The Faithful Servant or Master Manipulator - Ewald Frank and the Message - video Dailymotion

William Branham Historical Research

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   Come Out of Her My People Vol II: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DNFN2XYR   John and Charles explore the life and influence of Ewald Frank, a central figure in the global expansion of the Message following the death of William Branham. The discussion begins with Ewald Frank's early association with Branham as a translator in Germany and gradually unveils how Frank's actions played a significant role in shaping the post-Branham Message movement. The episode uncovers how Frank's missionary work, strategic control over foreign language literature, and cooperation with major sect leaders allowed him to become one of the most powerful figures in the movement.  As the conversation deepens, they examine a series of troubling incidents, including claims of misleading followers with embellished stories, manipulating translations to push a singular narrative, and maintaining control through psychological and institutional pressure. The latter portion of the discussion delves into a major scandal that led to the collapse of Frank's original congregation, exposing methods of enforced public confessions and alleged cover-ups. The episode closes with a look at how Frank rebuilt his influence using global missionary networks, hinting at darker developments yet to be discussed in future episodes.  00:00 Introduction 01:02 The Rise of Ewald Frank and His Early Ties to Branham 05:11 Participation in Hoaxes and the Myth of the Religious Hall of Art 14:55 Building the Largest International Mission Network 20:14 Control of Translations and the “Stored Up Food” Doctrine 26:04 Suppressing Contradictions Through Selective Sermon Translation 33:43 Claiming the Title of “Faithful Servant” 39:00 The 1979 Affair and Public Confession Scandal 44:01 Mutual Blackmail and the Collapse of the Church 51:14 Rebuilding from a Global Base and Retaining Power 54:40 Prelude to Colonia Dignidad and What Comes Next  ______________________ – 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

Transcript

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, and with me I have my co-host, researcher, minister, and friend,

00:47Charles Paisley, the founder of christiangospelchurch.org, and the author of Come Out of Her My People.

00:54Charles, it's good to be back, and we have a very exciting episode today.

01:00I've been wanting to, I've been itching to get into this because it ties into so much

01:04of my other research, but we're getting into talking about Ewald Frank, which was a, years

01:12ago, was a significant figure in the United States in the message, and there are some

01:17things that happened that kind of severed all of that, but then you get into the more recent

01:22years, and he's one of the most infamous figures in the message.

01:25So, a lot to talk through, but I'm very excited for today.

01:30Yeah, John, I'm excited to talk through this as well today.

01:33If our listeners remember, for the past, I don't know how many weeks now, we have been

01:37gradually going through each of the major sects of the message, and we've been covering them

01:43in the order in which they broke away from the main sect.

01:46And I kind of refer our listeners back to this little diagram here.

01:50And Ewald Frank and his sect, they broke away in the year 1981.

01:55That's when the schism began, which led to their separation.

01:59And they were the fourth major faction to break away from the main sect of the message.

02:06And we're definitely going to talk about how that got started.

02:09And in the message, a lot of the people will refer to Ewald Frank's sect as the two soul

02:14people.

02:15I'm sure you've heard that in the message.

02:17And anybody who's been in the message and, you know, hears people go through the list

02:21of all the other sects that they hate, the two soul people usually make the list.

02:25We hate the two soul people.

02:27We hate the Perusia people.

02:28We hate the Thunders people.

02:30Yeah, so the two soul people is Ewald Frank's sect of the message.

02:34We'll explain why that is and what all that means, you know, before we get done chatting

02:38about them.

02:40But that tends to be the derisive label that most of the rest of the message people gives

02:45his followers, the two soul people.

02:47But yeah, I mean, Ewald Frank is, their sect of the message, I would say, is unquestionably

02:54the second largest sect of the message.

02:57They're very large, a very large sect.

02:59Only the main sect is bigger.

03:00And maybe as we talk through today, our listeners can kind of help to understand why that is.

03:06But I think kind of starting out, let's just talk about how Ewald Frank met William Branham

03:11and came into the message and the events that happened before the schism, because that kind

03:16of helps explain how his sect was so big and how he had such a large following when he

03:21did split away.

03:23And Ewald Frank met William Branham.

03:26Here's the thing, I am not a hundred percent sure the precise date that he first came into

03:31contact with William Branham.

03:32What I am sure is that when William Branham went to Germany in 1955, Ewald Frank served

03:39as one of his translators as he toured Germany in 1955.

03:44Now, I think almost certainly they had had probably some contact before that, at least an awareness.

03:51Ewald Frank had an awareness of William Branham.

03:53Ewald Frank had lived in Canada.

03:55He was a Canadian, a German living in Canada.

03:58He moved back to Germany somewhere in the early 50s as a Pentecostal preacher working under

04:06the auspices of Independent Assemblies of God.

04:08Um, and when William Branham had his first meetings there in Germany, there in, in 55 and

04:15also Switzerland, Ewald Frank was at those meetings.

04:19And that's the first that really Ewald Frank talks about, um, coming to know and meet William

04:24Branham.

04:25And one of the, one of the, one thing I want to point out about Ewald Frank right off the

04:30bat, and I, I've tried to do this with all the other major figures because, um, I want to

04:35point out to you that there are some, there's some evidence in what Ewald Frank, um, his

04:40stories that he was perhaps participating in discernment hoaxes with William Branham while

04:46he was still living.

04:48And there's also a pattern that Ewald Frank was definitely telling falsehoods lies to cover

04:54for William Branham too.

04:56I think that's important to see in all, in, in almost all of his lieutenants, you can find

05:00this, you can find spots where they absolutely had to be lying and know they were lying and

05:06also cases where they were probably participating in, um, discernment hoaxes.

05:11And I want to give you first a discernment hoax with, with, um, Ewald Frank.

