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 and Jed discuss how wealth is accumulated and obscured within authoritarian religious movements, drawing from their personal experiences in Branhamism and the International House of Prayer (IHOPKC). They discuss a pastor who secretly died with $4 million, exposing how perceived poverty can be used to mask extreme wealth. The conversation shifts to IHOPKC, where Jed describes the dual system of control: most members live in poverty, relying on food banks and subsidized housing, while leaders quietly acquire wealth through donations, real estate, and shell nonprofits. This disparity creates dependency, making it hard for followers to leave, as their housing, finances, and community ties are tied to the organization.
The hosts analyze how these financial dynamics form part of a broader authoritarian structure. They explain how IHOP used manipulative systems of guilt, false spiritual elevation, and hidden assets to maintain power, even when the organization was collapsing. As they expose the deceitful practices—such as laundering money through shell organizations, undervaluing assets, and silencing dissent—they call attention to how difficult it is for victims to recognize abuse in the midst of desperation. Their critique expands into a condemnation of organized doctrinal manipulation, equating it to a form of spiritualized organized crime that benefits leaders at the expense of devoted followers.
00:00 Introduction
01:03 Hidden Wealth in Religious Leadership
03:48 Life in Poverty at IHOPKC
09:04 Spiritual Favoritism and Financial Inequality
13:48 Poverty as a Tool of Control
20:33 Manufactured Guilt and Total Commitment
23:13 Donor Economy and Cult Finances
25:00 Asset Transfers and Real Estate Manipulation
27:24 Collapse of IHOPKC and Leadership Evasion
31:16 Impact on Followers and Lost Opportunities
35:00 Profiting from Books, Music, and Merchandise
40:05 Shell Organizations and Financial Evasion
44:43 Healthcare Neglect and Lifestyle Disparities
48:08 Organized Doctrinal Crime and Platform Access
52:57 Generational Grooming Without Empowerment
55:20 Transparent vs. Cultic Church Structures
58:36 Selling Out for a Slice of Wealth
1:01:10 Final Reflections and Cultural Commentary
______________________
– 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 and Jed discuss how wealth is accumulated and obscured within authoritarian religious movements, drawing from their personal experiences in Branhamism and the International House of Prayer (IHOPKC). They discuss a pastor who secretly died with $4 million, exposing how perceived poverty can be used to mask extreme wealth. The conversation shifts to IHOPKC, where Jed describes the dual system of control: most members live in poverty, relying on food banks and subsidized housing, while leaders quietly acquire wealth through donations, real estate, and shell nonprofits. This disparity creates dependency, making it hard for followers to leave, as their housing, finances, and community ties are tied to the organization.
The hosts analyze how these financial dynamics form part of a broader authoritarian structure. They explain how IHOP used manipulative systems of guilt, false spiritual elevation, and hidden assets to maintain power, even when the organization was collapsing. As they expose the deceitful practices—such as laundering money through shell organizations, undervaluing assets, and silencing dissent—they call attention to how difficult it is for victims to recognize abuse in the midst of desperation. Their critique expands into a condemnation of organized doctrinal manipulation, equating it to a form of spiritualized organized crime that benefits leaders at the expense of devoted followers.
00:00 Introduction
01:03 Hidden Wealth in Religious Leadership
03:48 Life in Poverty at IHOPKC
09:04 Spiritual Favoritism and Financial Inequality
13:48 Poverty as a Tool of Control
20:33 Manufactured Guilt and Total Commitment
23:13 Donor Economy and Cult Finances
25:00 Asset Transfers and Real Estate Manipulation
27:24 Collapse of IHOPKC and Leadership Evasion
31:16 Impact on Followers and Lost Opportunities
35:00 Profiting from Books, Music, and Merchandise
40:05 Shell Organizations and Financial Evasion
44:43 Healthcare Neglect and Lifestyle Disparities
48:08 Organized Doctrinal Crime and Platform Access
52:57 Generational Grooming Without Empowerment
55:20 Transparent vs. Cultic Church Structures
58:36 Selling Out for a Slice of Wealth
1:01:10 Final Reflections and Cultural Commentary
______________________
– 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
00:00:30Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.
00:00:37I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research
00:00:41at william-branham.org, and with me I have my co-host and friend, Jed Hartley, son of
00:00:47a prophet and former member of the International House of Prayer.
00:00:51Jed, if you can't tell, I'm still laughing at the son of a prophet thing, but I got to
00:00:57thinking back about to my grandfather.
00:00:59My grandfather was such a conundrum, and my grandfather, if you knew him, he was this
00:01:05humble, poor farmer who just happened to be the head pastor of Branham's Branham Tabernacle,
00:01:13where all of this thing exploded from.
00:01:16And so all of these visitors from around the world, serious figures in the NAR who have
00:01:21come to visit my grandfather, and they see just this humble farmer who's driving this
00:01:25old Oldsmobile.
00:01:27It's a nice Oldsmobile, but it's older.
00:01:30And he looks like this humble little guy with no money.
00:01:34And when he died, according to the documents that I got my hands on, he died with $4 million.
00:01:42And I was shocked, man.
00:01:44My jaw dropped to the floor.
00:01:45Remember, when I started telling other people who were in the cult, I couldn't even convince
00:01:50them, even though I'm holding a government document that shows how much money this guy
00:01:54had, they would not believe it.
00:01:58And what's even funnier is, and the reason I was laughing as we're getting into this,
00:02:03in his resignation speech, he has got the stage persona of a person who has no money.
00:02:09Even at this point in time, I did not know that he had nearly that much, talking to a
00:02:15congregation who doesn't know how much money he's got.
00:02:18And he's condemning the Branham brothers and their organizations, saying that it's all about
00:02:26the money.
00:02:26You've got to watch where the money goes.
00:02:28And he warned the whole crowd, if they can get to your children, they can get to the parents.
00:02:34And if they can get to the parents, they can get to the parents' pocketbooks.
00:02:38And he said this in his resignation speech.
00:02:42And so I've been wanting to do an episode about money.
00:02:45And when you brought it up, my mind just started spinning out of control with all of these
00:02:49things that I want to say and never have.
00:02:53Well, that's it.
00:02:53I mean, because it's obviously such an important part of these organizations, but yet the culture
00:03:01around money in, at least in, I'm sure there's going to be a lot of overlap between your experiences
00:03:10and my experiences.
00:03:11But at the International House of Prayer, the way that money was talked about was so weird
00:03:17because there, you, I mean, everyone was poor in all of the community members.
00:03:27That's an important distinction.
00:03:29But like everyone had, especially if you, so for, for the, the group of individuals who
00:03:36are like full-time on staff, who were students who are part of it.
00:03:42Of course, students are, there's always going to be some level of poverty with students,
00:03:47but with the students who are going to the university and for just like people growing
00:03:52up in it, it, largely everyone was donating most of their time because the way that it felt
00:04:03like it was a ministry.
00:04:04The ministry is not a money-making world.
00:04:07It's a nonprofit, you know, we're donating most of our time.
