Support the show:
https://www.patreon.com/branham
Available on Spotify, Google, and Apple Podcasts:
https://william-branham.org/podcast
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
John invites Jennifer to share her story about growing up in a small religious group affiliated with Faith Assembly, a movement shaped by Hobart Freeman’s teachings. Jennifer describes her experience from childhood through early adulthood, revealing how the group’s strict beliefs and practices impacted her mental, emotional, and social development. As a child, she was taught to fear the outside world, suppress her individuality, and conform entirely to the expectations of the group. The pressure to be spiritually perfect led her to internalize guilt, reject personal passions, and even hide medical treatment to avoid judgment. She reflects on how the doctrine’s emphasis on isolation, obedience, and fear shaped her worldview and arrested her development well into adulthood.
As Jennifer recounts her teenage years and early departure from the group, she describes the emotional toll it took, including anxiety, hyper-vigilance, and disordered eating. Encounters with people outside the group, especially those who genuinely showed compassion while defying the group’s standards, began to chip away at her conditioned beliefs. Eventually, through professional counseling and increasing distance from the group, Jennifer found clarity and healing. Her story captures the internal conflict faced by many who grow up in closed communities—where fear is spiritualized, emotional needs go unmet, and questioning is suppressed. Her journey reveals the slow, painful, but redemptive process of rebuilding identity after years of control.
00:00 Introduction
01:03 Growing Up in a High-Control Religious Group
06:04 Suppression of Identity and Mental Health Impact
13:10 Rules, Fear, and the Culture of Shame
20:49 Prophecy, Doomsday, and Spiritual Manipulation
26:12 Early Signs of Depression and Breaking Points
33:05 The Turning Point: Outside Friendships and Work
40:57 Leaving the Group and Beginning Therapy
46:02 Relearning Faith and Reclaiming Identity
54:01 Final Reflections and Advice to Her Younger Self
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
https://www.patreon.com/branham
Available on Spotify, Google, and Apple Podcasts:
https://william-branham.org/podcast
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
John invites Jennifer to share her story about growing up in a small religious group affiliated with Faith Assembly, a movement shaped by Hobart Freeman’s teachings. Jennifer describes her experience from childhood through early adulthood, revealing how the group’s strict beliefs and practices impacted her mental, emotional, and social development. As a child, she was taught to fear the outside world, suppress her individuality, and conform entirely to the expectations of the group. The pressure to be spiritually perfect led her to internalize guilt, reject personal passions, and even hide medical treatment to avoid judgment. She reflects on how the doctrine’s emphasis on isolation, obedience, and fear shaped her worldview and arrested her development well into adulthood.
As Jennifer recounts her teenage years and early departure from the group, she describes the emotional toll it took, including anxiety, hyper-vigilance, and disordered eating. Encounters with people outside the group, especially those who genuinely showed compassion while defying the group’s standards, began to chip away at her conditioned beliefs. Eventually, through professional counseling and increasing distance from the group, Jennifer found clarity and healing. Her story captures the internal conflict faced by many who grow up in closed communities—where fear is spiritualized, emotional needs go unmet, and questioning is suppressed. Her journey reveals the slow, painful, but redemptive process of rebuilding identity after years of control.
00:00 Introduction
01:03 Growing Up in a High-Control Religious Group
06:04 Suppression of Identity and Mental Health Impact
13:10 Rules, Fear, and the Culture of Shame
20:49 Prophecy, Doomsday, and Spiritual Manipulation
26:12 Early Signs of Depression and Breaking Points
33:05 The Turning Point: Outside Friendships and Work
40:57 Leaving the Group and Beginning Therapy
46:02 Relearning Faith and Reclaiming Identity
54:01 Final Reflections and Advice to Her Younger Self
______________________
– 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
00:30Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.
00:36I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research
00:41at william-branham.org.
00:43And with me, I have my very special guest, Jennifer Johnson, former member of a Faith
00:48Assembly Splinter Group.
00:50Jennifer, it's good to have you and to talk all things Hobart Freeman.
00:55Chino and I have been talking offline.
00:58We're very excited that you can come tell your story, so I'm very glad to have you on
01:02here.
01:02Maybe if you could just start by telling everyone a little bit about yourself.
01:06Thank you, John.
01:07It's a privilege to be here.
01:09I have been looking forward to this and a little nervous at the same time, but really appreciate
01:16the opportunity to share my story.
01:18I grew up in a Faith Assembly Associated or Splinter Group in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
01:26I attended somewhere between the ages, I believe, of about 8 to 10 years old until I was 20 or
01:3321.
01:34So through my formative years, a part of that group, initially as a child, we started out
01:41in a Presbyterian church and somehow, with my mom and my brother, ended up in a church
01:47pastored by a man by the name of Harvey Giese, who believed God had particularly called him
01:54to be a pastor, and a man who was associated with Faith Assembly.
01:58We initially started in the basement of Harvey's home until the neighbors became quite uncomfortable
02:06with the parking and the noise, and ultimately rented a room behind a laundromat in Milwaukee,
02:13Wisconsin, and that's where we were through the duration that I was part of the church.
02:17So you were fairly young whenever you came into this, right?
02:20What was it like being a kid growing up in this type of religion?
02:25That's a really good question.