05:15So Ewald Frank would, um, part of his, his backstory that he would tell all of his listeners,

05:22John, um, is he would, as part of his big missionary pitch, he would tell how that he came to the

05:27United States in 1958. And he went to a convention, um, in Dallas, Texas, which was actually, um,

05:34it was actually Gordon Lindsay's deliverance training seminar school that he was at, John,

05:39in 1958. And so Ewald Frank would say at that school, William Branham, um, met him in the hotel

05:47and William Branham pointed at him and said, you are a minister and discerned that he was a minister.

05:52And this was a great big to do right in 1958, but he tended to always leave out that he had been

05:59his interpreter in 1955 at the, in Germany. So William Branham already knew him and already knew

06:06he was a minister when he discerned that he was a minister in 1958. So there's all of these little

06:12hints in a lot of these guys, um, stories that they went along with discernment hoaxes. And then

06:18they continued to perpetuate those things that were almost certainly fabrications for, for the

06:24entirety of their lives. And one thing I want to mention with that, there are people who have a

06:30strong conscience. And if you are a public speaker, you know what I'm talking about. But sometimes when

06:37you're speaking, if you get into a rhythm of speaking and your thoughts don't form fast enough,

06:45sometimes you can accidentally say things that aren't quite right. And you feel this overwhelming

06:50feeling of guilt. I've had it happen to me and you end up apologizing for what you just said because

06:56you misspoke. It's, it's a misspoke, uh, type of event, but there are people who do not seem to have

07:06that conscience and they can just without, you can look at what they're saying. You can look at their

07:12facial expressions. There's no obvious thought that goes into what happens after they say something

07:19that they know to be false. And I can, I hate to do it because I loved my grandfather, but I can use

07:26my grandfather as an example. There are things that I am fully aware he knew were completely false.

07:32There's no way that he did not know that the thing was false. And with the same breath that he's

07:39saying something that he truly believed, he would say something that was truly false and you could

07:46not tell the difference. It was, it was as though there was no conscience whatsoever in the minds of

07:52the people. When what Charles is talking about in the lieutenants, it's really odd because if you go look

07:57at some of the recordings of these men, especially after we've published our research and some of the

08:03women as well, you can hear their testimony. You can see that they were involved with the thing that

08:10is 100% proven false and anyone who was there knew it was false and they'll present it as though it's

08:17true. It's absolute fact. But then on the other hand, there are things that they truly do believe of

08:22what they say. So there's this weird mixture of truth and false and that is blended to create this

08:28different gospel. There is this really weird thing in the message where I've said before,

08:34our listeners remember, I've said before that the message is held together by mutual blackmail.

08:40Okay. I'm telling you that is the, that is the absolute truth. There is a mutual blackmail,

08:46especially between senior leaders that holds the whole thing together. And, and part of it,

08:52think about it like this. Okay. William Branham is making a fake discernment.

08:56His lieutenant is participating in the fake discernment with him, right?

09:02Now his, his lieutenant has some skin in the game. You know what I mean? And so he is now

09:08an accomplice. Okay. And I want you to think about this. We can do this with pretty well,

09:14every one of William Branham's lieutenants, John, it's almost like this was a criteria to get into the

09:19inner circle was to somehow aid William Branham in a discernment hoax or something like that.

09:26Joseph Coleman did it. Raymond Jackson did it. All of these guys, you know, we can find instances

09:30where they did it. And, and Ewald Frank, again, that's another, it's just a very easy example to

09:35prove that he was an accomplice to his discernment hoax. Okay. He was William Branham's translator in

09:421955. And then in 1958, William Branham miraculously discerns he is a preacher. Give me a break.

09:50Right. And then for him, Ewald Frank to make something out of that is absolutely ridiculous.

09:55And here's the thing. Ewald Frank did a lot of stuff like this with William Branham, just like

09:59we can show a lot of the other ministers did as well. Right. Here's, here's one, John, and I'll let

10:04you pick what's a part was wrong with this one. Ewald Frank claimed that in 19, I believe it was 1962,

10:11he traveled to Washington DC to visit the hall of religious art, where he personally beheld the

10:19picture of William Branham hanging on the wall of religious art, John. You want to tell our listeners

10:25the problem with that story? I was so surprised whenever I came across this. A friend of mine who

10:31was also researching William Branham told me there is no religious hall of art. And I was like,

10:39no, man, there's no way that this has been false for this long. To anybody who was never in the

10:44message, but is familiar with William Branham, you're aware that there's the halo photograph. And

10:49there's this big mystery. Whenever I'm talking to Chinna, who was never in the message, and he's

10:55talking about the Hobart Freeman cult, Hobart Freeman was always referencing the halo. You can listen

11:00to Benny Hinn saying, and the man had a halo above his head. And they're talking about the halo photo.

11:06Well, the mythology that surrounded that photo, every single aspect of that mythology was false.

11:14Not one single thing that we have found that went with the mythos was true, other than the fact that

11:20there was a light that struck the lens as he claimed. And there was lighting in the studio,

11:24in the auditorium. So he claimed, William Branham claimed that the government, the FBI rushed it to

11:32Washington, and said, this is evidence of a supernatural photo. And your mind is kind of

11:38going to those 1950s sci-fi-ish movies where, oh my gosh, we just saw a supernatural thing,

11:45send it to Washington, all these men gather around it. And then they, because it was so famous that

11:51this happened, they put it in the religious hall of art. Well, this is a building that never existed.

11:55And the truth of the matter is, that story changed over time. Initially, there was one,

12:02I'll try to find it if I can. I don't know if I can find it. But there was one page of the Voice of

12:07Healing magazine that, before the mythos was created, it says, we can't use this photograph

12:13because it has been sent to Washington for copyright. And the photo actually sits in the

12:20Library of Congress where every document, every photograph, every book, everything that has a

12:26copyright goes here. That's where it's stored in Washington. And I have seen videos. I wish I could

12:33find it for this podcast. I doubt I'll find it in time. But I have seen videos of well-respected

12:40ministers who are walking into the Library of Congress saying, here we are in the Religious Hall

12:46of Art. And here's the photograph of William Brent. And they're standing in the Library of Congress.

