
43:40when they did actually have a revival,
43:43which isn't at all framed
43:45in the way that they frame it
43:47in these modern revivals.
43:49They came back to God,
43:50and then a good thing happened,
43:52and they continued the change.
43:53So you see, there is a revival.
43:56It's not the same.
43:57Then there's a change,
43:59and there's a pattern.
44:00You can follow that pattern
44:01all through the Book of Kings.
44:02You read,
44:03another judge rises,
44:04they fall to idolatry,
44:05there's a revival.
44:06Suddenly, the course is corrected.
44:09So, A,
44:10if the grand general of revival
44:13is looking down,
44:15why would he pick this group of people
44:17to say,
44:17this is the group of people
44:18that I'm going to set right?
44:20Oh, wait, they're already right.
44:22And after the revival,
44:23they're all going to go back
44:24to doing exactly what they did before.
44:26This is really the biggest thing
44:28that I have with this.
44:30Think of it like this.
44:31In today's world,
44:32I could go,
44:33I've got friends who,
44:35sadly, some of them get into drugs.
44:38I could say,
44:39look, you need to change your life.
44:40You need to correct your life.
44:41You're going to lose your job.
44:42You're going to lose your family.
44:44You're going to lose your wife.
44:44All of these things.
44:46And they might have a revival,
44:48maybe not a spiritual revival,
44:49but a revival of humanity.
44:51I want to get rid of these things.
44:52I want to clean my life up.
44:54Well, after that revival,
44:56which is not something
44:57that I'm giving them,
44:58they're doing themselves.
44:59After that,
45:01there's a change.
45:01They go through a halfway house
45:03or whatever,
45:03clean themselves up.
45:04And then they can brag,
45:06I had this big change at this moment.
45:08I know exactly what this revival was
45:10within my heart.
45:11Yes, it's not a spiritual revival,
45:13but the case is exactly the same.
45:16I have studied it,
45:18maybe not to the extent you have,
45:20but I don't find many examples
45:22of the change of heart
45:23or more specifically,
45:25the reason for the change of heart.
45:27And so when I look at this,
45:30the revival for me,
45:32it's branding.
45:33You see a charismatic leader,
45:35it's mostly fueled,
45:36in my opinion,
45:37it's mostly fueled
45:38by the newspaper's response
45:40to seeing something odd.
45:42And they call it,
45:44they brand it the revival.
45:45So it gets branded the revival.
45:47It's a lot of marketing
45:48from the newspapers.
45:49The newspapers has a heyday with it.
45:51And then after it's done,
45:53everybody goes back
45:53to doing what they were before.
45:55So I struggle to actually
45:58call it a revival.
45:59And I know I'll get hate mail for this,
46:01but I really do.
46:02I struggle to call it a revival.
46:04However,
46:05there was a change that came in that,
46:07as we'll get into in the next podcast,
46:09you can see the influence that it had
46:12on creating similar things
46:15in the United States.
46:16Maybe not fully
46:19because of the Welsh revival,
46:20but you see that Welsh revival
46:21influence coming into the United States.
46:23Then you have the Pentecostal revival.
46:25And I won't go into too much detail
46:28in the next episode,
46:29but you've got other influences
46:31with the Pentecostal revival
46:32that are happening
46:33adjacent to all of this.
46:35So again,
46:36the point for me is
46:37it's not really a revival.
46:40You are right to question
46:42the impact it would have
46:44on individuals
46:45because there are a few
46:46throwaway comments
46:47that are made
46:48that a lot of the pubs
46:49and things closed
46:50during the Welsh revival,
46:52but I'm not entirely sure
46:53that happened really.
46:55The T-Total movement
46:57didn't really
46:59take root that much in Wales.
47:01I think that was just anecdotal.
47:04And there's another guy out there
47:06at the moment
47:06doing research
47:07on Robert Evans as well.
47:08Evan Roberts,
47:10maybe our listeners
47:11can compare what I'm saying
47:13to what he's saying.