02:26It is a very difficult place to grow because you don't develop like a normal child will.
02:36There is so much pressure in conformity, in following the rules, in remaining unseen, that
02:46kids that find themselves in these places do not develop a sense of who they are or sense
02:54of self.
02:56They are not taught to develop boundaries or things that make them distinct.
03:05Some of their gifts are not encouraged to develop.
03:08And so from a really early age, I learned to conform.
03:12I know that you and Chino have talked about some of the rules that were associated with Faith
03:18Assembly, and while they may not have been overtly told to you as rules, you certainly can pick
03:27up the way to look, the correct way to talk, the correct way to think, and the correct way
03:35not to think about different things.
03:37And so for me, as a young child, I really absorbed those rules because what I wanted to be seen
03:45as, as a perfect kid who followed the rules.
03:49And I was a really, by nature, scrupulous kid.
03:52And so when it came to things like the correct dress, what kind of brands you could and could
04:01not wear of clothing, what kind of music you could listen to or not listen to, whether or
04:06not one could participate in sports or not participate in sports, whether or not one could go and see
04:13a doctor, all of those things impacted my life.
04:19And even as a child, it didn't take very long for me to recognize that there were some things
04:24that I saw in the church that didn't match what I was hearing at the church.
04:30But that space is not allowed to develop in a high control religious group.
04:38Because if you start thinking like that, what you might hear is, and don't forget, the
04:43heart is deceitfully wicked above all things.
04:47Don't trust what you're thinking.
04:49Don't trust what you may be seeing.
04:52And that is really the beginning of some deep internal turmoil for me as I developed.
04:59I think that's a good point.
05:00And I'm glad you brought it up because I don't think there's a whole lot of focus on the childhood
05:06aspect.
05:07People when they escape a cult, it's one of the most traumatic things that they've ever been
05:11through, usually as an adult.
05:14And they have to come to terms with the fact that most of their friends and family will
05:17cut them off.
05:19But not many people really think about how much their life would have been different if their
05:23childhood had been different.
05:26Especially those like me, who has a curious mind.
05:29As a child, a lot of that curiosity was suppressed.
05:32And I was told that this is the way things are.
05:35And it's black or white.
05:37I remember that phrase over and over.
05:39It's black or white.
05:40It's black or white.
05:41And that's really the mentality that you have.
05:43So you don't find a lot of rocket scientists, astrophysicists coming out of these movements
05:51because their brains don't develop in the same way.
05:53They're not allowed to.
05:55You do have some smart people in it, don't get me wrong.
05:57But I think the focus on the child is it's a good thing to bring up.
06:02I would agree.
06:04And because it is some of the most important developmental times, and there is really no
06:10one there for you to say, Yeah, you're curious about that.
06:15That's a great thing.
06:16Let's explore it together.
06:18And in fact, the things that I loved and wanted to pursue were highly discouraged.
06:24In my case, I actually love horses.
06:27I wanted to ride horses.
06:29I wanted to compete.
06:31And the problem with that is Harvey, our pastor, came to my mom and said, You don't want her
06:37hanging around horse barns.
06:38Do you know what happens at horse barns?
06:40I mean, you want to keep her away from horse barns.
06:45And pursuits outside of the church were often identified as idols.
06:51So I was very conscious of why I don't want to have an idol.
06:54I don't want to I don't want anybody to think I'm pursuing something other than God.
06:59And so as much as I was passionate deeply about pursuing riding, I did have a horse eventually,
07:07but I was never allowed to fully develop in that area.
07:12But that's small compared to a kid who sees one thing happening within the church and something
07:22else is preached from the pet from the pulpit.
07:26And you have to figure out as a child without those skills, how to navigate that.
07:34And for me, that ended up being a deeply conflicting place.
07:39And I ended up a very anxious child, a very hyper vigilant child, because I just felt no safety.
07:48It's odd when you think about growing up in one of these movements, because the security
07:53blanket, the invisible security blanket that every child has with their parents, it's really
07:58robbed from the child in these movements.
08:00Because the parents aren't really focused on the well being of the child so much as they
08:05are how to conform to the group and how to conform to the group leaders instructions or
08:11his rules.
08:12And they they really want to follow those rules.
08:15To the extent a large number of people that I've spoken to in the support groups, they felt
08:21like they were really second place to the cult.
08:24The cult took priority over everything.
08:27And then especially that's the case after they leave, because many of the parents will
08:31just cut them off and the cult is more important than the child who's left.
08:35So I agree.
08:37The safety and security of the child is completely gone in these type of movements.
08:43I agree.
08:44And I think what's difficult is there is no one that you can go to and say, how come what
08:50I see and what I hear from the pulpit do not match?
08:56You can't go to the pastor and say that because he's in a position where you don't question
09:01him.
09:02He's the anointed one of God.
09:04So the last thing you do is want to question your pastor.
09:07And then it may not be safe to tell your parent either.
09:11And in my particular case, my dad was not a member of this cult.
09:16And so he was in the background saying, I don't agree with this.
09:21This is not biblical.
09:23This does not line up.
09:25And so I had that conflict at home as well that made it also quite difficult because not
09:32many other kids in our group had to navigate a parent not being a member.
09:38And the other problem with these groups, because the parents are so focused on the cult, the
09:44parents don't seem to protect the children when they should.