12:50They're lying through their teeth in the video. But whenever they send the video back to the

12:54congregations, the congregation is going, oh, well, that's amazing. That's exactly what he said.

12:59You're exactly right, John. There's no such thing as a Religious Hall of Art. And there never has been.

13:04Now, there are people who've went to the Library of Congress, which has a copy of every single

13:08copyrighted thing there ever has been in the United States history. And they go into the right drawer and

13:13they pull out, oh, yes, here's the halo picture. That's not what Ewald Frank said. Ewald Frank

13:18said that he went to the Hall, you know, to the Hall of Religious Art, that he looked up and

13:25hanging on the wall framed up, just like William Brent said, was his picture, you know, prominently

13:31displayed. Ewald Frank claimed that he witnessed what William Brent said personally. And here's the

13:37thing. He's the only person I am aware of, John, in the entire world who actually claimed to

13:41witness that photo hanging up the way William Brent said. But once again, what does that do for

13:46us? It's just one more evidence that Ewald Frank, you know, very sadly, would boldface, blatantly

13:54outright lie about William Brent, right? And so there are quite a number of examples of this. I actually

14:01document a number of them in my book for each of the figures, where you can, beyond a shadow of a doubt,

14:06see that they were knowingly lying about William Branham, knowingly either participating in discernment

14:13hoaxes or knowingly lying that things happened that absolutely and possibly never happened. Because

14:20there was no Hall of Religious Art. How did he go to a building that did not exist and see a picture

14:25on a wall that did not exist? It just didn't happen, right? So those sort of things are going on with

14:30Ewald Frank. So immediately, you know, he's suspect, you know, his credibility, just like

14:36Lee Vale, just like Raymond Jackson, just like all of these other guys. Joseph Coleman, we've talked

14:41about. Their character is sadly flawed because of their dishonesty, and they're immediately suspect,

14:49you know, to be able to really trust anything that they say about William Branham. So anyways,

14:55Ewald Frank John more or less became the preeminent minister in Europe in the years,

15:04right in the last years of William Branham's life, and then in the years after he died. He opened the

15:09very first message church in Europe, in Creffield, Germany. It was originally just in a rented hall

15:14when William Branham died. They built their first church building in 1974, which was the first formal

15:20church building of a message church in Europe, as far as I know. And so, you know, that was going on.

15:28He, as I mentioned before, he had a program on Radio Luxembourg, which broadcasts, which is the

15:33radio station in all of Europe. So he had a pretty ability to really reach the entire European continent

15:42with his sermons through Radio Luxembourg. And through that, lots of doors got opened to him in

15:47order to go and visit other churches and give testimonies about the message. And Ewald Frank

15:53developed a sermon. There's all kinds of versions of this, recordings of these available for people

15:59to listen to if they want. But he basically came up with this maybe hour and a half, two hour long

16:05message missionary push. And over the years, he refined it, he tweaked it. But over half of the

16:13sermons that he preached in his life, John, was this exact same missionary sermon repeated over

16:18and over and over again. He would go to this church, here's my missionary pitch. You go to that church,

16:23here's my missionary pitch. And he honed this, refined it over time, you know. And if you, you know,

16:27if you do something a thousand times in a row, by the time you get, you know, the thousandth time,

16:31you're going to be pretty good at it, right? So he's constantly refining this missionary pitch.

16:36And it's actually pretty effective. You know, he recruits. Ewald Frank is responsible for

16:40recruiting more people into the message than any other single minister. I would even go so far,

16:46John, as to say that Ewald Frank may have personally converted perhaps a quarter of the

16:52first generation of message believers after William Brown died. He may personally be responsible for

16:56recruiting a quarter of the, you know, of the generation that came in after William Brown. He was

17:02a prolific missionary. He was going all over the place, converting all kinds of people across Europe,

17:08across Africa, South America, Southeast Asia. He was all over the place doing stuff. And it was a

17:18really a massive endeavor. And he partnered. He was very economical. He avoided getting drawn into the

17:25Thunder Schism or the Faith Assembly Schism or even Lee Vale Schism. And he would, John, he,

17:32up until his own schism, he would pretty well work with anybody. He would tour with Lee Vale. Like,

17:38Lee Vale and him would go together and tour together. He would get with Perry Green and him

17:42and Perry Green would tour together. He'd get with, you know, different ministers from the different

17:47sects of the message. He would, on his missionary journey, he would hand out the literature that my

17:51sect of the message produced, The Contender. All right. And so he was very economical up until the

17:56event of his schism. And in that way, he wasn't just planning churches of his own persuasion,

18:03but he was also planning churches that were friendly to Perusia sometimes, friendly to the

18:08main sect, friendly to my sect. And he was able to kind of go between the sects. And that was another

18:15super important thing. Because not just that he was able to go between all these, he could fundraise

18:22from them all too, John. Another big thing is he was fundraising out of all the sects of the message

18:28to sponsor his mission work and the mission network he was building. So it was just a very

18:33elaborate thing that Ewald Frank was building. You know, really starting right after William Branham

18:38died through the late 60s and up into the mid and early 70s. What's also interesting, and I can't give

18:44all of the details, but my family was really big into the Edmonton church. So my family was traveling

18:51back and forth with one of William Branham's sons, and they were meeting with the groups in Edmonton

18:59for some unusual reason. I won't talk much about it, but in that church, there was a big presence

19:07of people who were influenced by Ewald Frank. Ewald Frank was constantly going back and forth, and

19:12come to find out later, we'll probably talk about this later in the podcast, but Ewald Frank was having

19:19an affair with one of the women in that church that my family was close to. And so it became the

19:26central hub, but in that Edmonton church, there were a number of people from Germany. And when you

19:33think back to what was happening after the war and some of the things that we'll get into later in this

19:37podcast, the German connection is significant within the message. I would agree with that. There is a very

19:44high percentage of first generation German immigrants who came to the United States in and around the

