William Branham Historical Research Podcast

John, Brantley, and Awen examine the Shawn Bolz controversy by placing it inside the broader history of modern prophetic movements. Rather than focusing on personalities alone, they trace how shared doctrines, training systems, and leadership cultures shape behavior across ministries connected to IHOP, Bethel, and related charismatic networks.

Drawing on firsthand experience and historical research, the discussion explores how prophetic authority is cultivated, how critical thinking is discouraged, and why similar failures keep emerging across different organizations. The conversation highlights recurring patterns that help explain why moments like the Shawn Bolz fallout are not isolated incidents, but part of a much larger structural problem.

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Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
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- Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
- Visit the website: https://william-branham.org

John and Hannah Joy examine Elim College and its role within Pentecostal and charismatic history, tracing how Latter Rain, shepherding ideas, and modern revival culture intersected without forming a clear authoritarian hierarchy. Drawing from lived experience and historical parallels, they explore how closed religious ecosystems can reward behavior, discourage outside influence, and unintentionally foster spiritual abuse even without explicit top-down control.

The discussion addresses corporal punishment culture, insider libraries, favored speakers, mission programs built in-house, and the power of testimony over doctrine. Rather than offering simplistic labels, the conversation asks harder questions about accountability, community identity, and why some movements persist for decades while others collapse into open authoritarianism.

______________________
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
- Visit the website: https://william-branham.org

John and Jenny unpack how racialized theology, Christian supremacy, and political extremism shaped everything from William Branham’s world to Youth With A Mission’s global footprint. Drawing on archival research and lived experience, they trace the line from British Israelism and Christian Identity theology through Bob Jones University, moral-majority politics, and Branham’s mentors into modern charismatic and New Apostolic Reformation networks. Along the way, they explore how “spiritual warfare,” end-times urgency, and talk of being the “true seed” of Abraham quietly merge race, nation, and faith into a single identity.
______________________
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
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org

John Collins and John McKinnon examine how William Branham's teaching on adoption, authority, and "reading between the lines" laid conceptual groundwork later echoed in the New Apostolic Reformation. By tracing Branham's reinterpretation of Scripture, Roman adoption customs, and claims of hidden revelation, they show how extra-biblical theology quietly reappears today under new language such as fresh revelation, spiritual downloads, and apostolic authority.

The discussion contrasts Paul's clear teaching on adoption as a finished act in Christ with Branham's two-stage model that promotes elite believers, future authority, and spiritual hierarchy. The episode also addresses the psychological and spiritual harm this framework causes, especially for survivors of high-control movements, and explains why these ideas continue to resurface in modern charismatic and apostolic streams.

______________________
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
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John and Chino discuss the rise of Hobart Freeman's divine healing doctrine, tracing how promises of perfect faith and freedom from medicine evolved into fear, control, and devastating outcomes. Through firsthand testimony, recorded sermons, and documented contradictions between teaching and practice, they examine how extreme theology reshaped lives, silenced questions, and reframed suffering as spiritual failure.

This conversation explores the psychological and spiritual mechanisms that sustain high-control religious systems, including cognitive dissonance, leader immunity, and myth-making after a leader's death. By focusing on verifiable facts rather than speculation, the discussion challenges listeners to consider how doctrine should be tested by both Scripture and lived reality—and what happens when it is not.

______________________
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
- Visit the website: https://william-branham.org