heat Heat [Music] [Applause] [Music] Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Brandham Historical Research Podcast I'm your host John Collins the author and founder of William Brham Historical Research at William-Brumham.org And with me I have my co-host and friend Jed Hartley son of a prophet and former member of the International House of Prayer Jed it's good to be back and we teased that we were talking about YWAM today For anybody who doesn't know it's Youth with a Mission And there's a there there's a lot that we can talk about I don't know that we could even talk about all of it in one single podcast episode but it was connected to the International House of Prayer in ways and it's connected to other things in various ways which I've talked about some in my videos and it's it's interesting the number of comments and emails that I get whenever I do I I have this detector whenever when I put a comment out about a specific group I can always detect whenever it has gone to a level of being a cult And sometimes whether it's a destructive cult by the type of feedback that I get because you see all of the people just suddenly flood No no no We need to conceal this history We need to cover this up This person was a good person So don't say anything that is factual about them Usually there's something wrong here And I have to say that you know I'm not going to outright call it a cult but I will say that many of the comments that I get about YWAM are very very interesting Yeah Well and we might need uh to update your uh bio of me because former former uh member of the International House of Prayer I also was a former member of WWAM for quite a few years as was a lot of people because as we will get into WWAM is incredibly broad and it's not like these other churches where it's one centralized location It really was like a franchise is the only way that I can kind of put it is that it was it is and continues to be one of the most prominent um evangelical or charismatic um evangelistic uh missions movements that I'm I'm aware of certainly that you know that why was the most prominent you know if you think about missionaries and and the especially the charismatic world raising up ministry or uh missionaries you think of WWAM There's so much history there too like you can find some of this out there if you search and know where to search but a lot of people are just kind of scared to say it But whenever Hitler did what he did in Germany and created the you know the Nazi youth all of these things there's some really good movies about those that program that was set up But what what happened is Hitler indoctrinated a nation and it was fascinating after people realized what he had done and they wanted to know how and why And there are some research articles out there I'm working with another guy who is sending me some really good stuff that I'm still processing But it seems the evangelicals wanted to replicate what was happening there but use it for purposes of good in their mind Right So they're they're creating youth programs and you know if if Hitler can sway the sway the nation towards Nazism maybe we can sway it towards Christianity It's not that that's a bad idea but how far do you go with replicating what he did because what he did was very immoral and not not really compatible with Christianity And the timing of it is interesting Whenever the guy first sent me all of the information that he had on you know these connections there and their weird connections I kind of discredited because no I'm not going to connect YWAM to Hitler That's that's probably a bad idea I'm probably going to get a lot of negative feedback more than I'm getting However I did continue to read as he continued to send it and I started piecing together the timeline and it gets really really weird because Pentecostalism for example you have this structure where only the men can be ministers in most cases I I don't think back in the 40s I don't think there were any legitimate female ministers I think it all had to be men And because of the hierarchy and structure they had to be very controlling in their doctrine They were coming up against an opposition of social movements that you really had to be rigid in what you preached Yet they were letting 10-year-olds preach to captive audiences in Pentecostalism Little David is one There's I can't remember the name of the others but there there's more than one Jim Jones joined into the Pentecostal movement because of the youth programs and he started holding his own youth programs Billy Graham held his own youth program So everybody's kind of getting into this But then where it gets really problematic is you start to see some of them turning into destructive cults Not all You know Billy Graham's youth programs I don't I I haven't read anything yet that suggested it was destructive but there are others that did and they turned into weird cults that spun off of them So when you look at all of the history of this and then now merge the timeline of what we have with the timeline of YW wham and later on introducing the seven mountain mandates into their program this gets really weird I think that when I was thinking about how to prepare for this um and when I've talked with um people either from you know the various churches that we've already talked about or the various communities that we've already talked about um you know when you tell someone who grew up at IHOP well maybe not anymore because there's not as many people who are as defensive of IHOP anymore but you know 5 10 years ago if I had told someone that I think that the international house of prayer is cold there's this sort of bristling uh defensiveness because people will have oh good memories bad memories you know they have commitment and emotional even if they are like you know I don't like some of the teachings there and I've left it and may not have the best feelings towards this community calling it a cult um is just a different level of intensity