19:51years of World War II, especially in Canada, who were very prominent in the message back in those

19:58days. Ewald Frank, you know, somehow was involved in all of that. And yeah, he ended up going back to

20:05Germany just to spread the message. So here's the thing, though, I think that really set Ewald Frank apart

20:13and really gave Ewald Frank's churches the edge to allow them to grow into such a massive sect of

20:20the message, John. And it's actually the literature publication. So Ewald Frank very early on began to

20:27believe that he had a special mission from God and from William Branham. And it goes back to a dream

20:33he had about a need to store up food. And this food in his terminology is the literature and sermons of

20:41William Branham, right? Like in the message, when you eat food, that's a euphemism for consuming the

20:49sermons of William Branham. So he had a storehouse to store up food for like a famine. William Branham

20:55died and now there's a famine for the food, for the words of William Branham. And so he believes he has a

21:03divine mission to create transcripts of William Branham sermons, not just in English, but in all

21:10kinds of languages in order to share with the world. And then he can, during the famine of

21:15William Branham's absence, he can provide food to the masses, right? And so he begins the effort to

21:25translate William Branham sermons. And this is actually the first effort to do translation work

21:30of William Branham sermons. And it starts not long after William Branham died in the late 60s.

21:35In fact, John Ewald Frank claims to have inspired Perry Green and Roy Borders to really launch

21:41spoken word in the way that it became. So when William Branham died, we're going to do some full

21:46episode on spoken word down the road. But when William Branham died, spoken word was not actually,

21:51it was not in the program to publish all of William Branham sermons and transcripts and stuff.

21:55They just had a few here and there, a bit of literature. But Ewald Frank is the man who claims

22:01to have inspired spoken word to undertake, to print all of William Branham sermons as transcripts.

22:08And Ewald Frank himself had actually started to do that in Germany in the late 60s.

22:13And Ewald Frank also translated all of them into Russian and German and French and Italian and Portuguese

22:25and Spanish and Swahili and Afrikaans and Romanian and Polish. He translated these into all kinds of

22:36languages too. And so spoken word publications, they were only really making them in English and a

22:42limited amount in Spanish. So if you wanted a foreign language translation of William Branham

22:47sermons, the place you had to go was Ewald Frank. Ewald Frank's sect produced all of the foreign language

22:53translations. And this is how it was, John, up until the mid and late 1980s. So for the first 25-ish,

22:5930 years of the message, all of the foreign language material, almost all of it came from Ewald Frank's

23:05sect. And this gave them a huge edge. It was really only starting in the late 80s and early 90s with

23:12the rise of Voice of God recordings that the foreign language translation started to be undertook in the

23:19central institution. So anyways, this is what I believe really gave Ewald Frank the edge because

23:24as he's going to all of these foreign countries, he's able to give them copies of the literature of

23:29William Branham in their own languages. I can give you a Swahili version of William Branham's sermon.

23:35I can give you a Romanian version of William Branham's sermon. And so he is naturally very

23:41well positioned, far better than any other group, to interact with the overseas international

23:48churches. And another very important thing about this is as since he and his group are the ones doing

23:57the translations, and he, the dozens and dozens of people were involved in this translation work.

24:01Pretty well every single bilingual person in his church in Creffield, Germany, was involved in

24:06translation work nonstop. And it was like a huge mission from God they were all fulfilling.

24:12But obviously, by producing the translations, you can control what the people find out about, okay?

24:19And so there was allegations that Ewald Frank was translating the sermons in a way that

24:27fit his agenda, okay? That was actually what Voice of God started to allege. And that's actually what

24:32instigated Voice of God ultimately to start producing their own recordings, spoken word

24:38publications and Voice of God recordings to actually start producing their own versions of the

24:42foreign language translations, because they were alleging that Ewald Frank was

24:46twisting the sermons for his agenda, right, in the years after the schism.

24:51Now, is that true or not? I mean, I don't, I don't personally know if it's true or not.

24:55My guess is Voice of God and spoken word just wanted to cut Ewald Frank out and have direct

25:00access, but my guess is what actually happened after the schism. But anyway, that is a huge,

25:05huge thing that's going on that really pushes Ewald Frank to a very high level of importance in the

25:13overall global message community.

25:15That's what I found so interesting during my teenage years. There seemed to be this

25:19strong battle between all of the different factions and Voice of God recordings.

25:26And it all seemed to be around control of the message entity, the stored up food, as you called

25:33it. Because remember, they always go back to William Branham saying, William Branham referenced this

25:39verse concerning the Bible's description of roadkill, where the carcass is, the eagles will gather,

25:46which is literally talking about a rotten corpse on the ground and all of the birds of prey

25:52hovering over it. Well, that's essentially what was happening during my teenage years.

25:57They considered William Branham's sermons to be this carcass of rotten flesh, according to the

26:03scripture. And all of these vultures were coming around it, trying to, trying to find ways where

26:10they could capitalize on it. It really came down to, this was a business product. And who owns the

26:15business? Does Voice of God? Does Ewald Frank? Does Perry Green? All of these different factions,

26:21they wanted their piece of the pie. And Branham's sons were like, no, we want all of the pie.

26:28You're spot on, John. That is exactly, that's exactly how it works. I have a full chapter in my

26:33book on the Copyright Wars, come out of Remind People Volume 2. And we're going to do a full

26:37episode on the Copyright Wars too, before all this is over with. But yeah, so Ewald Frank,

26:43Frank was in a powerful position with control over pretty well all of the foreign language

26:51literature of the message, really, up until, you know, the 80s. And the only real foreign language

27:00literature that was being produced in the United States was, you know, you had the English and then

27:03you had some Spanish, you know, literature. There wasn't, you know, really any other real foreign

27:08language translations happening. Ewald Frank's church was even translating the contender, John,

27:13that my church produced into German, you know, to help, you know, with distribution of the contender.