00:04:10It's through sweating, blood, sweat, and tears, and hard labor, and, and, you know,
00:04:16endless devotion that we keep the, the fire on the altar from going out.
00:04:23This was the sort of mentality about it.
00:04:25And so everyone was pressing hard.
00:04:28No one had, you know, ever, there was like, I remember there was food banks around the
00:04:33International House of Prayer that like either some community, um, individuals would set
00:04:39up food banks where people would come and get canned, um, beans or whatever, live off
00:04:46of like beans and rice and, um, you know, canned tuna and stuff.
00:04:52Um, or, uh, and like the housing, the International House of Prayer had like specific housing for
00:05:00members of staff, um, and that, and it was like subsidized through the International House
00:05:06of Prayer and their housing was at Hernhut and the, the housing there was just the most
00:05:12run-down, um, horrible place to live, not safe place to live.
00:05:18This is, this has become abundantly clear, especially now that there was like sexual predators that
00:05:24they were not, um, that they were allowing to live in those like known sexual predators
00:05:30that were, uh, allowed to live in those same sort of, um, sort of like student housing as,
00:05:39um, as all of these students, you know, um, and it wasn't official student housing.
00:05:45It was unofficial, um, but that's where all of the students and the staff members lived.
00:05:50And, um, so, so on one end, you have all of these people who are giving everything, uh,
00:05:57they're giving all of their time, all of their social capital.
00:06:01I mean, everybody's friends and, and loved ones are within this area.
00:06:06You're like taught to sort of isolate yourself from your loved ones, but then finances, just
00:06:11the entire finances.
00:06:13I mean, most people were donating, like not getting a penny from IHOP, but those who were
00:06:20on staff, those who were, um, well, again, even not everybody on staff was getting paid,
00:06:26but those who were getting paid on staff would be getting like $500 stipends and whatnot to,
00:06:33to be on the worship team and play.
00:06:37I mean, you have to play a lot.
00:06:41You have to do hard work.
00:06:43Um, and then you have to be at the prayer room for like 20 hours every week.
00:06:48It was like a, it was a requirement that you had to be at the prayer room for an extended
00:06:53period of time.
00:06:55Um, and these people were getting, yeah, like $500 a month in stipend.
00:07:01And that's what you're supposed to, to live off, which is just ridiculous.
00:07:05So you have that on one end of just everybody giving everything.
00:07:10And then on the other end, there's people who behind the scenes, unbeknownst to probably
00:07:16the larger, uh, you know, population are gaining a lot of assets or, are, you know, there's
00:07:24properties, those properties that are being bought up have to go into somebody's name and
00:07:28someone's owning those different properties and, um, the, the, a lot of money is being
00:07:36donated to organization and that's got to funnel through someone.
00:07:41Um, there's all sorts of, I'll let you jump in here, but there's like two different, there's
00:07:46just two different sides where a bunch of people making money and then behind the scenes and
00:07:53then the, the larger population of the organization, just having to live off of like literally canned
00:08:01food and, um, pennies on the dollar, you know?
00:08:05You know, the Bible says that it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle
00:08:09than a rich person to go into the kingdom of God.
00:08:12Yeah.
00:08:12And my family was very good at living in the way that the scripture describes.
00:08:19I remember eating food out of a spam can.
00:08:22I remember living in a mobile home and not enough, really not enough heat in the place
00:08:28during the winter.
00:08:29And my family was really poor, legitimately poor.
00:08:32I remember pushing my father around in a wheelchair and trying to, you know, we were scraping
00:08:37by trying to survive.
00:08:38That's the life that I lived growing up.
00:08:41And my family was somewhat outcast in the larger scheme of the entire organization.
00:08:47We, we were somewhat outcast.
00:08:50I'll just say it like that.
00:08:51But what was really odd when you're poor, you really notice the difference in lifestyles.
00:08:57And it seemed like the quote unquote, spiritual people were all the wealthy people.
00:09:02I don't know why that is, but it's like whenever grandpa would call on brother, so-and-so to pray
00:09:08this brother, so-and-so is driving a brand new Cadillac or Lincoln, and he's wearing a watch
00:09:13that I'll never be able to afford.
00:09:15And that's the kind of people that were spiritual, you know, he, they never really called on the
00:09:22poor people to have them elevated to the same level of status.
00:09:27And yet at the same time, some of the people who were insanely wealthy, you just never noticed
00:09:34it.
00:09:34Like I mentioned, my grandfather, you would never have known it.
00:09:36Yeah.
00:09:37I have an uncle that was a deacon, and he drove an old Dodge pickup truck to church, and
00:09:43hey, falling out of the back of it, you know, he's wearing a somewhat older suit with cowboy
00:09:48boots.
00:09:49And you'd look at him in his cowboy hat and think, well, this guy has no money.
00:09:54I actually have him on my website, and I can't talk too much about him.
00:09:57Um, but when he sold his house and moved to become a deacon in the Branham Tabernacle in
00:10:04Jeffersonville, people like John Travolta flew into his private runway to look at his
00:10:10mansion that he was selling, and he had cars like you wouldn't believe.
00:10:14I think he had, I think it was Elvis's motorcycle that he owned, and Rolls Royces, Corvats, all
00:10:21kinds of stuff.
00:10:22You know, and he was more spiritual than my father, who had literally nothing.
00:10:27You know, we were, we were pretty poor, but the difference, whenever you are poor, you
00:10:32notice the difference.
00:10:33And it's not that I, you know, as a poor person, I didn't care that they were the ones who were
00:10:39more quote unquote spiritual, but I noticed it, you know, and after having left, I really
00:10:47wonder what the difference is.
00:10:48And, you know, if they tithe based on a percentage, I know that the richer people are giving more
00:10:56people, more money into the baskets.
00:10:57Is that why?
00:10:58I don't know.
00:10:59But there is clearly a difference between what happens with the rich people in the movement
00:11:03and what happens to the poor.
00:11:05Yeah.
00:11:05And I think that like there, I always, you know, there was, there's a way that people
00:11:12will talk about it of like there was a difficulty around addressing wealth inequality within these
00:11:20communities because like you said, everybody who was higher up in the organization, everybody
00:11:27who's on preaching from the top is like of a level of wealth.
00:11:30That's just different than everybody else in the community.
00:11:33I have never met a poor itinerant minister, which is, is kind of crazy if you think about
00:11:41it, because that doesn't, that shouldn't make a lot of sense.
00:11:44Like, you know, you would think that you'd have the John the Baptist types where they're
00:11:49going and speaking.
00:11:49And it's like, I don't, there's not a lot of money to be made in itinerant ministry, but
00:11:54that is just factually not true.
00:11:57I don't know exactly know how it happens, but I know my father made a decent amount of
00:12:02money doing itinerant ministry.
00:12:03He also was just, he, his ministry was in the marketplace, which was just, you know, a
00:12:11way of framing like, oh, we're just going to cater our ministry to business people.