47:14He's a little bit,
47:14he's got a different unit as well,
47:16which is that when you've got,
47:18he gave a really good example
47:19of saying that
47:20when you've got
47:21three people lined up,
47:23you know,
47:23let's call them
47:23Dave,
47:24John and Barry,
47:26you know,
47:27Dave gets the Holy Spirit
47:28and he's jumping up
47:29and down his speaking tongues.
47:31Barry is quietly
47:32bowing his head
47:32and just shaking.
47:34And, you know,
47:36Gary,
47:36whoever it was,
47:37the last guy,
47:37he's like,
47:38I'm sorry,
47:38I don't have either
47:39of those reactions.
47:40And he goes home
47:41and he thinks,
47:42I don't have the Spirit.
47:45That means you've,
47:48the expression
47:49that these meetings had
47:50are always going to alienate
47:52that one person in three
47:53who's,
47:54it's not that he's,
47:55it's not like being introvert
47:56or extrovert.
47:57He's just saying,
47:57I'm not going to fake something
47:59or don't have it
47:59because of respect
48:00of the Holy Spirit.
48:02And I feel,
48:03I feel a lot of those types
48:05of Christians
48:06were disappointed
48:07in what was happening
48:08in Wales at the time.
48:10They say,
48:10sorry,
48:10I'm not bursting into tears.
48:12I'm not an atheist.
48:13I'm just,
48:14I just don't react
48:15that strongly
48:17in a group of people.
48:19And those people
48:20went home,
48:21maybe sad
48:22and weren't really part
48:23of the Revive
48:24in that sense.
48:24But then in 1906,
48:26they were the people
48:26still involved
48:27in their churches
48:28while Evan Roberts
48:28was, you know,
48:29whacked out on the sofa
48:30at his sister's house,
48:31which is what happened.
48:33He was recuperating
48:34at her house
48:35for a lot of the time.
48:36But the personal holiness,
48:39that's the true mark
48:40of conversion.
48:41And I've got a book
48:42that I read
48:43on my bookshelf,
48:43which is by George Orwell
48:45every year,
48:45which is called
48:46Homage to Catalonia.
48:47And he's a left-wing atheist
48:48who goes to fight
48:49in the Spanish Civil War.
48:51And he says
48:51that it's much easier
48:53for the spiritualists,
48:54the yogis
48:55and the Christians
48:56to focus on
48:57inward spiritual revival
48:59than to reform
49:00the economic system
49:01around them.
49:02Yeah, that sounds good,
49:04Orwell,
49:04but the problem is
49:05when Christians
49:06have tried to change
49:07the economic
49:07and social scene
49:08around them,
49:09it turns into
49:10Christian nationalism
49:11and politics
49:11and it doesn't go well.
49:12So I'm inclined
49:14to say, George Orwell,
49:15that the revival
49:16is personal.
49:17It has to be
49:17a revival
49:19of your own life.
49:20And as you say
49:21in the Old Testament,
49:22in the Bible,
49:23it talks about renewal,
49:24whereas we talk
49:25about revival.
49:26And back to my
49:27early analogy
49:28of trying to revive
49:29someone who's
49:29perfectly alive,
49:31everyone needs renewal.
49:33If you meet anyone
49:34in the streets,
49:35they all need renewal.
49:37Someone who's
49:37put on a bit of weight
49:38or they've become bulimic
49:40and they need to
49:40put on some more weight.
49:42Everyone needs renewal.
49:44I need renewal.
49:45I'm not sure
49:45if I need to be revived,
49:46but we do need
49:48to be renewed.
49:49And that's why
49:50the Bible talks
49:51about the constant renewal
49:52in the Holy Spirit.
49:55We have been revived
49:56already as Christians.
49:57We believe that
49:58we've died
49:59and been resurrected
50:01in Christ.
50:02So in that sense,
50:02we don't need a revival.
50:03We do need to be renewed
50:04and filled again.
50:06Much like how we need water
50:09to be filled
50:09with the Spirit
50:10in that sense.
50:12So to sort of
50:14round this off,
50:17there's something
50:18that struck me
50:18with a lot of
50:20what's being spoken
50:21about elsewhere,
50:22which is about
50:23white privilege
50:24and Christian nationalism.
50:26It's a white man's religion.