27:18So they were just, they were the translation center for message literature. And what Ewald Frank did,

27:26and this is so important because, you know, as we've explained, the William Branham taught

27:32conflicting versions of literally every single topic, right? Okay, you name it, he taught a conflicting

27:40version of that topic. Baptism, Godhead, gifts of the Spirit. I mean, you name it, he taught a conflicting

27:50version of literally everything. Well, Ewald Frank, in doing the translations, they could pick which

27:57conflicting version they were going to keep and just not translate the other sermons, right?

28:01That's what he did. And so what you have, a lot of the foreign countries where, you know,

28:07they don't speak English and they're not familiar with the full body of William Branham's work,

28:11they have no idea. A lot of them have no idea that William Branham taught these wildly contradictory

28:19things because through the translation work, they only translated the version that they were willing,

28:28that Ewald Frank believed in basically, okay? Ewald Frank just didn't translate, you know, the

28:33conflict, the other conflicting version that he didn't agree with. And so on one hand, that is

28:41incredibly deceptive. On the other hand, it actually serves to make them cohesive, right? Because the

28:48things, John, that would make here in North America that were making us all, you know, hate each other

28:53and want to see each other dead. He was not introducing that into the international overseas,

28:59non-English speaking world, right? They weren't getting all these multiple conflicting versions

29:04to fight over. They were just getting one version more or less. And so over here in America, we're all,

29:09you know, fighting over what the thunders are. And the people overseas are like, what in the world is,

29:14you know, does that even matter? You know, so there's, they don't even, you know, they didn't even get the

29:18conflict. So anyways, you get a lot of that happening. And it's really, it's really only in

29:25the English speaking world where you have these fights over all the schisms and, you know, and over

29:31the conflicting statements because the non-English speaking world is simply unaware that they exist.

29:38To put this into proper perspective for people who are on the outside looking in, I've had people

29:43write me and say, how on earth did this spread so thickly through the developing nations? Because

29:50there's so many conflicts and internal problems with it. And especially some of the, like in Africa,

29:57you have the, you know, black people who are listening to this guy who's talking very strongly

30:03against African-Americans in some of the sermons. To put this in proper perspective, the highest

30:10target of missionary work for the Voice of God recordings, which is the main sect, was into

30:16Mexico. I knew several Mexican missionaries and people from some of my friends in Arizona would

30:23frequently travel through Mexico spreading the message of William Branham. I left January 1st, 2012.

30:31Whenever we left, I thought, you know, there are, what is it, Charles? It's like 1,200 sermons of

30:37William Branham that we had access to. For almost 50 years, that was the mission of the organization,

30:44to translate, to move the message into other countries, to make it readily available, because

30:51this is the stored up food. This is the manna that the Bride of Christ is feeding on until Jesus

30:58returns. There were approximately, and don't quote me on the number, but it was this low. There were

31:05approximately 50 to 100 sermons that were translated in Spanish, and they selectively chose the sermons,

31:13right? So if you had two sermons that told a completely different life story, for example,

31:19one version was sent down into Mexico. All of the conflicting versions that completely overturned his

31:25entire testimony, that was withheld from the translation. So as the message was spreading by

31:30these guys, they were selectively choosing which versions of what William Branham said went into

31:36the other countries. They certainly withheld the ones where he's preaching Trinitarian gods and

31:42talking about the third person of the Trinity coming down into his sermons, because the other

31:47countries, they were denouncing the Trinity doctrine. So they're withholding the sermons, and it's

31:52spreading, and they get out of the, I don't know how many different, 50 different flavors of what

31:57William Branham taught. They're getting one single flavor. An interesting thing that that demonstrates,

32:03John, it demonstrates that the leaders who spread the message overseas and did all those translations,

32:08it demonstrates they were aware of all of the problems and were attempting to clean them up on

32:15purpose, right? I mean, it's obviously, it's just an indisputable piece of evidence that they are aware

32:22of the problems, and they're trying to clean it up as they make the translations and spread overseas,

32:26right? Even though publicly, you know, they'll never admit that they're problems, yet an examination of their

32:32work proves they are fully aware of it, and we're attempting to clean it all up, right? So, I mean, it's,

32:38oh, what a mess.

32:40Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started, or how the progression of modern

32:45Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic, and other fringe movements

32:51into the New Apostolic Reformation? You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's

32:57website, william-branham.org. On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of

33:05John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper,

33:11audio, and digital versions of each book. You can also find resources and documentation on various

33:18people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can

33:24support the podcast by clicking the Contribute button at the top. And as always, be sure to like

33:30and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching. On behalf of

33:35William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.

33:38After the schism happens, we're going to talk about the schism and what happened, ladies and gentlemen.

33:43This is one of the biggest drop-down, drag-out schisms of the message, what happened with Ewald Frank.

33:49But, um, after the schism happened, Ewald Frank began to say he was the faithful servant. That began to be

33:56his title among his followers. His honorific title was the faithful servant. And if you go to, I believe it's

34:03Matthew 24, John, you know, the same place where wheresoever the carcass is, there the eagles will

34:08be gathered. Well, at the end, at the end of that chapter, there's the verse that says,

34:12who then is the wise and faithful servant who will give his people meat in due season? Ewald Frank

34:17says, it is me. I am the faithful servant who will give you meat in due season from the storehouse

34:24of food that I've stored up. Here is the meat of the carcass. Okay. Ewald Frank played that up.

34:31I mean, that is exactly, I mean, verbatim, the words came out of his mouth, right, on this stuff.

34:37And he, he was respected by his followers as the faithful servant. And this is a great way to

34:43detect someone has, is part of Ewald Frank's sect of the message. If they refer to him as the faithful

34:48servant, as basically the fulfiller of that verse in Matthew chapter 24, that is a dead giveaway.

34:54You're, you know, you're in an Ewald Frank sect. Otherwise, they use a lot of the exact same

34:58terminology as the other sects of the message. But that's a dead clue giveaway, you know, that,

35:04that, that they're honoring William or Ewald Frank as the faithful servant.