09:48That was definitely my experience.
09:51And I believe you're right in that my mom was managing again, she was in the cult.
09:57She was also managing the fact that my dad was not in the cult and did not agree.
10:02So she had that level in her marriage, she had that discord.
10:07But what ends up happening too, is the children are not protected.
10:12And so the very people that you believe are there to protect you in your life, aren't able
10:19to protect you.
10:21And as an adult, that means looking back and saying, my parent didn't keep me safe.
10:29And how am I going to process that?
10:32What am I going to do with the potential for anger and disappointment?
10:37And what is the work I will put in here to process that?
10:42I came in contact with some of the family who had left the cult after I left.
10:48And there's this weird disconnect, this weird separation.
10:51I had family members who had left years ago, but there's this weird dynamic that happens
10:58when you're in these groups.
10:59When somebody leaves mentally, you almost block their existence.
11:04And by and large, the cult as a whole blocks, blocks their existence.
11:09We have had, um, I won't go into details because of the family that's involved, but we had family
11:15functions where people who had left the cult who were really, really close to the family.
11:21They weren't permitted to be at the event because people in the cult might see the person who
11:26has left.
11:27So that dynamic is just, it's, it's wrong.
11:30It is.
11:31It is.
11:32And as a, for children particularly, that's not a skill set that we have to navigate that
11:40kind of conflict, whether it's within the church group itself, and then also with our
11:45families.
11:47And for example, in my case, again, being a faith assembly, um, associated or affiliated
11:53group, we did not believe in going to medical doctors, which my dad, who was an attorney and
11:59very well educated, did not agree with.
12:01And so I remember as, I think I probably was maybe 10, I fractured my thumb, went to the
12:11doctor, um, ended up with a cast on, but as a child in that kind of a group, if you go
12:21to church with a cast on, everyone knows you went to the doctor.
12:25It is blatant failure of your faith.
12:32And so I was so distraught about it.
12:35I actually went into the bathroom of the laundromat because we had the room behind the laundromat.
12:41So I was in the bathroom behind the laundromat and I soaked that plaster cast off because
12:46I could not stand the feeling that everybody could see that I had failed and I had gone
12:53to the doctor.
12:54And to anybody who's ever tried to do it, taking a plaster cast off is no easy task.
13:00I've done, I've done it myself because we didn't have the same level of, you know, removal
13:08from the medicine and the doctors that you did in Hobart Freeman's sect, but we did frown
13:14upon it because Branham and the Faith Healing Revival frowned upon it.
13:19And so we would always try to do things that either limited the amount of medical care we
13:23had or avoid it altogether.
13:25In some cases, like I, even still today, I struggle to take Tylenol when I have a headache
13:31because it's so mentally programmed into me.
13:33Well, if I have enough faith, I can overcome this.
13:36And if you don't have faith to cure a headache, what faith do you have?
13:39I remember that phrase over and over.
13:41I do take it, but it's in the back of my mind.
13:45It's always there.
13:46But as a child, I had to have a cast also, and I had the cast until I just couldn't take
13:52it anymore.
13:53And so I took it off and it was a big deal to remove it.
13:57I honestly cannot tell you what happened to that sink with all that plaster.
14:01I have no idea.
14:03And I can tell you, my dad was pretty upset with us.
14:10Yeah, it was a very difficult, it was a very difficult place to be in.
14:17And actually, I'm a medical provider now.
14:21So I'm sort of, oh, you need something done?
14:24I'm kind of pretty supportive of doing that.
14:27But at the time, really very difficult.
14:31And I do want to, John, keep just being a child growing up in that way.
14:38Until you leave that high control group, your development is arrested because it cannot be
14:46developed.
14:48And in our case, we also, the pastor of our church also decided that it would be a really
14:55good idea to have counseling sessions.
14:59Now, he had no theological training.
15:02He had no counseling training and actually was a 20-year military member.
15:07And he decided to form these co-ed high school counseling groups.
15:13And that also proved to be very detrimental to all of the young people in our group.
15:18We have a very small church.
15:22But probably one of the most demeaning and exposing and vulnerable places to put teenage
15:31girls is in a mixed group with boys.
15:34I remember some functions that we had, they would separate and isolate the boys from the
15:39girls.
15:39And there were times whenever, you know, there were some events that they could get together.
15:45But anything, any function that was outside of the church, we had this one particular deacon
15:51at this church that I went to that you're going to isolate yourselves.
15:54You're not going to be together because boys and girls shouldn't be together.
15:58Which, again, to your point about the development of a child, what does that do to the mind of a
16:03child?
16:03It completely separates the way that they think about each other.
16:09And you start to see the other gender as a different type of animal.
16:13Yes.
16:13And you think the only way we can develop these relationships is under the direct control of
16:19the church.
16:21And so any relationships with boys or girls had to be done within church settings with
16:29church members, which in our case was pretty limited, although once a year we did travel
16:35down to faith assembly.
16:36They used to have a kind of a, um, a conference around Christmas time.
16:42Since we didn't celebrate Christmas, we would head to Indianapolis and stay at a hotel for
16:48about three days where they had a faith assembly driven, um, conference.
16:53The other aspect of this, this is something that is similar between Hobart Freeman's and
16:59the main sect of the message.