and that can draw the eye of a lot of individuals and I think that more than just like a strategy of how to talk to these people I think a good way of conceptualizing it is that there are a lot of red flags and a lot of cultlike behavior cultlike tendencies cultlike uh teachings that I of course and you yourself John grew up in communities that adopted a lot of these cultlike tendencies And so instead of thinking of it as like a cut and dry you're either a cult or you're a Christian community that's totally fine you know like it's it's a spectrum of things And this is how it is if you were diagnosing somebody with narcissistic personality disorder you know or there's like a spectrum of these concerning behaviors And usually it's after a certain amount of these concerning red flags that you can like actually diagnose it as narcissistic personality disorder or you know like a cult in this case So with YWAM I think there are so many different with the way that it raised up um and and and created and the the mandate of trying to spread it as quickly and fast as possible and and we'll talk about this more but some of the mechanisms of WWAM are to church plant with young people So you have young people training young people training young people you know it's a Russian doll situation of like baby Christians teaching baby Christians teaching you know and just going out especially internationally where they're they just want a foothold in all of these different places And so it has leaned less on particular systems and more of just like let's get this out there as quickly as possible And with that lack of structure and accountability all you have had a bunch of these um hotbeds for different cultlike behaviors to grow up very quickly because there isn't a whole lot of structures of accountability and whatnot So when we're talking about WWAM I in my personal opinion I think that there are many many cults within WWAM at different bases I think different bases have different um uh different levels of like how deeply they are into like how authoritarian is the leadership of the base How much is it like us versus them mentality how much is there like an excessive focus on like the specific teachings of the individual who is leading that community like there's I think there's a bunch of different questions and you might go to your local YWAM and be like you know it's fine They they're it's a youth movement There's a few of these red flags but like generally it's pretty safe They have good procedures in place for you know accountability and whatnot And then you might go to another one and realize like this is a full-fledged cult This is just you know people on the base are being controlled in every way possible And it's hard to talk about like I I have so many friends um that I still like really respect and admire who were either in WWAM or are still in YWAM And like I know that there will probably be some backlash of speaking up against um uh some of the the cultlike behaviors in WWAM because like there's a lot of people who really hold WWAM sacred to uh to this day um and who are good you know good friends of mine But the reality is is that yeah we there's just too many red flags There's too the way that it was created the way that it continues to exist like there's just a lot of things that that frankly need to be addressed for it to be considered Like if if someone was asking me hey my my son or daughter is going to join this YWAM base I would be like I I would want them to pause and think about it because there's just a lot I'm not saying it's not like it's not like IHOP where I'm like "Shut the whole thing down if anyone's going to IHOP." I'm like "No it's just not great." Like it just there was extreme abuse going on behind the scenes and this thing needs to be you know shut down from I don't have that level of conviction with YWAM but I certainly have all of these red flags that that give me significant pause Um but yeah tell me tell me more about the how your your research on how it kind of like was formed and some of those questionable Yeah the interesting part of this is like I said it it bears so many striking similarities to all of the other groups and I don't you know you can't say that it drew upon direct descendants from Brandomism or anything like this but it's happening at the same time as a as a parallel universe that's being created for some similarities in strategic purpose I think that's the best way that I would say this And they're drawing upon many of the same influences which as a society for its era I think would be common widespread like Billy Graham his Billy Graham youth for Christ I think it's called whatever whatever his group was called They also bore many striking similarities but it all really comes down to the structure and agenda The structure is we want to children to help other children learn grow become like us And again I'm I'm not going to use the reference too much but I'll bring it up one more time It's very much like the Hitler Youth The Hitler Youth program was established in that same way Let the children indoctrinate the other children And for me that's where the that's where the line gets really fuzzy because there was and there's no way to stop it There was a level of indoctrination there had to be because you're kids teaching kids and and like you said you can't really apply the same level of criticism across the board because they're kids teaching kids There were obviously some adults who were kind of mentoring and guiding and overseeing to some extent but adults can't control what kids say when they're out out of the adults ear That's how children work man So you can't really control where this goes That's why actually the Hitler youth programs were so popular and so powerful They were able to indoctrinate in ways that Hitler himself never could And that structure just in hindsight the structure is very it's concerning I think that's the way that I'll put it But as far as cult or not