00:12:17And, and that was very lucrative and profitable, not just in, you know, the stipends that he
00:12:23would get for speaking at conferences, but just the connections that he would make, you
00:12:30know, a lot of business and a lot of wealth accumulation is about knowing the right people
00:12:37and getting connected to the right organizations and having that sort of, you know, country
00:12:47club access of talking with other, you know, other individuals who have good wealth and
00:12:53opens up a lot of like opportunities and whatnot.
00:12:56And that's what I know the ministry that my father had, I know it opened him up to a lot
00:13:01of like very influential wealth of people and that was very beneficial for him.
00:13:07And he like developed a decent amount of wealth just through these different things and through
00:13:11his like for-profit organizations that he led.
00:13:16But, you know, there was this, always this taboo nature of talking about wealth because,
00:13:21yeah, like I said, all of the, all of the leaders of the organization were making a lot
00:13:28more than what, um, the followers of the organization were, but also I, it was about controlling the
00:13:41general population.
00:13:42I never realized this until I was in my probably late twenties, but it wasn't a bug that so many
00:13:52people at IHOP were poor.
00:13:54It was a feature like that was part of the cult system because when people have, are giving
00:14:02up all of their life and giving up everything that they have, it's very difficult to leave,
00:14:09you know?
00:14:09And, and so one, it's not just about greed.
00:14:13It's not just about Mike Bickle says we receive this amount.
00:14:17We're going to reduce our stipends, um, so that I can go and buy a luxury condo.
00:14:24I think that that is the case for a lot of the Pentecostal church.
00:14:28Like you get a lot of the, um, uh, prosperity gospel, Joel Osteen and stuff.
00:14:34Like there are a lot of individuals who, um, we could talk about who are just clearly in
00:14:40it to like take all the tithe and then build up their own sort of kingdoms and build up images
00:14:46of themselves cast in gold.
00:14:47Like that is just clearly what is going on, um, in a lot of the charismatic Pentecostal
00:14:53church.
00:14:54Um, but I think with the international house prayer and the sort of like more cool community,
00:14:58it was less of that.
00:15:00Mike Bickle, Mike Bickle, from my understanding, didn't live like a very like lavish lifestyle,
00:15:06didn't have, you know, the Rolex watches and the, the giant mansion and, uh, um, you know,
00:15:15different Cadillacs and stuff like that.
00:15:17Now don't, don't get me wrong.
00:15:18He lived very comfortably.
00:15:20Um, but he, it wasn't about him gaining a bunch of wealth through this organization.
00:15:28I, I believe that it was about controlling the masses and having a bunch of students who
00:15:35were in this place of desperation.
00:15:38I mean, IHOP was a community that thrived on desperation and there's nothing quite like
00:15:45the state of desperation that is, um, evoked when you are truly desperately poor and when
00:15:56you don't have enough money to pay for your food, when you are skipping meals because you
00:16:01can't afford, um, so like there's a lot of people who fasted at IHOP and I've done this
00:16:10myself, like at times in my adult life of like, I would fast, I just didn't have money
00:16:16to pay for food.
00:16:17And this was like a good way of me thinking through, you know, and contextualizing and
00:16:23pretending like I'm not impoverished is that like, okay, I'm just not going to eat during
00:16:29these different times because I just like, can't, can't afford whatever it would be.
00:16:35Um, and I mean that, and then not knowing where you're going to live, you know, your
00:16:40housing, when you're paying rent or you're a part of an organization where the only rent
00:16:45that you can afford is the one that's subsidized by the international house of prayer.
00:16:49And so that you're having to live in a place that if you leave the organization, you now are
00:16:57homeless, um, you, so not only are you not making money, but you're homeless, you don't
00:17:03really have job experiences.
00:17:05This is another thing like the IHOP U, the, the inner university, they would have people
00:17:11go through like that degree meant nothing to the outside world.
00:17:15Absolutely nothing.
00:17:16I mean, hundreds, um, well, thousands, tens of thousands, um, of degrees were given out
00:17:24by the IHOP U university.
00:17:28I would say there was probably a hundred or so people who ever used that degree in a way
00:17:34to like make money outside of like the IHOP sphere.
00:17:38I like, and I don't, you know, maybe people used it to transition into a seminary program
00:17:44at an accredited university, largely though, you just paid money to learn, uh, propaganda
00:17:51and, and develop no real skills, develop no resume.
00:17:58Um, so just to keep these people in the state of desperation, this is part of the recipe of
00:18:05it is don't, don't provide them income and, and moralize that, make it holy to not have
00:18:12income, make it holy to be dirt poor.
00:18:16And then it was universalized where it wasn't proportional, right?
00:18:20It wasn't about the individuals who had a lot of money and had a lot of wealth and while
00:18:26others lacked, it was about all of us.
00:18:29We all demonstrate greed in some sense.
00:18:31It's like, it was, it's kind of like how, um, it's kind of like how, uh, environmentalism
00:18:37is sometimes done that bear with me for a second here, but like people will talk about
00:18:44like recycling and it's like, what, what are we going to do to like help the environment?
00:18:49And it's like, it's sort of ridiculous because you have corporations that are, you know, you
00:18:54have oil spills and these huge industrial plants that are building inefficient like air conditioning
00:19:03systems because it's cheaper on the front end instead of sustainability, like very little
00:19:08of like day-to-day consumerism in fact, uh, impacts like global climate change.
00:19:14It's more about the like sort of corporate policies and stuff, but yet it's universalized to make
00:19:20it be like, well, you better, you better recycle your, if you don't recycle your bottle and put
00:19:26it in the blue bin instead of the green bin where that one's for paper, you know, like it makes
00:19:32it everybody's problem instead of the individuals who are actually like destroying the planet.
00:19:36And I think that this is like very similar to the way that we talked about greed is like,
00:19:42it was just that it was like a, uh, individual sort of like attitude.
00:19:49It wasn't, it had nothing to do with like what the wealth people had accumulated or not
00:19:55accumulated.
00:19:55It was just sort of like, are you giving all, okay, well, if you're not being greedy with
00:20:00your resources, are you being greedy with your time?
00:20:03Are you giving everything to the Lord?
00:20:05So like these poor individuals who are at the international house prayer, who are already
00:20:11giving all of their time, all of their money, all of their energy were still treated as if
00:20:16they needed to give more.
00:20:18So there wasn't any real ability to address wealth inequality within the organization or
00:20:25poverty and, and, um, and, uh, the way that people were abusing the system because the rhetoric
00:20:33around it was made to make everyone feel the same and feel guilty.
00:20:41One of the books that I read on authoritarian cults, and it might've been combating cult
00:20:46mind control that this is in, but it talks about the cult dynamic of dependency.
00:20:51Money is just one attribute of dependency, but whenever an authoritarian structure is created,
00:20:57the people become dependent upon the cult internally, and it creates this cohesive unit, whether it's
00:21:03financially or some cults.
00:21:06I think I, I hop Casey fits this pretty well, but they demand a lot of your time and in, in
00:21:13effect, time is also money because you could be spending that time outside at a job or whatever.
00:21:18So you're effectively giving to the economy of the building.
00:21:22And in doing so, all of your investment is in this organization.