17:00It was a doomsday called.
17:02You're always focused on the impending doom that was coming.
17:06And that's why you're part of the group because you're in the group that's going to escape the
17:10doomsday.
17:10I know family members who, as children, they cried their heads off whenever they had to
17:17go get on the bus to school because there was that fear that they might be at school whenever
17:22this thing happened.
17:24And instead of instilling a sense of comfort from the gospel, instead you have this fear
17:31that you don't step out of line because you might miss it.
17:34Well, then to a child, it makes it all the, all the worse because they don't, they can't
17:40really connect the dots as to, well, how do you make it?
17:43So if I'm in school, what's this, what does this scenario look like?
17:47And ironically, if you really think about it, it suggests that the child, while thinking through
17:53this process is actually critically thinking later on in life, they start to suppress this
17:58a bit, but at that age, they're trying to critically think.
18:01Yes, I, I agree.
18:05Um, and you're trying to critically think though, within a very narrow spectrum of options there,
18:13you don't know very much because I remember being introduced to that idea of Jesus impending
18:18return of virgins trimming their lamps so that we're ready and we're not left behind.
18:23And that there were 144,000 people that it will be raptured.
18:29And as a kid, I kept thinking, gosh, if they make it, that's a, that's one person that's
18:34in the 144.
18:35I hope that doesn't push me out.
18:38And then we start to learn ways to survive.
18:41You're trying to survive constant fear.
18:44And I was a very fearful child.
18:48I think baseline, I might've had a little bit of underlying fear, but then one of the things
18:54that I learned to kind of work through constant fears, I learned to recognize patterns because
19:01I could figure out when there were times when I could ease up and not quite be so afraid versus
19:07times where I had to brace myself.
19:09So for example, there was a lot of prophecies in our meetings and there were two people
19:16in particular that would prophesy regularly.
19:19And I knew that their prophecies would always start out kind of gentle and kind, and then
19:25they would escalate and then God would be very angry at us.
19:30And so I just learned all I had to do is ride out this two to five minute tirade that was
19:35about to happen, where we would all be yelled at, and thus saith the Lord, whatever was
19:40going to happen because he was angry at us.
19:43I also learned some of the patterns of our preaching.
19:47So for example, we would often cycle through the end times, which terrified me as a child.
19:55I had one watching of left behind, and that was enough to scare me.
20:02But I learned that if I could just ride through the next series on the end times, that would
20:09be followed by a series on proper roles of men and women and children.
20:15And for me, that was almost a rest period, because it was like, okay, the pressure's off.
20:21I think I know how to be a pretty good kid.
20:23I just have to follow the rules.
20:25So that was one thing.
20:28And then when our pastor would go on vacation, that was just the ultimate.
20:33And I knew every summer he was going on vacation.
20:37Unfortunately, I often went along with his daughters who happened to be my age.
20:41But even if he went down to Rockford, or if he went to Faith Assembly for a visit, we had
20:47relief.
20:48And it was almost a visible sigh in the room of like, okay, it's better now.
20:53It's not going to last, but it's better.
20:57And then I think the other coping mechanism I developed, which was anything but healthy,
21:03was I developed an eating disorder.
21:05And because there is so little in our lives growing up in a high control group that we
21:13can control, I could control two things, what I ate, and my grades in school.
21:20And so I became absolutely obsessed with my grades, which was kind of funny, because I
21:25wasn't going to college, you know, we weren't allowed to do that.
21:28And what I ate, and it was a sad decline of a kid screaming for help.
21:38And I lost quite a bit of weight with that.
21:43And it was kind of recognized that I was struggling.
21:46And so I went through a deliverance session, because rather than find out why is this kid
21:52struggling, it's got to be a demon, right?
21:55Because it's a Faith Assembly thing.
21:56It's the group I grew up in, you just cast the demon out, and I should be okay.
22:03But I never was.
22:04I was not okay until I left the group.
22:06And now you're edging towards one of the aspects that is most troubling, and that's really the
22:12mental health of the child.
22:14The children suffer, and they suffer in ways that the adults don't really understand.
22:20But when you're in a religion where the medical profession is forbidden or taboo, many people
22:26aren't, and the children struggle and suffer.
22:30I remember there was a point in my life as a child, whenever I was coming of age to an
22:38adult, I thought I was happy-go-lucky, I was free, I was mentally secure.
22:43And then years later, looking back after I went deep into depression, I started recognizing
22:52that the symptoms of my depression that I was facing in my mid-30s, many of the symptoms
22:59I had at age 16, they were trivial at the time.
23:05I thought they were trivial, but they grew into becoming what they were.
23:11The child who is in these types of groups, who is constantly being told that every friend
23:16that you have, every friend that you see that's not part of this group, they're all doomed
23:21to hell, and they're all going to die.
23:23And like you said, if you do the math on the 144,000, you start to worry, well, how big is
23:30the group?
23:31Who's going to make it?
23:33William Branham had this one sermon that I heard over and over and over again called
23:38One in a Million, and then in the midst of that sermon, he goes off into this weird rant
23:44where he's talking about, in Noah's day, there was just this little tiny family, and
23:50he started inventing Bible verses to fit that.
23:53So he took it from one in a million down into one and two of this very, very tiny group.