cult you can't apply it to across the board However my wife uses the term high demand group and I have had I can't remember when this was It was a few months back but we had a lady who had escaped YW wham She was saying many things that she brought up as clear signs that her group had was probably destructive or at least was withholding information that it shouldn't have And um I can't remember if she used the word cult or not but what she was describing essentially was a very high demand group And that label can be used on a cult A cult can be a high demand group And it can demand your emotions and sometimes your physical activities your time your money It can be very demanding when you're in one Well the time and the physical activity many people overlook in a cult So whenever we published her story it came out on one of our our story Fridays I I watched some of the feedback from other people who were in WWAM from different regions and they would completely deny or reject some of the things that she actually literally experienced because in their part of the world in their little group the flow of influence was slightly different So their experience was different And so while one group may have cult-like tendencies the other one may not but that's the nature of it You look at again look at the Hitler youth programs Some of them turned into military forces and they were they were supplying their military with these people Other other groups I mean the way that it works children are are indoctrinating children So right the way it works you can't control the outcome of the whole thing But while that's you know as far as labeling it a destructive cult that's in its favor it's also very scary man because it's like a train going down the tracks with no rails Where where is this thing headed you know yeah Absolutely Yeah There And there isn't this sort of like clear um doctrine of what what the goal is is I mean the goal is very very broad in I Lauren Cunningham the the uh leader and who who established WWAM who I'm I met and spent time with um in because I was on the base in Kona and you know I I don't I'm not speaking against him personally as a person He seemed like he had good high character and everything like that but his vision was this very generic very like we just need to get Christianity to the ends of all the earth you know it was this sort of like very simple very um expansionistic um and I there's a lot of problems with it um from like a a social politics um perspective of just like proitizing and infantilism but that's you know that's going to be true with a lot of these missions movements So there's some like generic criticisms that you could um put towards YWAM but you could also put that towards really any missions movement um that's going on But specifically I think that it was just so it was so intense on just like we need to get there There was this sort of like consequentialist perspective on how we get there if who you know if if you crack some eggs who cares sort of thing And and that was always the frame of reference with that was always you know if people get in trouble if people if we're in um regions of the world where you can get put in prison or you can have you know some um really serious backlash against you Um you can you know it's dangerous This was sort of like it goes with the territory like this is what we're doing We're missionaries and it was this sort of like um old school view of missionaries where it's like if you if we put kids in danger like so be it for for the glory of God Um and again I I understand you know if if you really believe in the mission I understand why people do that and want to be a part of that But I think that there was a lot of ways that students were being put in danger Not just in so far as they are missionaries and they're going to you know territories where they shouldn't shouldn't be going and it isn't safe but also not safe within the community itself sending missionaries out to isolated individuals where they are led by someone who's two years older than them um who has been you know four years previously was a drug addict and just you know converted to Christianity or even it's not even necessarily that they had to be a drug addict in the past They could have been you know whatever but it's it it's just there was not a whole lot of accountability and structure And so like I've heard many horror stories of things that are happening when you're on outreach Um you're just kind of out there by yourself and you got to really trust the group that you're with And some groups were really trustworthy some great individuals others not so much Um and especially because they were um holding a lot of these really problematic beliefs um similar to like the Bethl and IHOP views on like prophecy and spiritual manifestations Not all of WWAM is like this but like there are definitely sex or subsects of WWAM that are hyper spiritual where there is prophecy So like let's say that you're on a a missions movement you're in rural you know Uganda and you have someone within your community of like 10 20some year olds who are doing this mission movement in Uganda who what the leader of the group who's some 24 year old believes that he's starting to get prophecies about things that he ought to do in that group and crosses sexual boundaries crosses um uh boundaries of like just putting people in danger for no good reason Um having really e uh intense expectations of like we are going to fast we are going to pray we are going to um get up at 6:00 a.m and go to bed at you know 1:00 a.m because we're going to be interceding for this nation um the sort of radicalism that is launched through WWAM can be extremely terrifying and dangerous and I and I've definitely seen some of these um like this is not just me making fictionalizing horror stories like there are a lot of different indication you know I personally know individuals who have experienced to some degree this level of like I was just