50:27You have to remember
50:28in Wales,
50:29these are people
50:29not speaking English.
50:31The Welsh people
50:32were very much downtrodden
50:34in the United Kingdom
50:35at that time.
50:35It was not illegal
50:37to speak Welsh,
50:37but you went around
50:38in the dunce triangle
50:39in your head
50:40if you spoke Welsh
50:40in the classroom.
50:42So these were two groups
50:43of people who were both white,
50:44both Christians,
50:45but they still found a way
50:46to discriminate against them.
50:48So it doesn't really
50:49have much to do
50:49with skin colour.
50:50Again,
50:50it's just about
50:52cultures not really
50:53liking their own people
50:54a lot of the times
50:54because of perceived difference,
50:57which is a bit of
50:58a sidetrack there.
51:01But it's just an example
51:02of racism can be
51:04a lot more tricky
51:04than simply people's skin colour.
51:06A lot of it's to do
51:06with being cultural as well.
51:08And earlier on,
51:09I did speak in Welsh.
51:10Is that an example
51:11of speaking in tongues?
51:13Well, it could be.
51:14Because Welsh
51:15is a foreign language.
51:17It's as different
51:19to English as it's Hungarian.
51:21Which always strikes me
51:23listening to it all.
51:25But for people to
51:26wanting the soundtrack to it,
51:28someone emailed me,
51:29the person he put me
51:30in contact with.
51:31I told her the hymn
51:33of the Welsh Revival.
51:34It's a great listen.
51:35And what struck me
51:37from that hymn
51:39was I did a textual analysis
51:40of it.
51:41And how much does it
51:42talk about me?
51:43God's going to break down
51:44my barriers.
51:44He's going to release
51:46the outpouring on me.
51:47Here is love vast
51:48as the ocean talks about God
51:50and what he does for us.
51:51So I think that's character.
51:53It wasn't written
51:54during the Welsh Revival.
51:56It was written
51:56a hundred years before.
51:57Again, it didn't start
51:58with the Welsh Revival.
52:00But that song
52:01is very much
52:01Christ-focused,
52:02for us-focused,
52:04rather than
52:04what can I do
52:05now that I've got
52:06this thing?
52:08It's about
52:08what can God do for me?
52:10So for anyone listening,
52:11let that hymn be
52:12the soundtrack
52:13of what you might call
52:14the Welsh Revival.
52:15and, you know,
52:17let that speak to you.
52:19And I'd advise
52:20trying to find
52:20the Welsh version as well
52:21and listen to it
52:22in English.
52:23It's really inspired me
52:24that that's for the
52:26two weeks of my research.
52:27I've had that song
52:28in the back of my mind.
52:29And compare that
52:32to what's come out
52:32of Bethel.
52:33Compare that to what
52:34comes out of Hillsong.
52:37And you'll see
52:38a clear difference,
52:39really,
52:39just from that song's
52:41theology.
52:42So taking us
52:43into the sort of teaser
52:45for the next episode,
52:46there's two names
52:47to pay attention to.
52:49So we're going to be
52:50talking a lot
52:51about Joseph Smale.
52:53Joseph Smale,
52:54sorry.
52:54He comes from L.A.,
52:56goes to Wales.
52:57So we're ending
52:58on the cliffhanger here.
52:59He's travelling
53:00around Wales,
53:01soaking up
53:02the anointing.
53:03He doesn't use
53:04that phrase,
53:04but that's what
53:05they would call it now.
53:06And you've got another
53:07guy called Frank Barterman.
53:09And when I emailed you,
53:11I even put a question mark
53:12saying,
53:12who's he?
53:13I didn't know at the time.
53:14But he features
53:16largely later on.
53:18Frank Barterman
53:18doesn't travel to Wales,
53:19but he's writing
53:20to Evan Roberts
53:21three letters or so.
53:23And I'm inclined
53:25to believe now
53:26that our focus
53:27on Evan Roberts
53:28actually comes
53:31from Azusa Street
53:32because they've
53:33sort of,
53:34in a way,
53:34ended up
53:36writing the history.