00:21:26So you become dependent on it and whether it's by design, maybe people have figured this out,
00:21:32or maybe it's by pure accident that some authoritarian figure suddenly realizes if I do this, they'll
00:21:38stay in the cult.
00:21:39It creates this bubble where people, it's much more difficult to leave because I think of like us in
00:21:46the stock market.
00:21:47If you invest all of your money into this one single stock and you're just riding the wave
00:21:52as it goes up and up and up and down, up and down, and you continue to invest in it, there
00:21:57becomes this connection to it where you don't want to leave it because I've already invested so much
00:22:02money.
00:22:02What if I lose it?
00:22:03Well, that applies to the cult dynamic.
00:22:06You're investing into the cult, your time, your money, everything else that you do.
00:22:10But beyond that, there's this weird economy.
00:22:15It's a donorship economy that is created within these cult structures.
00:22:19And especially in the Pentecostal religions where they really heavily either enforce or they
00:22:25heavily push the 10% tithe.
00:22:27Every 10th person makes an entire salary.
00:22:30And in some cases, some of the buildings aren't that expensive.
00:22:34So if you do the math on the people sitting in here, you're like, wait a minute.
00:22:38I've done this math as a kid.
00:22:40I'm just thinking as I'm watching the 10% going into the basket, all it takes is just to just
00:22:45count the heads of the people.
00:22:46And you're suddenly thinking, that's a lot of money.
00:22:49Where's it all going?
00:22:50And in the cases that I have been involved with, much like you describe, the ones at the
00:22:59top did not often have the appearance of having a lot of money.
00:23:03Yet at the same time, when poor people came to the church, there was no money left in the
00:23:08church to give to the poor.
00:23:09And that creates this other donorship economy.
00:23:14A lot of churches operate like this.
00:23:16You have multiple salaries going into a building that doesn't cost that much money.
00:23:21But when a poor person is in need, they have this prayer meeting and they say, hey, we need
00:23:27to lift up brother so-and-so.
00:23:29Is there anybody willing to give a special offering?
00:23:32And so they'll pass the offering plate.
00:23:34What's a donor economy?
00:23:35The church essentially had the money because of the 10% tithe, but they collect more money
00:23:40for the instance.
00:23:41And it creates this cycle where they're demanding more and more time, money, whatever you can
00:23:47donate to the church.
00:23:48And it creates that structure where you're just, invisible walls are holding you in.
00:23:55Yeah.
00:23:55And I think that the way that it's done too is you don't always see the, let's say you
00:24:05get a million dollars comes into the organization, which like IHOP at its peak was probably bringing
00:24:12in more like $20 million due to like donations and music, like the music that they were producing
00:24:24some of the most like popular Christian music during the time.
00:24:29So there's a lot of different like revenue streams that IHOP was bringing in.
00:24:37Now, does that mean that Mike Bickle and Bob Hartley or whoever are getting $7 million
00:24:44salaries each year?
00:24:47Probably not.
00:24:49It could have been happening.
00:24:51I'm not totally sure.
00:24:52Um, IHOP stopped, um, becoming financially transparent in like 2017, I think they, they
00:25:01stopped, uh, they like filed, I can't, can't remember exactly what the, the qualifications
00:25:07were, but like they, they made it so that they were not, um, they did not have to file
00:25:12public, which I think as like nonprofits, you're supposed to file your, your, um, financials
00:25:20publicly, but I don't know.
00:25:22That's, um, I should probably look into that and I, maybe next week I can, I can give more
00:25:27specifics on that.
00:25:29But anyway, all that to say, let's say they were at their height, bringing in $20 million.
00:25:33Um, and, um, then there's, it's not like that it's just being funneled exactly to the director.
00:25:44What instead is that it's used to then buy assets, like buy buildings, buy, um, whatever
00:25:53it is like to buy land.
00:25:55It's like, there was a lot of land accumulation, building accumulation, different, different,
00:25:59um, real estate stuff, different, um, I mean, primarily through, through like real estate,
00:26:06um, and land ownership, they, they take the money.
00:26:11And so it looks like, oh, well, I have made this much, but we just expanded.
00:26:16Like it just went back to the organization, to that building.
00:26:19But then when I hop falls apart, as it just did, someone still owns that land.
00:26:27And when it's dissolved, it's not like it's sold.
00:26:31And then the profits of the, the, the property are then doled out to the individuals based
00:26:37on the amount of time that they spent at the international house of prayer.
00:26:40That would seem fair and equitable that everyone would get a check based off of like, we liquidated
00:26:45these assets and it went back to the people.
00:26:48That is of course, not how it happens.
00:26:50And what happens is Mike Bickle gave, had a lot of like, in, in, he had different like
00:26:57shell companies and had different organizations that he would like then donate land and properties
00:27:03to either the organization or to individuals like the Shiloh property they owned.
00:27:10That became something that was used as a bargaining chip or is used as something that to give and
00:27:17reward his own family and whatnot.
00:27:19And so it's really what it ends up being is that like when, when, you know, everything
00:27:25hits the fan and I hop is kind of held accountable for the things that it was doing, not just that
00:27:32Mike Bickle was doing, but the whole organization was doing and the sort of abuses that were going
00:27:37on the people who immediately have the most repercussions of I hop falling apart are not the individuals
00:27:50who lead it.
00:27:51It's not Mike Bickle.
00:27:52Mike Bickle is fine.
00:27:53He has plenty of assets that he's built over several decades in this organization.
00:27:58He can go back to his, one of his several properties that he owns and he can live there comfortably
00:28:04for the rest of his days with his family, also owning like a lot of different property.
00:28:09Like he's fine.
00:28:10There's no, there's no financial repercussions of this just because the I hop dissolved.
00:28:16Like, okay, great.
00:28:18That's fine.
00:28:19He's in his seventies.
00:28:20That's no big deal.
00:28:21But all of the different individuals who were there presently and who have been there in
00:28:27the past, you know, um, are left kind of holding the bag left being like, what are we going
00:28:33to do?
00:28:34I mean, so many think of the, the university I hop university.
00:28:38I have no idea what happened to all of those individuals were, who are halfway through their
00:28:43year at this university.
00:28:45Did they get their tuition back?
00:28:47Did they get their tuition back for the previous year?
00:28:50Um, because they didn't get there, they weren't able to finish it out.
00:28:55Even if they do get their tuition back, that's just like four years or three years or two years
00:29:01down the drain.
00:29:01Um, and it's done in such a way that I think largely if you, if you interviewed 80, 90% of
00:29:14the, the people who recently were just a part of I hop you, they would probably blame people
00:29:22like me and Deborah and Tammy and, and my mom and individuals who blew the whistle.
00:29:31On Mike Bickle instead of blaming Mike Bickle, because they are in such a state of desperation
00:29:36instead of recognizing the corrosive corrupt structure of the organization that they were
00:29:42a part of and how it's failure was like indicative of the way that it was built.
00:29:49Like it's indicative of like the, the structure that Mike Bickle and I hop had set up instead
00:29:56of looking and blaming those individuals and blaming the real villains.