out there on my own suddenly under the leadership of someone who had really leaned into a lot of these latter rain belief systems that are dangerous in uh nonisolated communities to then be in a very isolated community where you have very little contact with your friends and family You have very little contact with like your home church You have very little interaction with people who even speak your language Um which and just to back up a little bit and to give for people who don't know what YWWAM is and how it's structured a quick um overview is that they basically have outreach programs which are uh I might be forgetting the the time period but they're they're very short It's like you go to a base So like Kona Hawaii was the biggest is the biggest base I think um for WWAM and that's where uh Lauren Cunningham resided and that was where I went Um and I spent like 6 months there at the base where you get trained up you get taught different missions Christianity sort of minded stuff It isn't very structured It isn't like we're going through this textbook these are the central uh tenants of our faith It's we have different people come in and speak to the group So you're kind of like whatever you're taught is um is relatively uh determined by whatever speakers are coming in during that six-month period But you get trained and then after those six months period where you're trained you get launched where you go on outreach to some place usually overseas Um usually international um and like I went to Dharmala India Um so I was way up in the like foothills of the Himalayas um preaching to Buddhist monks um about Christianity with my like little outreach team And for me like it actually wasn't a horrible experience Like I went spoke with the Buddhist monks realized I didn't know anything and that was a good transformative experience for me So like no harm no foul for sort of my experiences But what kind of what I was saying there is that like during that outreach time you're off on your own You're not a part of like a local congregation some maybe connect with like local congregations but you very much are kind of Christian pioneers and kind of old school Christian missionary Um and usually it's being led by 20 year olds early 30-year-olds It's not being led by individuals who have been a part of a very wellestablished long tradition of Christianity It's a lot of like uh people who are just getting in the thick of it And it's that very structure that makes the outside look in and wonder is this a cult i mean think of it So you're going into other countries I I don't know if you do but I have had to work with many people of different cultures and religions and faiths and not faiths And when you're dealing with another culture it's not like you can simply come in and say "Hey I'm a Christian." And then they suddenly join in Right so the mind of a child who's coming into a territory isn't going to be the one who's literally converting So you have to wonder what is the strategy there if if there's a strategic purpose what is it and why is it why why are they doing this right uh I can assure you that the I've been to I I have a neighbor who is Asian Indian and I have to been to many of their ceremonies where they come in with all of the they're all wearing the Indian garb and it's really cool The food is phenomenal I mean the best food I've ever eaten But I can assure you that if my child were to walk into this meeting and say "Hey I'm a Christian I'm going to tell you about Jesus." There's no way on earth that a single person is going to be converted to them So what's the strategy and so let's think of this from the perspective of somebody who isn't in it who is in one of these territories You see these people come in what in the world are they doing and so any government who has any sense is going to look and see what is their agenda who are these people what are they doing in our territory and they go find things like I don't you may not know this history but there the WWAM group is connected to the fellowship foundation the family which is connected to branomism So there I guess there is a flow of connection there But one of the most infamous things that is in the the history of the family the Fellowship Foundation is this house on Sea Street where they were having senators were coming there and they they were having all kinds of sexual parties and things happening in this house And the family was apparently helping allegedly I should say allegedly helping to cover this up Hillary Clinton visited the Sea Street House Michael Jackson visited the sea street house Senators after senator congressman etc And they're going to this house where it is openly known that there are sexual activities in this house So this turned into an infamous house That house was owned by WWAM and was transferred over to the family So a foreign nation who sees that wait a minute this is connected to the the family those are the people that are trying to control and influence Washington through this weird cult that exists in Washington DC influencing the senators You mean that's connected here and so although it's conspiracy theory there are no proven links they can easily read the same newspapers that I did and find this Sure So you see these people moving into a territory and then the next thing you see is wait a minute they're all kids There aren't enough adults to have an intellectual conversation that is persuasive enough to convert the region into Christianity So then you're thinking well why are they doing this are they planning to grow a commune here and set up a compound that's the next thought that's logically going to come in your head And maybe they have I don't know But as an outsider looking in these are the questions that they would be asking And for that reason people who are in the United States who aren't in this group and who are skeptically looking at it from the outside it's the same thoughts that's going through their head what what are