23:57And so I'm looking around, that group would have fit our church, the one that I was currently
24:03going to, but if I included all of the churches that I'd been to, it would not have included
24:08them.
24:09So mentally, I'm doing these math problems in my head, kind of like you described, and
24:14there's a fear that's there, maybe not a fear for yourself, but it's a fear for everybody
24:19else, and you start to feel if God loved the world so much that he sent his only son, how
24:25can you apply that scripture to God's going to just wipe off every Christian who doesn't
24:30believe this little sect?
24:32That's true.
24:33But in my case, I actually was worried I kept, I was going to be one of the 144,001.
24:40It was me that was going to get left behind.
24:42Yeah.
24:42I didn't assume that it was other people necessarily, and I was such an over-scrupulous kid, and
24:50I think if you'd have watched me as a child, you probably would have said, she fits a lot
24:56of a kid with obsessive compulsive disorder.
25:00But again, that speaks to that mental health part.
25:03You'll never develop feelings in these types of groups.
25:07You're never allowed to express them, I should say, because you can't say, I'm angry.
25:12Well, no, anger is a sin.
25:14Again, you can't say, I'm sad, because the joy of the Lord is your strength.
25:20You can't say, I grieve that I can't see my family that doesn't follow this religion,
25:26because they're not believers.
25:29They're not peculiar people.
25:31The Bible says, you know, we're going to, Jesus is going to divide families.
25:35This is just what happens.
25:36And so there's no ability to express feelings.
25:41And that internal suppression, I think, often comes out as depression later in life.
25:48And for me, as I approached the time of me leaving, my mental health is what really pushed
25:56me out.
25:57It was the fact that I was so hypervigilant, so fearful, so confused, because again, my
26:07brother and my mom were still, were also there, but they were going through what I was experiencing
26:13and what I was being told were so chaotic that I could not make sense of what was happening
26:21internally.
26:23You know, I think that's a good point.
26:24The depression that you have as a child, for me, it was unrecognized, but that depression
26:29builds up.
26:31It's like a snowball going down a hill.
26:33It builds up to a point where you can't contain it anymore.
26:37You can't control it anymore.
26:38And it, it overtakes people who have it.
26:42And, you know, looking back at some of my friends, many of them who are still in the cult,
26:49I wouldn't say that they're a depressed person.
26:52But if you look at the way that they act and behave in the cult versus what they would
26:58be if they weren't in the cult, to some extent, that mental health, the issues that you're
27:03describing has to have suppressed their lives in some way.
27:06And what's interesting, and you may speak to this being in the medical profession, what's
27:14interesting is the effect that it has on the appearance, the outward appearance.
27:20Because in the support groups, we've even had pictures of this where people share what
27:26they look like while they're in the cult.
27:28And then after they leave, they actually look younger.
27:31I don't know what it is, even without the makeup, some of the women still won't wear
27:36makeup.
27:36But even without the makeup, they look younger, they look, obviously they, you know, in some
27:41ways they look happier, depending on when the photo was taken.
27:45But there's also this appearance that looks almost sickly when you're in the cult versus
27:51the, after they're, after they've left, their picture looks different.
27:55Yeah, I think that's a great point.
27:58I think if you'd have seen me back then, versus when I first came out, there was a difference.
28:07Like you said, there's no makeup at that point.
28:12However, there's so there are so many things that you can't do before you leave and your
28:20life, at least my life was defined by the can'ts.
28:23And that won'ts.
28:27My life was pretty well looked like it was going down the route of getting married young,
28:32having a lot of children and not going to college.
28:35It's important in my family to note, though, that one goes to college.
28:41If for those that were not raised in what the name of our church was Charity Faith Church,
28:46they went to college.
28:49And so I was, I looked pretty, pretty bad, partially because I was very underweight.
28:55Also, at that time, I was not eating well.
28:58If you'd have told me and asked me, are you eating?
29:01Okay, what's going on?
29:02I would lie to you.
29:04I would say I'm okay.
29:05I'm all right.
29:06I'm controlling everything.
29:07But the closer I got to the time of my leaving, the more I recognized that what I was in was
29:16completely, was not normal.
29:19But I don't think that can happen until we, till children have developed enough and seen enough
29:28to see that there's outside of where we are is different than inside of where we are.
29:35And for me, one of the first times I saw that is my sister-in-law.
29:40She wasn't my sister-in-law then, but she's my sister-in-law now.
29:43She came to visit our church and she came in and she was wearing denim.
29:49She had makeup on and she had pierced ears, like many rolls broken right there, the trifecta
29:54right there.
29:55And I watched her love Jesus.
30:01And she displayed the love of Jesus.
30:04And all of a sudden I thought, wait a minute, she's not following the rules.
30:10And she actually demonstrates Jesus.
30:16And so I think that was the first crack.
30:18And I was probably 18, 19 years old at that point.
30:24And I started to recognize she doesn't look like us, but she loved better than we did.
30:32Because the thing about growing up in these high control groups, and I think you and Chino
30:37have talked about this and it's really struck me, is there is not love.
30:42There is the love of Christ, of who Jesus is day to day, is not seen from the pastoral leadership.
30:52They don't love well.
30:54They didn't love me well.
30:56They didn't love my family well.
30:58Hobart didn't love his flock well, in my opinion.