00:30:00They blame the people who raised the, raised the alarm.
00:30:04And I think that it would probably be a decade or so until a lot of individuals recognize
00:30:09that they spent, you know, their early twenties in an organization that was fundamentally like,
00:30:15um, abusing them and, and taking advantage of them right now.
00:30:20I would not say that most of them are, are, are, are able to recognize that because again,
00:30:26it's just a state of desperation.
00:30:28And when I hop fell apart, they weren't saying, sorry, this is on us.
00:30:34It was, you know, it wasn't this sort of like, we did you wrong.
00:30:39We should have structured it in a different way.
00:30:42We didn't have the financial like, um, uh, barriers in place to send tuition back to provide
00:30:51you guys with any sort of, uh, stability.
00:30:53If this happened, we also didn't, you know, weren't doing a good job of making sure our
00:31:00leadership wasn't fundamentally abusing people behind the scenes.
00:31:03Like that there was not any responsibility that the organization took for its own collapse.
00:31:08And instead it was prophecies about the black horse and about attacks of the demonic.
00:31:15I mean, that was all the conversation around there.
00:31:18And if you're in a desperate place in a desperate situation, I think that people should like,
00:31:26I, this is, I, I speak very like compassionately for all the people who are deceived.
00:31:31I want to be very clear.
00:31:32Like they're still like, people still are accountable for the beliefs that they hold.
00:31:38And like, I do think that there was a lot of individuals who needed to take responsibility
00:31:43for, um, being deceived and being in the part of that organization and not spreading more
00:31:49lies and rumors about, um, you know, the, the attacks to the demonic can be like, no, we
00:31:56are in this position because of the decisions that our leader made.
00:32:00Like this is a hundred percent on the fault of Mike Bickle and Stuart Greaves and the other
00:32:05individuals who like were abusing people and create the structure.
00:32:10But it is, even though I think that it's wrong of these individuals to excuse Mike Bickle and
00:32:18excuse the system, I think it's wrong, but I think it's understandable.
00:32:22I get why they're doing it because they're desperate.
00:32:25They're in a desperate situation.
00:32:27And it's hard to come to terms with the fact that you gave so much to an organization that
00:32:33was taking so much from you without giving anything in return.
00:32:38Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern
00:32:43Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements
00:32:49into the new apostolic reformation?
00:32:51You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website,
00:32:56william-branham.org.
00:32:58On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles
00:33:04Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others with links to the paper, audio, and
00:33:10digital versions of each book.
00:33:13You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those
00:33:18movements.
00:33:19If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute
00:33:24button at the top.
00:33:25And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening
00:33:31to or watching.
00:33:32On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
00:33:37You mentioned the real estate, and that's something that was a little bit surprising to me that
00:33:42I didn't catch it.
00:33:44I consider myself to be a smart man, and yet I still kind of overlooked it.
00:33:50But in multiple cults, not just in the Branham cult, there seems to be this tendency to invest
00:33:56in real estate.
00:33:58And some churches just simply call it expansion.
00:34:01You know, I went to one church, interestingly, I'm not going to mention its name, but it was
00:34:05a very, very large church that had multiple campuses in this area.
00:34:09And the minister was preaching this good, grace-filled sermon.
00:34:15You know, we went there probably seven times, seven or eight times.
00:34:19Over and over, we're hearing this, you know, we're in the New Covenant, and he tries to
00:34:24separate from the legalistic religions and Christian faith that focus on the Old Covenant.
00:34:30And he said, we're no longer under the Old Covenant.
00:34:32And it was pretty good sermons until they needed money.
00:34:36And when he needed money, they completely reversed course and basically took everybody out from
00:34:41the New Covenant and back into Old Covenant law and said, today, I'm going to preach on
00:34:46something that's going to make some of you a little nervous.
00:34:48I'm going to talk about tithe.
00:34:50And he went fully reverse course, right?
00:34:52And as I left in the middle of his speech trying to beg me for money, I grabbed the financials
00:34:59on, they post the financials by the door and I grabbed it and they had gone, they had tried
00:35:04to invest in some real estate and create another satellite operation and apparently went over
00:35:11budget with it and needed more money to fund that.
00:35:14And I get to thinking at that point about just the real estate in general.
00:35:18Like you said, that's not something that is easily tracked.
00:35:22When you look at a person and see how they look financially, you know, they could wear
00:35:27ragged clothes and get up and preach.
00:35:29But if they've got multi-million dollar real estate investments, they still have a lot of
00:35:33money.
00:35:35And that type of investment goes beyond just the real estate.
00:35:40I had a conversation with somebody about, I'm not going to give his name because it'll create
00:35:46battles in the comment feeds, but one of the well-recognized, well-respected charismatic
00:35:52leaders who had books.
00:35:54And I was talking about, you know, the books is an investment, right?
00:35:58And even if the guy's dead, his family still gets the proceedings from the books.
00:36:04And I have good friends that are authors who are famous authors who have had John Goodman
00:36:11movies made from their books.
00:36:13And when I first began my publishing of research, I think I was only making maybe 10 cents per
00:36:21book.
00:36:22And I had a conversation with him and he says, John, that's not sustainable.
00:36:25You'll burn out.
00:36:27You won't keep it up.
00:36:28You have to raise your rates.
00:36:29And I ignored it until some other people finally convinced me, yeah, I will burn out.
00:36:35But he was telling me how the proceedings of the money works in the book.
00:36:42It's not like you publish a book and you suddenly get a massive sum of money.
00:36:45There's no instant surge.
00:36:48In fact, it kind of starts out low and it goes up over time.
00:36:51As your book gets more recognition, it's like an investment.
00:36:55It grows over time, right?
00:36:57It's an asset that you have.
00:36:59Well, if you look at any of these NAR people that are producing all these books, there's a
00:37:04reason why they're producing all these books.
00:37:06It is a revenue making vehicle.
00:37:08And I was looking at some other things.
00:37:12One of my friends sent me, I think Bethel Church has this clicker that they're selling.
00:37:17Click for God or whatever.
00:37:19I can't remember how they worded it, but it's that kind of thing, right?
00:37:22It only costs pennies to produce these things and they sell it for a few dollars.
00:37:26That is an investment that is now turning into a product that you buy.
00:37:30Well, it all goes back to the economy of the cult.
00:37:33Whenever you get the people to invest in your cult, they're basically buying into your
00:37:39economy.
00:37:40And when they buy, they become more trapped.
00:37:43Yeah.
00:37:43Yeah, totally.
00:37:45And like those different assets, I was trying to think of it when I was talking about it.
00:37:51And all I could think of was real estate, but you're totally right about assets like
00:37:55products and books and music.
00:37:59And this is the corrupt way that IHOP would have produced just all of this different music,
00:38:09but it was all through their label and through their organization and through their name.
00:38:14And I know that there was some shady dealings with like a lot of people were upset because
00:38:19they weren't, you know, these Misty Edwards CDs were making buku bucks and not everyone
00:38:26was getting a proportional cut of that.
00:38:29And if you're an organization leader, you could be like, well, it's a ministry.