35:09What I found is whenever these guys create biblical titles, like you said, the good and faithful

35:15servant, it ties right back to that passage, to the manipulated minds of the congregation.

35:21Whenever they read that verse, they're going to apply that verse to Ewald Frank.

35:25And usually this comes in the form of some sort of opposition to a scandal.

35:29These guys have some rising opposition and they want to play the martyr card. And whenever they

35:35do the martyr card, it's usually something in that order, something that makes them out to look humble.

35:41They're shrouded in humility and all of the forces of evil, which, oh, by the way, are the other

35:48members of the same cult that you're in. They're all rising up against me because I am the good and

35:53faithful servant. So by the time you get to the middle and late 1970s, Ewald Frank is the preeminent

36:02message missionary. And he is at the head of, by far, the most important message mission network.

36:13And he has influence over the majority of mission work in Africa, the majority of mission work in

36:19Southeast Asia. I mean, he is, he is involved in just about every significant mission outreach effort

36:27in the Eastern hemisphere. Now in the Western hemisphere, it's not quite so much because the

36:32main sect is, is pretty dominant in Mexico, Latin America. But Ewald Frank does have a presence there

36:38too. You know, Ewald Frank is visiting Venezuela and Brazil and Chile. And, you know, there is stuff

36:43happening there. But if you look at it, say the, you know, Western hemisphere is slightly more

36:50dominated by the main sect in its outreach. The Eastern hemisphere is, is more dominated by Ewald

36:57Frank. And again, it goes back mainly to the literature, right? Ewald Frank had all of the

37:04Western or all of the Eastern hemisphere language, foreign literature. Whereas the public, you know,

37:11the groups here in North America were really only producing English and Spanish, which is,

37:15you know, is the dominant, you know, probably what 90% of people in North and South America

37:20speak either English or Spanish. So you really only need those two, but, but not so, you know,

37:25in the West, in the Eastern hemisphere, you know, in Europe and in Africa and so forth, you need all

37:29of these other languages. And so anyways, Ewald Frank's church is basically the hub of this mission

37:36network. And, and it's massive. And by, you know, by the time you get into this, you know, like I said,

37:42the mid seventies, there are hundreds of preachers being sponsored out of his church globally to spread

37:48the message. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of churches have been planted, especially in Africa,

37:55especially Southeast Asia, you know, and, and, and that big push that he's doing.

38:01Um, and so that this massive network has, has developed in which Ewald Frank is a highly

38:10respected leader. Okay. And at that point, he's still touring Billy Paul. Billy Paul goes with him

38:15places, John. He tours Africa with Sidney Jackson, you know, he tours the South, you know, South America

38:20with Perry Green, you know, all of this stuff is happening, you know, and even the, you know, famous

38:25mission message missionaries like Archie Martin, the man who planted the message community in Brazil,

38:30he's traveling to Creffield. He's working with Ewald Frank. Um, Paul is your Lowry, you know, the guy

38:36setting up the massive cult in India. He's coming to Creffield. He's working with Ewald Frank, right?

38:42Ewald Frank is partnered with every key mission figure, um, of the message world. Okay. And so

38:50what causes the problem or what leads to the schism actually starts John in 1979, 1980,

38:59and it don't really have anything to do with Ewald Frank's teachings or anything of that nature.

39:05He's still getting along very well with all of the other sects of the message, but something happens,

39:11um, which begins this massive schism. And then Ewald Frank does start to come up with some wonky ideas

39:19on the other side of it. And so what is it? What happens? It is Ewald Frank's sex scandal. Okay.

39:26Okay. So I'm going to just kind of briefly describe this, John, and we might, we might have a bit of

39:32time to talk about this in this episode today. Uh, but somewhere throughout time, Ewald Frank was

39:40carrying on affairs with, with multiple women. One of the women that he was carrying on affair with was

39:46actually his secretary in Creffield, Germany, his secretary, and they were having a long-term, you know, uh, relations.

39:57And this went on for some time and it, the message community, the broader message community did not start to

40:05learn about this until 1984. Okay. 1984 is when the news got out to the broader world. We're going to talk about how that

40:12happened, but it, it, it started really in Creffield in 1979. And, and let me, let me explain how it

40:20happened. Okay. Somehow, and this is a little fuzzy to me exactly how, but I, I suspect it was probably

40:26Ewald Frank's wife told two preachers in, in Germany that Ewald Frank was having an affair. And these two

40:33ministers, they come to Creffield, Germany, John. They come to Ewald Frank's church on a Sunday.

40:38They come on the platform. They confront him to his face. Just imagine this ladies and gentlemen,

40:43they confront him to his face. You are having an affair. And they grab him and they push him down

40:50on his knees. I've heard the story from witnesses there, John. They shove him down on his knees and

40:55they force Ewald Frank to make a public confession before his entire church. Wow. Of, of all of the

41:02details of all of the stuff going on. And he is forced into a public confession in 1979 in Creffield,

41:11Germany. At that point, there's probably a thousand dish people in his church, John. Um, and this sets

41:17the stage for what is eventually going to cascade into the collapse of his church and the massive

41:24schism that's finally going to unfold as the entire world finds out in 1984.

41:29And keep in mind the different conflicting doctrines regarding this in the message. So you have

41:36William Branham who, you know, as a Pentecostal minister, there are passages that talk about

41:43marriage and divorce in the Bible. And whenever you read those, especially in the more fundamentalist

41:49sects, you're allowed one husband to marry one wife until the death of one or the other,

41:55and then they can remarry. But in William Branham's doctrine, while it initially from a stage persona

42:03perspective started like that, and we have court records showing where he's helping his brothers

42:09just trade women, like trading a cow. It's, it's kind of crazy, but from his public stage persona

42:15presence, he seemed to back that up for several years. And then suddenly whatever happened,

42:21some scandal caused his change, I think, but William Branham comes out and he says that it's okay for

42:28the man to take other wives, plural, but it's not okay for the woman. A woman must remain single to

42:35a single husband. So men carried this in various different directions. Polygamy was introduced with

42:42the marriage and divorce sermon, which we've talked about, but there were other men who kind of took that

42:47as like freedom. I can go sleep around with anybody I want. It doesn't matter because I'm a man,

42:53but the women can't do that back to me. That was kind of the, the weird people skirting the laws

43:00surrounding, um, being faithful to your wife in this movement. That's what was kind of going on.