31:00And it isn't until you get out of that, though, and you realize there's this pastoral kind
31:08of love that I've never seen before.
31:12And one, is that normal?
31:14Because I had never seen it.
31:17And two, it's a denominational church, so I'm not sure this is safe either.
31:22Because when you leave, you have a lot of questions.
31:24But then you begin to experience the world in an entirely different way.
31:28Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started, or how the progression of
31:34modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic, and other fringe
31:39movements into the new apostolic reformation?
31:42You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website,
31:47william-branham.org.
31:49On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins,
31:55Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper,
32:01audio, and digital versions of each book.
32:04You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those
32:09movements.
32:10If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the
32:15Contribute button at the top.
32:17And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening
32:22to or watching.
32:23On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
32:28In the cult, we looked at outsiders as it's an us versus them.
32:33We actually called people who did not believe the message, theology, we called them cannon
32:38fodder, which is the lowest form of life, basically.
32:41These are the people during the war that you send them into battle first so that they take
32:45all the cannons and they're expendable.
32:48That's how we viewed other Christians.
32:50But my mother always had Christian friends that weren't cult members because we lived,
32:58we moved a lot and we lived in cities that didn't have a lot of cult people to hang out
33:03with.
33:03So I'm hearing these recordings and being told that these are unbelievers.
33:08These are cannon fodder and I would travel to the churches.
33:13Sometimes I would travel.
33:14Some churches were like an hour and a half drive.
33:16So we would drive every Sunday, sometimes Sunday night or Wednesday, and we would hear
33:21the same thing being preached.
33:22So here I am.
33:23The earliest memory I have of my mother having a non-cult friend was, I want to say it was
33:30like fourth grade.
33:32So from fourth grade up until I'm in my twenties, I'm seeing this and there's this tug of war
33:39happening in my head.
33:41Do I look at this person like cannon fodder?
33:43And if so, why is my mother friendly to them?
33:46Or do I, do I believe that they, when they say that they love Jesus, do I believe it?
33:51Because if they don't believe our quote unquote prophet, how can they love Jesus?
33:56They would, they should surely love the prophet, right?
33:58So I'm going through these exercises in my head, trying to reconcile what is this mess
34:04that I'm in?
34:05Not everybody who was in the cult had that opportunity because there were some families
34:10that they just would completely shut people off.
34:13I have other family members that even if somebody were to a neighbor or something would come over
34:19to their door, they would turn them away from their house because they're not a cult member,
34:23especially if they were wearing a female wearing blue jeans that that's not allowed in my house.
34:29So, so you play these mental gymnastics, but as your mind is developing, especially during
34:35the teenage years, it play, it wreaks havoc on your head because you're, you can't reconcile
34:42that.
34:42It doesn't make sense.
34:44So there reaches a point whenever your mind just really wants to break it, it wants to
34:50just shut down and not have to try to fight the, this tug of war internally.
34:55So I'll never forget.
34:58I experienced what you're describing after leaving the cult.
35:01When I was, I visited my first non-cult church and I saw a woman sitting in our Sunday school
35:08class wearing shorts, which, oh my gosh, man, it was hard enough for me to attend the class
35:14while she's wearing shorts.
35:16And every Sunday that I was there, I, I couldn't, you know, like mentally, I didn't know what
35:21to do.
35:22Here's a woman in shorts, in church, in a church building.
35:25And then she started, they went around the room and they had people give testimonies.
35:30And, um, I can't remember the exact scenario, but she started opening up to the group and
35:36telling her story.
35:37And I suddenly realized what a fool I had been to think that all of these other Christians,
35:44because they didn't know the quote unquote prophet were bad people.
35:48This was the first time it really hit me how wrong that was.
35:52Yes.
35:53We didn't call them cannon fodder.
35:57I think we were more refined.
35:59We call them heathen or Gentiles.
36:03And I say that tongue and cheek completely, um, completely tongue and cheek because that
36:08creates such a separation.
36:10Like, do you really want to, you know, you're taught you're in the world, but you're not of
36:16the world.
36:17So if we can keep that separation by calling them heathen or cannon fodder, you keep your
36:22kids from wanting to interact with those people, right?
36:25Those people.
36:27Um, and I went to public high school.
36:31So at the time that I was growing up, that was the beginning of the homeschool movement.
36:35And so I really did not want my mom to homeschool me.
36:41I am confident my dad would not have gone along with that anyway.
36:46But so I had more contact with public school.
36:51And so that made me feel a little bit more, less of a Christian because I had to go to
36:57public school.
36:58Um, but you're right.
36:59But as we start to interact with people and I'm going to interrupt myself for one moment
37:05because I remember specifically in high school meeting a girl who was, um, a Jehovah's witness
37:11and thinking, oh my gosh, she's in a cult.
37:15I mean, I cannot possibly interact with somebody who was in a cult.
37:20And retrospectively, I think, I wonder what she thought about me.
37:24Who knows, but, um, there came a point as I got late teens, early twenties, because I graduated
37:34from high school.
37:36Um, I graduated early because I just wanted to get out of the public school system.
37:41At the same time, um, in my junior year of high school, my dad passed away.
37:48He died of alcoholism.
37:49Um, and again, in that high control group, you don't see a lot of single mothers.