they doing and why this doesn't make any sense If there's a strategy here it's not a good one So there must be something ongoing behind the scenes And I think that's why there there are so many conspiracy theories about WWAM what is happening what is going on behind the scenes whether there is or not the structure itself raises all of these questions Yeah totally And in my personal opinion I think that like it's a great example of like there's a lot of times where people have conspiracies about someone behind the scenes who is like orchestrating a lot of stuff Um and I think that YWAM's a good example of not an instance in which there is like someone who's pulling strings behind the scene but just this sort of like when you have an individual who has like a great and very grandiose um vision and then a lot of other individuals sort of latch on to that vision there can be this sort of shotgun um situation where everybody's just doing everything and they're all riding the momentum And like I saw this firsthand with like the I got sucked into um the videography and and the sort of uh there was this idea that Lauren Cunningham's son David Cunningham who was like this Hollywood director was going to start creating these movies that were going to bring the Bible back into popular culture And there was this sort of grandiose vision again of like it was it was with the whole seven mountains mandate and like the Christian dominionism This idea that like we just need our our type of Christians that's not explicitly said but it's it's we need Christians in all spheres of society when you step back and you're like okay Christians already are in all spirits of society especially in Western culture and have been since like the Renaissance era Like you know Western culture has always been determined by Christian and Catholic movements like that's just the history of Western civilization So when you ask the question of like well what do you mean gay Christians in every c aspect of culture there has to be the like oh there's this type of radical Christian that they're trying to get in every uh sect of society The same thing like I remember talking with David about this of being like "What do you mean the Bible back in popular culture?" Like I remember I was in I was in Hawaii right after Lay Miz the musical with um Anne Hathway and and um oh I'm forgetting his name Hugh Jackman and you know this big spectacle Well like Lay Miz is an explicitly Christian story Like it it it is thoroughly a Christian story about like forgiveness and redemption and is like one of the best like classic Christian stories that is like you can watch it and be not a Christian and still appreciate it But like it is quite clearly very like high character uh high Christian values and was written by uh a Christian author and you know and so and then I go back to this community that's like we oh popular culture is just like so Christianity is been is so popular culture is so devoid of Christianity and I'm like the the most popular movie of this last um like cycle was literally a Christian film Like what are we what are we doing and do we have to create our own little Christian bubble and make it all of it only the only people working it on on it are Christians and only this type of Christians And so it was this sort of like what are we trying to accomplish what are we trying to do and again I don't think that there was like I don't think David or Lauren Cunningham were behind the scenes being like "We're going to make a bunch of money by pulling these people in or we're going to have these sort of like political strings that we are going to be pulling at this point." I think they just had this general vision of like it's good to get it's good to get our message out It's good to get our message out in every way that we can And David was like "Oh I want to do that as a a filmmaker." And a lot of people sort of rallied behind it And it was just this sort of like all vision no no plan just total shotgun of like you have the grand architect but you don't have any of the like building structure So it's like well let's just put things together and hope that it kind of cobbles up And anybody who's been in WWAM would 100% even people who are the biggest defenders of WWAM would know what I'm talking about right now because it's it's totally a leap before you look situation where everybody's just like catch the vision go go go think later And when it's all 20 year olds who are doing it it kind of I don't want to say works because it doesn't work And there's a lot of people who are left like holding the the the bags and like when disaster strikes like I don't know how they handled COVID I don't know how they did these situations when like problems arise you have people who are extremely illquipped to handle those problems because there is no segmented let's like slow down let's build let's have a firm you know let's have a firm theology even before we go I mean so many people were preaching Christianity and had no idea what they were preaching And that's this sort of like idea of of the having the youth convert the youth mentality of like you radicalize young individuals by forcing them to evangelize Like that's a that's a proven method of radicalizing the youth is like make them convert other people That's why you know it's part of the the Mormon um mission is to like everybody has to go on missions movement and has to do some of this sort of like evangelizing because there is there's few ways more effective to solidify and radicalize you know a certain set set of beliefs than having someone go out be isolated be off on their own that maybe they're not going to like convert anyone you go like like me you know I was in Dharmala India I wasn't converting any of these Buddhist monks that I was talking to Um and unfortunately it didn't work for me where I started being like maybe I don't know what's going on But for a lot of people that's not what happens What happens is like you have