43:06So now you've got this schism that's happening over Ewald Frank and his, his multiple affairs.

43:13Whenever this happens, you've got part of the church that sides with him because part of the

43:18church still believes what William Branham said. He can, but she can't. And then the other side are

43:24like, well, I remember William Branham saying the other thing. It's one man, one woman until death do

43:29they part. And you find that division straight down through the message community in almost every

43:34country. Let me continue to explain what happens next in, in Ewald Frank's church. And again,

43:40these stories are very illustrative to give people insight into what the message is like. Okay.

43:46So, so this happens. Ewald Frank has confessed his, you know, extramarital affair sins to his whole

43:55church. And this starts on a Sunday. Well, they have a week long meetings. They decide they have

44:03service every day after that because, you know, they all feel like they've got to get, you know,

44:08resolution or to the bottom of this. Well, by day two or three, John, it is decided by the leadership

44:17at Creffield Free Mission that it would be appropriate for every single person in the

44:22church to be dragged before the platform and also forced to confess all of their sexual sins as well.

44:27Okay. So one by one, John, they go through the entire church, John, and every member of the church

44:37who has sexual sins is forced to make public confessions of their sins past or present. Okay.

44:45And as I, you know, as I explained before, I've told you the message is held together by mutual

44:50blackmail. How do you think, John, that Ewald Frank kept his sex story from getting out to the message

44:54public for five years after that? Because of this. Okay. They went around and he forced, they forced

45:01every person in the church to confess all, you know, all these sins, John. And so then the people

45:08are finding out, oh my goodness, this guy over here is a secret homosexual. Oh my goodness, this man over

45:12here is having an affair with my wife. Oh my goodness, that person, my wife had an affair on me years

45:17ago. And John, they, this, just, the people who went through this too, John, I'm telling you, came out of

45:25this absolutely traumatized because this was all forced. This was absolutely forced on them. And John, it, this,

45:32this destroyed, I mean, it absolutely destroyed a lot of the people there. And it actually almost totally

45:39destroyed his church. He went from 1,000 people in his church to 30 people in his church on the other side of this.

45:47And I'll, I'll explain a little more about how all this happened, but yes, John, I mean, this is how,

45:53think about that. In order to, I mean, why else would he have did this except to protect himself?

46:01It sounds like a Ray Stevens song with a squirrel in a religion where you can create squirrels.

46:07I know what you mean, you know? And so, so what happens, John, this all simmers, it simmers and

46:15simmers and simmers, you know, as everybody's looking around and, you know, this person is

46:19looking over at the man in the other pew who had an affair with his wife and this other guy who was,

46:24you know, this and that and the other. And John, eventually the people can't, it explodes. I mean,

46:32you can't do this, right? I mean, you can't do this and have a community survive. Basically,

46:37in response to having this exposed, Ewald Frank dropped a nuclear bomb on his church, okay? And,

46:45and they left, John. I mean, I'm telling you, 95% plus of the people left Ewald Frank's church,

46:52you know, as, as all of this unfolds. And Ewald Frank is left with like 30 people in his church,

46:59John, as you come into 1980, you know. And so what happens, the other hundreds of people who left,

47:06a number of them get to thinking, wait a minute, why should he get the church? Where's the majority,

47:11you know, why should he get all the property and everything? And some of them actually decide

47:17they're going to come back and they're going to seize all the assets and take over the church.

47:20And they come back and they confront Ewald Frank in, in almost a kind of a hostile takeover sort of,

47:26but Ewald Frank threatens them with the police and the law and, you know, dirty, underhanded stuff.

47:32And he basically, um, forces out 95% of his church, retains control of all of the assets,

47:40all of the property, all of the stuff. And he's done it in such a way that nobody out in the rest

47:47of the message or in all of his mission network has any idea that anything has even happened,

47:54right? He has absolutely silenced everybody who knows, you know, knows anything about it,

47:59because what are they going to do? He's going to go tell all the, you know, the dirt on them too,

48:02right? I mean, what do you call this but dirty and evil, John? And here's the thing, this is par

48:09for the course, this sort of thing. I mean, this is a massive scale, but this is daily life in a lot

48:15of message churches. This is just not on this scale, but this is daily life in a lot of message

48:20churches, what Ewald Frank did, just on a massive scale.

48:22And that level of blackmail, it flows through all of the different splinter groups of the message.

48:30Like you said, it's a religion of blackmail and it carries forward into the NAR. You have people like

48:36Paul Kane, who's recording every single conversation. There's a reason why he's recording

48:41every single conversation. If you get dirt on somebody, you can really make them do whatever

48:46you want, depending on what the dirt is. And that's how this religion, it's really, in all of

48:53my research, I've been trying to answer one question, how did this mess survive? Because

48:59this is the biggest convoluted mess you've ever heard of, that it slipped under the radar for so

49:05many years, people had no idea. How did it survive? And I think the only way it survived was because of

49:11the blackmail.