37:58And there was some level of pity for us because since my dad did not join the cult, maybe he
38:03wasn't a Christian.
38:05And so I wanted to get out of high school as quickly as possible.
38:10And I kind of broke a little bit of the mold and I went to travel agent school because at
38:15that time, travel agents, um, was highly valuable and used.
38:20And so I did that, but that's when I started to have more exposure to people outside the church.
38:26I started to see different things.
38:29And where it gets interesting is in today's world, in today's economy, there are many teenagers who
38:35have to go out and work.
38:36If you want a car, you have to go out and work.
38:38And suddenly there's this collision between worlds because now you're seeing teenagers
38:43who might be in a cult and they're making friends at work who aren't in the cult.
38:50And so that tug of war that's happening in their head is happening every day at work,
38:53accelerating this process.
38:55Yes.
38:56And I was one of those teenagers.
38:58I worked.
38:59I did see that.
39:00I always felt a little bit different because here's this girl that comes to work in her
39:05skirts and never wears pants and that kind of thing.
39:10Um, but it may accelerate things because you start to see things and experience them.
39:17And the dissonance gets a little bit louder and it gets a little bit harder to quiet the
39:23questions down.
39:25And when I ultimately came to the point of leaving the church, uh, again, I had so much
39:32internal turmoil and I had had a dream that I was being lowered into the ground in a casket.
39:39And I called our pastor and I was just distraught.
39:43I'm like, and at the same time, I'm being exposed to travel.
39:47I'm being exposed to the outside world.
39:49I'm starting to see more than I've seen before.
39:51And I told him I had this dream and I explained it and he goes, yeah, that could be God warning
39:57you.
39:58You're starting to stray from the fold and this could be God telling you.
40:04And I, and I don't remember the exact words.
40:06I think they were stronger than this could be.
40:08I think it was more of this is God telling you, but I can't remember.
40:12So I don't want to say, but I remember getting off of that phone call where he endorsed that
40:18I was straying and was so deeply distraught and so upset and depressed and, um, hypervigilant.
40:31And at that time I actually, um, talked to another one of the pastors at the church briefly
40:37who encouraged me to reach out for some help because we did not do that.
40:41You don't go get any psychological help, even if it's Christian based or faith based, because
40:48that is the arm of the flesh as hard as Hobart used to say.
40:53Um, but I needed something.
40:55And that associate pastor kind of encouraged me to reach out to somebody.
40:59He's like, look at the history of your pastor.
41:03Look at his history.
41:05I think you need to get some help.
41:06Um, and I called a very large local church and I said, I need to see a therapist.
41:13I desperately need help.
41:16And I met with a PhD trained therapist whose specialty was shame.
41:25And after I answered his questionnaire, um, the intake form and started to sit with him,
41:33um, I think he saw an absolutely devastated young adult and his path toward walking me toward
41:41healing was absolutely remarkable.
41:43And I do believe that was God who had his hand in that because he was so gentle in his guidance.
41:52And at the same time, he knew where I needed to go.
41:56And so one of the things early on in our meeting together is he said, I want you to sign a contract
42:04with me that you will not go back to your church for six weeks.
42:10And I'm like, what?
42:12He's like, yeah, I think you need to sign this.
42:14And he said, I know if you sign a contract, you'll do it.
42:17I know you've got integrity.
42:18And that was the most profound thing because in signing that contract, he created space
42:28for me to get away, to, to put some distance between what I was experiencing.
42:36Because when I went back six weeks later, I knew I could not stay.
42:41I didn't know where I was going to go.
42:45I did not know what that was looked like, but I sat there in that church where people
42:51had been encouraged to share from the microphone, devastating things as a way of confessing our
42:58sins, where people had been called out and embarrassed and prophesied to, and I could not
43:04stay.
43:05And I think that was probably the second big moment of me saying, there's something else
43:15besides this.
43:16I don't know what it is and I don't know how I'm going to get there, but I cannot come
43:20back.
43:22And that was very good advice.
43:23We've, I recently was talking with some people who their high demand group literally imploded
43:30whenever COVID hit, because whenever COVID hit, you couldn't go to these churches.
43:35And so you can't be in the high demand group and that separation, it really breaks the cycle.
43:43And I think once you separate from the cycle, then it opens the door to critical thought.
43:48Once you start critically thinking, you start examining what is this group that I'm in and
43:52why, why am I, why am I here?
43:54So it helps you to wake up.
43:56So that was excellent advice.
43:57It was incredibly good advice.
43:59It was also timed at a point where I was traveling more.
44:04And as I traveled, I remember I actually went to Australia and I met a Christian, I met a
44:10Christian in Australia, like who knew?
44:12The world's full of them.
44:14But we met, you know, she was my cashier and I was buying something there.
44:19And I met someone who loved Jesus in another country, meaning God is working, not just in
44:27this little group of peculiar people that we were told we were, our little insulated group.
44:33He was actually at work other places.
44:35And then I remember standing outside of a bar in Australia.
44:40And of course, we could never go to a bar ever.
44:43And I remember thinking, you know what?
44:46I have the freedom to go into this bar.
44:49I can choose not to because I don't believe God wants me there.
44:54But that's an entirely different way of looking at it than I cannot go in there because if Jesus
45:00comes back and I'm sitting in a bar, I'm getting left behind.