53:37You know,
53:37the history
53:38is written by the victors
53:39or at least the people
53:40who wrote about it
53:41the most.
53:41So Evan Roberts
53:42being the main guy
53:43of the Welsh Revival
53:44and also being
53:45the most unstable man
53:46is quite telling
53:47that that's the one
53:48the Azusa Street
53:48chooses to focus in on.
53:50They don't talk
53:50to Joseph Jenkins.
53:52Azusa Street
53:53might have gone
53:53in a very different way
53:54if they'd spoken
53:55to Joseph Jenkins.
53:56So those two names
53:58are what we're going
53:58to be talking about
53:59next time.
53:59Joseph Smale
54:00and Frank Barterman.
54:02And Frank Barterman,
54:04teaser,
54:05actually coins
54:05the term Latarane.
54:06So I think I'll end
54:08it by saying
54:08something positive
54:09because as people
54:11know who know me,
54:13I like to have
54:13a conversation
54:14where I have
54:15somebody else
54:16who has the opposite
54:17opinion who doesn't
54:18want to argue with me.
54:19That's my favorite
54:20type of conversation
54:20because I learn
54:21a lot of things.
54:22Well, this is one
54:23of those cases.
54:24I'm very skeptical
54:25and you're very not.
54:26But I will say this.
54:28There's one thing,
54:29one aspect about
54:30this revival
54:30that is quite different
54:31from some of the
54:32subsequent revivals
54:34that are in my research.
54:35And that's exactly
54:37what you said.
54:38Everybody went back
54:39to doing what
54:40they were doing,
54:40but think about
54:41what they were doing.
54:42You had a broad
54:45interdenominational revival.
54:46You had people
54:47who were of different faiths,
54:49congregational faith
54:49to Baptists,
54:51et cetera.
54:51These people all
54:53joined together.
54:53There was no,
54:54at least I haven't
54:56read anything of people
54:57fighting or divisions
54:58or anything like this.
54:59They all just got together,
55:00rejoiced, celebrated,
55:01and then they went back
55:03to doing what they're doing.
55:04And you question,
55:05well, was that a revival?
55:06But think of the other ones.
55:08Many of the other ones
55:09will form a denomination.
55:11And you can go
55:12almost revival by revival
55:14and you can see
55:14this group emerge
55:15because of this revival.
55:17And when the revival
55:19is happening,
55:20everybody's welcome.
55:21You're welcome to come.
55:22Join our revival.
55:23Join us.
55:24Join us.
55:24And then later it's,
55:25no, you can't go back
55:26to where you went.
55:27If you do,
55:28you're selling your soul
55:30to Satan.
55:31And, I mean,
55:32think about the
55:33Azusa Street revival
55:34in 1906.
55:35It breaks out,
55:36I think it was.
55:37And then,
55:37what year was that?
55:391913, I think.
55:41The new issue arises
55:42whenever they start to say,
55:44well, you guys are Trinitarian.
55:46That's the false doctrine
55:47of Satan.
55:49And so they suck everybody in,
55:51they get them hooked,
55:52and then they tell them
55:53they can't go back
55:54to where they came from.
55:55And for me,
55:56that is the opposite
55:57of a revival.
55:58That's actually destructive.
56:00However,
56:01I'm not going to brand
56:02all of Pentecostalism
56:03destructive because of this.
56:04It's confusion.
56:05I'll say it that way,
56:06and I'll leave it with that.
56:08Thank you so much
56:09for doing this.
56:10Excellent.
56:11So if you've enjoyed our show
56:12and you want more information,
56:13you can check us out on the web.
56:14You can find us
56:15at william-branum.org.
56:16For more about the dark side
56:18of the new apostolic reformation,
56:19you can read
56:19Weaponized Religion
56:20from Christian Identity
56:22to the NAR.
56:23Available on Amazon,
56:24Kindle,
56:25and Audible.
56:58I'll see you next time.
57:04Bye-bye.
57:29Bye-bye.
57:29Bye-bye.
57:31Bye-bye.
57:31Bye-bye.
57:32Bye-bye.
57:33Bye-bye.
57:33Bye-bye.
57:33Bye-bye.