49:12I have to agree with you, John. I mean, I know the sect I come from, it is mutual blackmail

49:17that holds that place together too. Because they know, okay, this person's the embezzler,

49:21and this person's an adulterer, and this person's a homosexual, and this person's a thief, and this

49:25person's this, and this person's, and they have it all on each other. And nobody can tip their hand

49:31without triggering a response. So it's like mutual assured destruction, right, to try and deal with

49:38anything. And, and it, and I have to tell you, John, it is incredibly effective. It is incredibly

49:44effective. And it is absolutely how a lot of the leaders hold power and maintain power, right? Like,

49:51okay, so we're kind of out in left field here a little bit. But Ron Spencer knows the dirt on Tim

49:56Pruitt, okay? And Tim Pruitt knows the dirt on Ed Biscoll. And Ed Biscoll knows the dirt on Donnie

50:02Reagan, right? Like, they do. And this is why they won't say bad things about each other, because they

50:07know the other person will then say the bad things about them. This is how it works, John. And I can

50:12go through, and here's the thing, you know, we can set all you people free. We can tell your dirt for

50:16you. And then the enemies, you know, won't be able to use it against you anymore. It's actually

50:19liberating of these people when we tell their dirt, John, because now it can no longer be used as

50:24blackmail against them. And probably what will happen is their enemies, in order to defend the

50:29message, will say the blackmail is not even true, right? Oh boy, we could help you guys out so much if

50:34you just let us. But I'm telling you what, John, the message is a wreck. And it is absolutely this

50:39sort of mutual blackmail that holds the whole thing together, from Joseph to Billy Paul to Raymond

50:46Jackson to all the way to the bottom. I'm telling you, this is what holds it together.

50:50Every Friday, I do these hour stories where people who are in the message can come and they can tell

50:55their experience. I'm going to put a blanket offer out to all of the ministers. If you want to be free

51:00where you can't be blackmailed, come tell your story. You can share the dirt openly. I don't

51:05even have to do it. You can just say all of the things that you're hiding in secret. And you too

51:11can be free. So anyways, coming back to the faithful servant Ewald Frank. So he nuclear bombs

51:20his church, John, and he manages to basically effectively cover this whole thing up for several

51:29years. So that is stage one, nuclear bomb his church, get blackmail on everybody else in there

51:34and hold it all together. And of course, what does he do? He's got this massive mission network.

51:39So he starts importing a new congregation from his global mission network. It's not that hard,

51:44right? And that's exactly what happens. So he starts, you know, cannibalizing some of his other

51:50areas of his mission network and repopulates his church. And this sort of thing has happened

51:55in that respect, all kinds of times in the message, John. There's actually been very high

52:01rates of turnover in the oldest message churches, right? There have been times, like you'd look at,

52:06let's say, Ed Biscoll's church. Well, like, not that long ago, half the people left Ed Biscoll's

52:10church, right? But he refills from, you know, the global network of churches, right? And repopulates

52:16the church. The same thing with the Branham Tabernacle. You know how many times the Branham Tabernacle

52:20has turned over its, you know, its congregation? And it just refills it from the, you know,

52:24from the mission, you know, from the larger network. So the oldest message churches have

52:29scandals. This is a pretty epic one, John, with Ewald Frank. But things like this happen

52:35throughout the course of message history in the oldest message centers. And they do absolutely

52:40turn over their congregations 50, 60, 70 percent. And then they just repopulate from the global

52:47network. The same, similar things have happened at Faith Assembly, not on that scale. The same

52:51thing, you know, Cloverdale has happened on a, you know, like that. It's happened at the Branham

52:55Tabernacle. I mean, we could go down the list, Ewald Frank Church, and the large churches where this

52:59sort of thing has happened. It's actually a common feature in the message. And so long as the leader

53:04can hold on to the property and the assets, you all right, and the other leaders won't turn on him,

53:10yeah, he just sails through just fine. Yep, I destroyed the lives of several hundred people,

53:14but I managed to hold on to power. Yes, I did indeed have some really terrible affairs and

53:20treat my wife awful. Ewald Frank told everybody his wife was a witch, John, that she was practicing

53:25sorcery and witchcraft, which is absolutely not true. And here's the thing, too, John, with Ewald Frank.

53:32Ewald Frank actually got a girl pregnant in this, and they forced the girl to have an abortion,

53:37okay? And this is what happened, and this is what actually led Ewald Frank's wife to tell people

53:45about it, because she was so upset that her husband had forced somebody to get an abortion after he got

53:50her pregnant. And so her name was Helen, I believe was her name, and Helen Frank. And so we'll talk more

53:59about this in the next episode, but yeah, I mean, Ewald Frank caused mass destruction to hundreds of lives,

54:08right? And absolutely nothing can be done to stop him. That is the message, ladies and gentlemen. There is no way

54:15to stop a leader. They can do whatever they want, and there is no way to stop these people once they have power,

54:24because that is the way that the message is structured. And it's structured that way on purpose,

54:28and William Branham is the one who built that structure, and he built it on structure on purpose

54:32because he didn't like it when people tried to hold him accountable. And to anybody listening who can

54:37think, how can it get worse than this? How can anything become worse than this confusing mess of a

54:44ministry? Well, with Ewald Frank's story, once you get into the Colonia Dignidad years, I can show you

54:52much, much worse. So where we're headed after this, it gets far more interesting. I'll say it like that,

54:58but it also gets much worse. There was a lot going on behind the scenes that I still question. I have

55:06lots of questions about how it evolved to that level. We're talking the Nazis, the United States

55:12government, the Chilean government. We're talking all kinds of things that some of which I can't even

55:18mention on YouTube, or YouTube might block the whole video. It's some pretty bad stuff that these

55:23guys were getting into. So I'm looking forward to the next episode, and it will be a very, very

55:29exciting one. Me too, John. So come back. We're going to pick up right where we left off. I mean,

55:35and if you think the sex scandal is the wild point of Ewald Frank's story, no, it gets a lot worse than

55:41this, ladies and gentlemen. This is just when it started to go downhill in a bad way.

55:45Absolutely. Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out

55:49on the web. You can find us at william-branham.org and christiangospelchurch.org. For more about the

55:56history of William Branham and the healing revivals, read Come Out of Her My People. And for more about

56:01the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian

56:05Identity to the NAR. Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

56:15For more information, visit our visit www.ar

The Faithful Servant or Master Manipulator - Ewald Frank and the Message

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