45:04Very different.
45:05And that space is valuable, as you said, that's six weeks.
45:10But it also has to be timed with some cracking in the facade.
45:18Because if you'd have asked me two years earlier to take six weeks away from the church, I could not
45:26have done that.
45:28The hold was very tight.
45:29It probably would have pushed me closer to the group than it would have created some space.
45:36Like I say, that was excellent advice.
45:39And I don't think people realize until they've been separated for a little bit, when you're in a
45:44high demand group, you don't realize and recognize that it's high demand until you have that space.
45:50And then after you do, it's weird.
45:52This weight just kind of drops from your shoulders.
45:54And you're wondering, what was that?
45:57Why was I like that?
46:00Yes.
46:00You're thinking, I remember sitting in a church.
46:03My first church I went to after this, Faith Assembly is a charismatic church.
46:09So I went to another charismatic type denomination.
46:15And I remember sitting there and thinking, I wonder if this is normal.
46:19I mean, is this what normal church people do?
46:21I mean, I'm not sure.
46:22And I think if we can, as we leave these types of churches, hold loosely that we don't know what we don't know about the church.
46:35We don't know what's normal.
46:40And that is okay.
46:42It is okay to be in a space where we're letting go and things will fill in over time.
46:51But it's a very disorienting place to be.
46:57And I remember specifically saying to myself, I am letting go of everything but the fact that I know Jesus died for me.
47:07That's all I've got right now.
47:10And that actually takes a lot longer than that one little sentence to yourself.
47:16A lot longer.
47:18But that was that conscious saying, I don't know.
47:22And what I really found out is I did not know who God was.
47:27I knew who Harvey Giese, who ran that church, was.
47:31I knew who his wife was.
47:34But I didn't know who God was.
47:36Yeah.
47:37I remember when that feeling hit me after leaving.
47:40And it probably, like you said, it's not something that comes quickly.
47:44It probably took me a couple years before the gravity of that hit me.
47:48But we believed in a God that was narcissistic.
47:52Because when you're in the cult groups like this, the cult leader, the central figure, usually has some sort of a narcissistic personality disorder.
48:02And that imprint of himself is also how he portrays God, he or she, some female cult leaders.
48:11And so you start to think that there's this narcissistic God.
48:13And that's why this God will cut off all the other Christians, because they don't know our cult leader.
48:19When that hit me, I suddenly realized that it wasn't the God of the Bible that we believed in.
48:25This was something entirely different.
48:27Yes.
48:29And I agree.
48:30And I think what goes with that, John, is that if your father, earthly father, is authoritarian, and you have a cult leader who's got a very self-centered, narcissistic type personality,
48:46the two people who are most influenced in developing who we experience God, how we experience God, are absolutely antithetical to who he is.
48:57And so there's this building that occurs after of who is God and what is his role in my life.
49:08Because I had a God who I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop and my world to fall in.
49:15And that probably followed me, I would say, more than 10 years after leaving the church.
49:23Still, I think I see it today where I keep, things are going pretty good.
49:26I wonder what's going to go wrong next.
49:28I did say something and gossip about somebody recently.
49:33And not that there aren't morals and values and consequences, but the fear that we lived under that you didn't meet the conditions.
49:45And therefore, God will not answer your prayer.
49:48Or the idea of, I remember after leaving the Colton night, my husband is just the most wonderful human who has walked through this with me.
50:04He went to seminary, though.
50:06And one of the hard parts was like bringing up the sovereignty of God.
50:10God, because that was represented to me and to us as, and I think very strongly at Faith Assembly, if you meet the conditions, God must answer your prayers.
50:22If he doesn't, it's something you did wrong.
50:26But then when you transition out and pray and God does not answer in the way that you expect him to,
50:34does that mean there's anything wrong with you or God?
50:38God is sovereign, and he may be in places we're not looking.
50:43But you're trained to look for God in very specific places.
50:49In healing, in prosperity, in those types of things, but not necessarily in a dedicated relationship with you.
51:01Yeah, and that feeling of fear.
51:03So, the number one email that I get from people is, how do I proceed from here?
51:10How do I go from here?
51:11And usually what they're trying to address is, they have a fear of the unknown.
51:16Now that they've left, what do I do?
51:18That fear of the unknown is crushing.
51:21And my answer is always, first take out the sense of urgency that was indoctrinated into you.
51:26Because you have a lifetime to learn and grow and become a better, if you're a Christian, you become a better Christian.
51:33And if you're, if not, you just become a better person.
51:36You have a lifetime to grow and learn.
51:39But if you remove that sense of urgency, eventually that sense of fear leaves with it.
51:45Yes, although I would say for my journey personally, it's taken a very long time.
51:50And I still see that fear pop up periodically.
51:55But that sense of urgency that you're talking about, in retrospect, you're right.
52:02If we can let that go.
52:04And I remember specifically thinking, I don't even know how to pray anymore.
52:10I don't.
52:12I, you know, we prayed in tongues and we prayed a lot.
52:16But I didn't know what to pray for anymore.
52:20Because I wasn't asking for the same things anymore.
52:23That I was when I was in the group.
52:26And so for me, what I did is I said, I'm going to pray the Psalms.
52:29Because at least I know I'm praying God's word.
52:32And it's good.