00:38:34We don't, we're not in it for the money.
00:38:36We're not doing this.
00:38:37We're doing it.
00:38:38And we can sew back into the ministry itself, but who owns the ministry, you know, who is
00:38:46the financial, um, and you know, who's making the financial decisions for that ministry?
00:38:54Because exactly what happens is, you know, a few years before things start falling apart,
00:39:01you see that your organization, this big organization, like IHOP KC that you have built and you, you
00:39:09know, you have developed millions and millions of dollars worth of assets with, even though,
00:39:15even if you've only been giving yourself a hundred thousand dollars a year, which like
00:39:19is still exorbitant compared to the staff that is, is making, you know, again, 5,000 or
00:39:28sorry, $500 a month and living off of that, you know, um, but even if you've been giving
00:39:34yourself only a hundred thousand dollars a year in salary, you now have millions of dollars
00:39:40with that worth of assets and not always, um, clear financial evaluations of those assets
00:39:48because you bought them earlier at lower prices because you knew the individual who gave you
00:39:53a good deal and, and you've been paying low property taxes on it and you donate it or
00:40:00you give it to a different organization.
00:40:03So like, this is exactly how it's happened several times.
00:40:06And I know this because this happened with my dad too.
00:40:08And I've seen this.
00:40:10So say I have an organization like IHOP KC that I am running, and then I have a property
00:40:18that's worth $7 million and it's not actually, I'm not paying property taxes worth $7 million
00:40:26over it because, um, you know, it hasn't been reassessed in the valuation of it is still
00:40:33at like, you know, say we bought it for $2 million or something like that.
00:40:38Um, and then I choose to sell that for a million dollars to another, uh, nonprofit that I, I
00:40:51start a different nonprofit.
00:40:52This nonprofit, you know, is big, it's larger, there's more people on the board, but still
00:40:58I have great control of that board.
00:41:00And then I have this other nonprofit.
00:41:01That's just my nonprofit.
00:41:02Let's call it Jed's ministry right over here.
00:41:06And it's just about me and whatever I want it to be, you know, and that's where I have
00:41:12my books and I've published all of my books through Jed's ministry.
00:41:16I haven't published them through IHOP.
00:41:18IHOP doesn't own them.
00:41:20Jed's ministry does.
00:41:22And even though I, and so I've put IHOP, I'm only famous because IHOP gave me my name
00:41:28and fame, but I've been, you know, keeping all of my individual assets over here.
00:41:33And then I purchased this multimillion dollar building for pennies on the dollar from Jed's
00:41:42organization purchases from IHOP.
00:41:44And then when IHOP dissolves and people are like, Hey, we need to pay, we need money for
00:41:51an investigation about the structure of IHOP.
00:41:55Everybody looks around and says, Hey, we're broke.
00:41:57We don't have any assets.
00:41:58Oh my goodness.
00:41:59Like this property that we use, we don't even own it anymore.
00:42:03We're, we sold it to this different group that we're now paying rent to, you know?
00:42:07And that's exactly what happened with these different, I mean, if you look at Mike Bickle
00:42:13and everybody, everybody's known this for a long time, who's known Mike Bickle, he has
00:42:19like 40 different, I mean, that's a little hyperbolic, but not super hyperbolic shell company.
00:42:25I'm so many different nonprofits and they're all in different names and they aren't clear
00:42:30who owns what the whole reason that the firefly organization and ticking the, or to con, or
00:42:38I never know how to pronounce that name.
00:42:40I mean, that organization got involved with investigating IHOP because the leaders, Isaac
00:42:47Bennett and some of the other leaders of IHOP tried to create a new nonprofit and they listed
00:42:53ticking, um, as on the board of it somehow without them ever like talking.
00:43:00And so they basically were trying to create another shell company, another shell organization
00:43:06to like move assets or to, you know, dump the IHOP name to rebrand, whatever it was.
00:43:13And normally that has worked like a hundred percent of the time in the, in the past, like
00:43:18that was a good, effective way to avoid accountability and to avoid sort of people pointing to, uh, an
00:43:27individual and saying, this individual is worth $15 million while he is having people who get
00:43:36paid nothing, who are living below poverty, who are having to go to government food banks
00:43:44and who are having to like, do, you know, have no healthcare and just ignore a lot of their
00:43:50health issues because they don't have money to deal with it.
00:43:54Um, in, in order to like, keep from having that clear income inequality present, there's
00:44:03all of these little tricks of the trade and, um, it's ridiculous.
00:44:08It's so ridiculous.
00:44:10And I, and I saw it happen.
00:44:11Um, one of the, the only arrests that I know of in the organization, I think I've talked about
00:44:18this before, um, there was a mayor of Grandview.
00:44:23Um, his, uh, his name was Steve Dennis.
00:44:27Have I talked about Steve Dennis before?
00:44:29No.
00:44:29So there was a mayor who his name is, or his name was Steve Dennis.
00:44:34He actually passed away, um, about a year after this, but, um, he was, he was elected as
00:44:40the mayor of Grandview and he ended up going to a prison for, I believe it was a year because
00:44:47he had taken money.
00:44:51I hop had donated to his campaign.
00:44:54And I believe that he had just like used that money as individual sort of sell.
00:44:59Like he just, I can't remember exactly what the law, what law he broke, but essentially
00:45:05it was, I hop just gave him money and he used it to, to pay for his sort of living expenses
00:45:13and whatnot.
00:45:14And I remember Steve Dennis was actually very close to my father during this time.
00:45:20And I remember my dad was just furious and so perplexed, um, because of what happened.
00:45:30And he was like, they're just out to get him.
00:45:32It's ridiculous.
00:45:33And he was like, if he's guilty of that, and if that's legal, then everything that I've
00:45:39done, I should be in prison too.
00:45:41And I remember being, I was only like 18 or something when this happened.
00:45:45And I remember being like, wait, should you be in prison instead of like him?
00:45:51Uh, it told me something where I was like, oh, he was basically like, we do this all the
00:45:57time.
00:45:57We give money to different people.
00:45:59We have them ear market for one thing, and then they use it for a different thing because
00:46:04that's just, you know, that's what you have to do so that you don't get taxed by the government
00:46:09so that you're able to make sure that these assets, you know, it's just sort of like moving
00:46:14money around that is loosely identified with these different parameters so that it's legal.
00:46:21If you use it for this different thing, who cares?
00:46:24Like we would, we do so many different things where we would go on family vacations and he
00:46:29would be like, okay, now Jed, I'm going to tell her, talk to you about some business idea.
00:46:34He was like, see, now all of this was, uh, uh, tax deductible because this was a business
00:46:40trip.
00:46:41And I was like, I have no idea what you were talking about, but, um, this is a business
00:46:44is, you know, a way of, and I still don't fully know what was illegal or what wasn't
00:46:50illegal about what he did, but it was, it was a game.
00:46:54It was this entire game of like play hide and seek with the money so that people, whether
00:47:00it be the government, whether it be outside accountability, isn't able to identify the
00:47:07amount of assets that you have.