to de you know you have to like really situate yourself deep in this sort of cognitive dissonance of being like I don't know what I'm talking about but if I preach with more conviction I'll feel like I'm knowing what I'm talking about and then I'll preach with more conviction and then I'll feel like you know it's just this cycle of like reaffirming these things that you don't even know you believe you have to sort of it make it salient and make it like uh solidified as soon as you speak it out loud Um and it like it's a very proven way of of um radicalizing a lot of young individuals Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transition through the latter reign charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation you can learn this and more on William Brham Historical Research's website william-braham.org On the books page of the website you can find the compiled research of John Collins Charles Paisley Steven McGomery John McKinnon and others with links to the paper audio and digital versions of each book You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements If you want to contribute to the cause you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top And as always be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching On behalf of William Brandom Historical Research we want to thank you for your support So very few times on here do I give my opinion but today I think I'm going to give my opinion because we'll never know all the answers There are some things that you will just never know the answer to because we weren't there And interestingly enough the people who created these sort of things a lot of times they don't really have the answers They just had some grandiose vision and move forward with it That's funny how that works but that's usually how that works But so here in Jeffersonville this is the Mecca of the Brandom Cult And here at the Mecca there is a multi-million dollar building not far from my house where they for years and years I don't know if I guess they're still printing them but for years and years they had all of these printing presses from like the 1950s And they had this massive staff that was printing boxing translating printing boxing translating and shipping crates and crates of this printed material overseas to quote unquote spread the gospel and and in fact they were spreading brandism I never stopped and thought about it I just looked at it in awe Wow this is great They're doing God's work And after leaving after there there came a point in which my website and communications went global and I started getting people who were escaping in other countries Some of those people escaped in the destination regions where these crates of books and materials were sent And they said "John it's really weird There's all these books and materials but there are crates and crates and crates that are just full They're they're not spreading them as fast as they're sending them." And so I did a little bit of research and one the first thing I found out that hit me the first and largest initiative to spread the quote unquote gospel of William Brandham was in the Spanish-sp speakaking regions And yet for it was at that point almost 50 years not all of the sermons had been translated to Spanish And I'm like what on earth why not they've had 50 years to do this and they have Spanish- speakaking staff who that's their job Why why on earth have they not done this and why are the crates sitting there and then the businessman in me kicked in and I slapped myself up the back of my head thinking "Oh my gosh." The whole business strategy none of it makes sense because you wouldn't print them here and ship them there You would print them there and they would you would have much less cost you've already got the cult following in the other countries right if I'm printing in in India at that time I had I knew the math I can't remember what it was but they could have reduced their cost by probably 40% maybe 50% just by printing in the destination regions and and that's one of the that's in the areas that are more civilized you could go to other regions and you people would do it for free it's kind of odd but the whole business model didn't make sense And then it finally clicked Every single person who comes here to Bran Mecca who sees this operation is thinking "Glory to God this thing's going on and we're spreading it There is more money to be made by having that structure there so people could come see this moving see that they're part of a bigger thing." And then somebody gave me and instructed me that I had to read the book Propaganda How does propaganda work i recommend if you've been in a cult I recommend you read propaganda because it is mind-blowing You you'll understand how you can achieve mass psychology get people to start thinking in a different way All of this makes sense when you look at it So as it applies to YWAM here's this whole structure none of which makes any sense Not absolutely from start to finish none of it makes sense Yeah But now look don't think of it as a single entity cult Remember the new apostolic reformation There's all of these networks these apostolic networks that comprise the entire global NR All you have to do is bring this into some sort of convention Look at this global work that's happening It's the same as the printing presses in the message there Here's this thing that's happening We want to be part of this thing that's happening Come sponsor this thing that's happening Even if the thing produces no fruit at all outside of the United States everybody who sees this kind of thing taking off in these meetings they're thinking "Wow I'm part of a bigger thing I'm going to continue being part of the bigger thing I'm going to contribute to this bigger thing." So it is my opinion and you know you can take it or leave it I I could be completely wrong with my opinion but it's my opinion that the entire entity is more powerful just for the simple fact that it