00:47:09Then when it comes to investing in new properties, then play, give them a different sheet of money
00:47:16and inflate your values so that you can get higher, you know, loans with lower interest
00:47:21rates that you can, um, buy into these larger organizations because you have all of this
00:47:28amount of wealth.
00:47:29So like when it came time to, um, buy into other different things, like when it was profitable
00:47:36to have a lot of money, there was suddenly a lot of money on the spreadsheet.
00:47:41When it was profitable to not have a lot of money, it was, Hey, we're living poor.
00:47:47We're living.
00:47:48We don't have a whole lot of assets.
00:47:50It's not our assets.
00:47:51It's the organization's assets.
00:47:52It's, it's just, it's a total game of hide and seek.
00:47:56So it's kind of funny because you and I didn't really talk about what we were going to talk
00:48:01about in this podcast other than money.
00:48:03And I'm kind of glad that you headed me here because this, this is where I was wanting
00:48:08to end up, believe it or not.
00:48:10What you're referring to is organized crime.
00:48:13And there's, there's a lot I can't say for obvious reasons.
00:48:17There's some danger here that I won't, I won't go there, but organized crime.
00:48:22I'll just give the definition of it.
00:48:23Organized crime refers to criminal activities that are planned and controlled by powerful
00:48:28groups, but then they're carried out on a large scale.
00:48:32And again, I can't talk about that.
00:48:34There's some danger there.
00:48:35There's, there's some history there that I won't get into.
00:48:38Instead, I will talk about organized doctrinal crime.
00:48:43And you can understand that underneath the organized doctrinal crime, there's other things
00:48:49that exist.
00:48:50I'll just say it like that.
00:48:51But by doctrinal crime, what I'm referring to is if you are hardcore in your theology
00:48:58and everybody else outside of your group is condemned to hell because they don't believe
00:49:03you 100% to your theology.
00:49:05Think of the irony of bringing other people into your church to minister who have a different
00:49:11theology and then take it a step further as they connect with you.
00:49:15And this is all spread throughout the NAR networks.
00:49:19They have one person come and speak and they sell the books and they sell the recordings.
00:49:23And oh, by the way, we've got a magazine and we're going to have a convention.
00:49:27And this guy has no beholdings to the organization that they're speaking in other than the fact
00:49:33they're in this network.
00:49:33And the people who are at the top of the network control who gets to speak and who doesn't get
00:49:40to speak.
00:49:41And so if you go to the leaders in this organized doctrinal crime and you say, hey, I've got
00:49:47a book I'd like to sell.
00:49:48What can I do?
00:49:49Oh, come speak at our church.
00:49:50I think that that's such a good point because viewing both wealth accumulation and power
00:49:58accumulation or authority accumulation as similar processes, I think is something that I haven't
00:50:06really analyzed it from that perspective.
00:50:08But when you were talking, that's what I was thinking about of just the way that people
00:50:13were elevated, the way that certain doctrines were elevated, the way that certain doctrines
00:50:19were held, even though it wasn't believed by the community, you know, like that some of
00:50:27some of the more fringe latter rain doctrines, like there was never really a reason that
00:50:33we had to hold on to that from the like populist perspective.
00:50:39Like it wasn't if you went and talked with individuals at the International House of Prayer,
00:50:45would they have been like, yeah, this is really important.
00:50:48And we have to fix our whole identity on this particular doctrine.
00:50:54No, but somehow those doctrines became the established doctrines of the upper echelon of
00:51:01the community.
00:51:02I mean, yeah, it really is similar to the sort of like organized crime where there's a lot
00:51:12of decisions and processes that are made that are happen behind the scenes where there's
00:51:19no clarity, there's no transparency.
00:51:24There's no rhyme or reason.
00:51:26And a lot of the real rhymes or reason are like purposefully hidden.
00:51:32So specifically, like, let's think financials, like a lot of the financial doings of the International
00:51:39House of Prayer were explicitly done in order to make it confusing and to have these seven
00:51:47different shell companies that own different slices of the International House of Prayer that
00:51:52have different board members, sometimes the same board members, or sometimes just a few of the
00:51:59larger board member group.
00:52:02And it was all done with the explicit intention to make it unclear.
00:52:08And like, whether, again, unclear to the IRS, unclear to the people who were in the organization,
00:52:16unclear to anybody who was sort of externally trying to bring accountability to the organization,
00:52:23it, you know, all of the above, it was it was purposely made sort of gray.
00:52:28And it this was totally what was the case with like, I never understood who got elevated and who
00:52:35was allowed to speak at the International House of Prayer and who wasn't.
00:52:40It, it made no sense to me.
00:52:42I still still to this day, I think I've talked about this before.
00:52:45No one who I knew who grew up at the International House of Prayer.
00:52:50So none of us, we, you know, my generation was the generation that was Joel's generation and
00:52:56was the generation that was going to speak in tongues and healing and prophecy and tenfold that
00:53:03of our fathers, you know, we were built in this very, you know, we've obviously discussed this
00:53:11in different times, but very, very insidious way, there is this sort of investment into the youth
00:53:18that we would be these sort of like grand special things.
00:53:22There's not a single member of my generation and I'm, you know, I'm 33 now.
00:53:27It's not like I'm still a kid, but given even the generation slightly above me, like anybody
00:53:33who are in their like thirties, forties, who grew up in IHOP that has any sense of authority
00:53:41within that community.
00:53:43Like there is no public, none of the public speakers, none of the individuals who are writing
00:53:47books or who are doing it.
00:53:49Some of the like worship leaders have branched off and done some of their own things like
00:53:54Corey Asbury and, um, you know, that there are certain individuals who have had some of
00:54:00their careers launched, um, from the, the music side, but there was not a single career launched
00:54:09that was doctrinal of the, of the group that I grew up with.
00:54:16So like, we, we were all being groomed, but not for a particular platform, like clearly
00:54:23not for anything.
00:54:25And, and just kind of, so like being groomed and then cast aside, groomed and then cast
00:54:30aside.
00:54:31It's just, it's wild to think.
00:54:33And that, I think that that goes back to this sort of lack of transparency of there was no
00:54:37hierarchy at the international house of prayer.
00:54:39That was clear that you could, and structured, you know, you put in your 40 hours a week at the
00:54:45international house of prayer, you do these things, you pray these prayers, you stay committed.
00:54:50And eventually you will then also be able to like sell your own book at, at the prayer
00:54:56room.
00:54:56You'll be able to have your authority.
00:54:59You'll be able to speak from the pulpit.
00:55:01It's like, no, it's all behind the scenes, all done in a shady way with zero transparency.
00:55:11Um, same way that they do the finances.
00:55:13And it was never intended for us to ever share in the power or the finances of that world.
00:55:19Well, to wrap this up, because I think we could go all kinds of different directions
00:55:23here.
00:55:24The, um, the difference between a cult and a non-cult church, I think it's good that we
00:55:30point that out because I had no idea whenever I was in, well, I had no idea I was in a cult
00:55:35to begin with, but after I left, I didn't understand how different the structure was internally.
00:55:41And it wasn't until after leaving, we had attended a new church, probably, I want to
00:55:47say it was like six months before it really clicked.
00:55:50But after church, they asked me if I wanted to stay, they were going to go over the financial
00:55:55reports.
00:55:55And this is just something that I didn't do.
00:55:58This doesn't interest me.
00:55:59Why would I do this?
00:56:00And they explained to me the importance and significance of it, especially from what I
00:56:04had came from.
00:56:05Um, so I went and I got handed this piece of paper, well, the stack of papers that they
00:56:11had stapled together and it went through the financial reports of the business side of
00:56:17a church.
00:56:18Not, not many people are aware, but a church has to operate like a business to stay open
00:56:23and there, there's an income, there's an expense.
00:56:25It has to go through accounting, proper accounting.
00:56:27And the, that phrase proper accounting is critical because they, they went through the
00:56:34report and they said, we have air conditioner units that are aging.
00:56:38We're expecting that they're probably, maybe they're going to last another year, maybe two
00:56:43years, but we need to start accounting for that.
00:56:45So here's a category we're going to put into the budget for this.
00:56:49And we just spent X number of dollars on toilet paper.
00:56:52And it was a astronomical amount of money that they spent for toilet paper.
00:56:56I was a little surprised at how much toilet paper a church actually uses, but it was accounted
00:57:01for and right down to the dollars and cents.
00:57:03I mean, if you did the math in your head, they got a pretty good deal on the toilet paper.
00:57:07So I was a little surprised at that too, but it, it was ran like a business and they had
00:57:14people who were negotiating for better deals.
00:57:17They were trying to keep the money, the costs low, but more than that, they were being
00:57:21very open and transparent about everything.
00:57:25There was in the church that I attended immediately after leaving the cult, there was a real estate
00:57:30investment and they were using it for something that I didn't agree with at the time.
00:57:36I actually ended up leaving over what they used that for.
00:57:39However, their transparency about the structure itself in the real estate, it was very open.
00:57:45I was clearly on board with their spending, just not doctrinally where they went with what
00:57:51they did with that building.
00:57:53But I knew up front, I knew the building was coming.
00:57:56I knew doctrinally what was coming.
00:57:57There was no surprises whenever it happened.
00:58:00I just knew because they were open and transparent.
00:58:03And out of everything that we have said in this podcast, I can assure you that not a single
00:58:08thing was transparent and out in the open at IHOPKC, definitely not in Branhamism, but
00:58:14I've talked to many, many cult members who have escaped their, their cult of choice.
00:58:20And it's the same across the board.
00:58:22If you find a group that's really hiding where your money goes, and again, you can do the
00:58:28math.
00:58:28If you're sitting in a crowd of 10 people, that's a salary, 20 people, that's two salaries.
00:58:34You can do the math, right?
00:58:35If they're giving 10%, like they, like many of these groups proclaim, you can do the math
00:58:40and then you can kind of do the math on what the building costs.
00:58:43You know, what, what would it cost if you were in a home of this size, right?
00:58:48So you can do the math and you can tell and just ask yourself, are they being transparent?
00:58:52Where's the money going?
00:58:53I've been thinking about this recently.
00:58:55And what's heartbreaking too, is that the wealth accumulation that happens in these organizations,
00:59:02like you talk about finding out that your grandfather had $4 million that you're like,
00:59:07how, how did he have this?
00:59:10And how did he accumulate this?
00:59:11And I think the same with like Mike Bickle and my dad and other individuals who have like
00:59:17been able to use sort of deception and be able to use some, some coercion and business
00:59:25or whatever to, to etch out a little bit of wealth.
00:59:30I want, the way that we talk about wealth is it's still not like money.
00:59:34It's still like, I just, I've been rewatching Game of Thrones, which is, is probably not great
00:59:43for my mindset of any of this, but it's like people willing to sell out their family and
00:59:49their, their area so that they can get a slice of the kingdom is just so heartbreaking.
00:59:56And it's like thinking about how these individuals who use deception and coercion and sell out
01:00:05their family and their friends and have people, you know, give 40 hours a week of their lives
01:00:12to an organization so that they can sort of accumulate this wealth.
01:00:16And then the wealth just isn't even that much.
01:00:19I mean, I, I, I was talking to, this is maybe too much detail, but I, I, I remember talking
01:00:28with my father and he was, I, I kind of, I was upset with him because of this thing of
01:00:35just like, what have you done?
01:00:36And he was like, I've built all of this wealth and, and he was very proud of the amount of money
01:00:41that he had made.
01:00:43And I was like, look, if you, if you had the same amount of wealth that you have accumulated
01:00:48over an entire lifetime, like all of the lifetime of tricking people, deceiving individuals has
01:00:55accumulated this amount, right?
01:00:57If you made that every single week.
01:01:00So all of your 80, you know, well, he hasn't been in the life for 80 years, but all of your,
01:01:05you know, 68 years of life, um, all of the wealth that you made and you collected it,
01:01:12all of the assets that you had.
01:01:14And every single week from here and in the future, you made that same amount.
01:01:19I think I did the math on it and it was something like 12,000 weeks before he would even crack
01:01:26the top, uh, 10 of wealthiest people in the world.
01:01:31So that's like something like 200 years or something like that, where it would take hundreds
01:01:37of years making all of that wealth back again and again and again to just be one of the top
01:01:4410, not even to be the wealthiest man alive.
01:01:46And it's just the exorbitant disparity that this is, this goes to the exorbitant wealth
01:01:52disparity in the United States in general, but we won't talk about that.
01:01:56That's, that's maybe for a different topic, but I just, the amounts that people are selling out
01:02:02the people that they love for just a slice of wealth, that is just so meaningless in the grand
01:02:08scheme of things.
01:02:09And I don't, I don't know who I'm talking to here, but I need to just express that because
01:02:15it's just so ridiculous how much we are letting a sliver of wealth by our souls and these different
01:02:24individuals who are just giving up.
01:02:28I mean, the Bible talks about this all the time.
01:02:29It talks about how wealth accumulation, like how you can't serve two gods, uh, you know,
01:02:36mammon and, or, or Yahweh, you know, like that you have to, you have to choose whether or not
01:02:42you're, you're giving your soul to this, this wealth accumulation or whether you're giving your
01:02:47soul to, to God.
01:02:48And it is quite clear that like, I've just seen so many individuals just absolutely lose
01:02:55their souls for just a glimmer, just a glimmer of wealth.
01:02:59And I think it's just so meaningless.
01:03:02Well, at least with Game of Thrones, you knew who was going to betray you, who was going to
01:03:06die and whether it was actually coming.
01:03:09I hop Casey, you just got prophecy and paperwork and whatnot.
01:03:12You still ended up broke.
01:03:14So, right.
01:03:15Anyway, thanks for doing this.
01:03:17If you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web.
01:03:20You can find us at william-brannum.org.
01:03:23For more about the dark side of the new apostolic reformation, you can read weaponized religion
01:03:28from Christian identity to the NAR available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
01:03:54Bye-bye.