exists Not that it's doing any good not not that the strategy makes sense but the fact that it exists serves a purpose Yeah that's that's a very very astute like analysis And and certainly you know that is that is what's going on when when you see these missions movements I mean there the the YWAM is fueled by home churches Like that's how um they make any of their money The the YWAM training itself isn't like terribly expensive Um but it isn't it isn't cheap either So you have to like go to a um you have to go to some base um wherever that may be and then you have to pay to be trained and then you have to then also the pay to then go on this missions trip which missions trips are expensive and you know you flights to very remote areas of the world like it's expensive um and typically like everybody in Ywam is poor Everybody in YWAM I mean they're typically 20-year-olds who have not gone into a career so they don't have like built up money from a career so they're either being sponsored by their parents or their home churches That's a huge thing of like if you know you have your small sort of uh Christian sort of mainline church that is in your small town rural town and they want to be involved and like they can't they can't themselves send out missionaries They don't have the resources or connections for that but they're like "Well if we send these five different young adults to a YWAM base and then they're launched we're sort of fueling the um the global missions movement and we are getting people into um remote areas of India like like my group It was it was very you know it was a a very appealing thing to tell people like we are witnessing in the like foothills of the Himalayas where there is like very little Christian influence and there's all sorts of like Buddhist and and Hindu and and Islamic influences like we are helping bring a light to what would be a dark place This is how we would talk about it Um and like we were just a bunch of kids who were kind of like trying to survive in Darala India and like maybe we did some good like helped other like it it wasn't like all bad but the effect that we were having was was pretty minimal but it was I understand why the industry works and the the organization works because like it's easy to raise money to be like we are we are going and converting the Buddhist monks Like I met the Dollaly Lama I shook his hand I did not witness to him when I uh met him but I can leave that out of my mission's uh uh uh fundraising letter you know Um and yeah I so it it's for lack of a better word it's it's sexy to be involved in these like grand oh we're going to reach every corner and of society through these big missions movement And you can see how a lot of these like both when it comes to like money and when it comes to like young passion and zeal you can understand why like something like WWAM has huge huge like connections all across the world I mean if you look even in the most random places like just think of you know if you're listening to this think of some random uh city the most obscure city you can think of in some random you know country and then go and Google maps and see if there's a YWAM base nearby And like chances are there's going to be a YWM base that's like maybe a couple hours away you know in all of these different countries and these random random places like Yum has like definitely gotten around everywhere And I think that I think one thing that we really have to talk about in this is like the dangers of Christian dominionism And like I I remember being in WWAM and trying to defend Lauren Cunningham against you know accusations of Christian dominionism and being like I don't know if I really can defend it because he was one of the he was one of the individuals who like championed what is now becoming what is like super nationalistic super um scary Christian dominionism that is going on in the United states right now I mean he was part of pushing that that seven mountains mandate and very like um using very like militaristic language of like to just give a brief summary um this seven mountains mandate um which has been championed by like Lauren Cunningham Bill Brightite um uh uh Lance Wall now a lot of different individuals which we talked about Lance last time and and his phony PhD you know like there's a lot of different individuals who have kind of like championed this uh seven spheres or seven mountains or seven moleh hills of society where it's basically like we need to get Christians in to each one of these things and like um I saw the manifestations of that I was like I was in a I was in a backdoor and this is where I do think people's conspiracy theories about what's going on in Christianity This is where it is like there explicitly is a group of individuals who are coming up with schemes behind the scenes to make sure that their group of people have the most influence as possible within the United States Like that's not that's not a consp like that is just explicitly what is happening Um and I remember going to um because I was with my dad and my dad would travel and speak to these different in individuals speak to Lauren Can Cunningham speak to Bill Johnson and we would have like these behindthe-scenes meetings where I would see all of these individuals like scheming about how they're going to take over the United States And like it's that's I'm not being dramatic That's exactly what was happening It was you know obviously couched in very spiritual language so it didn't feel like that But um there is a uh state senator in California who I met with I'm forgetting what her name is right now Um but we met with her and Chayon who's a leader of a church in Pasadena Um and behind the scenes this was in like 2010 but we were like we went to a restaurant and there was like a a a backroom restaurant that like she came in the back way and it was like they clearly were like wanting to not be seen together in this restaurant which I thought was super weird because I had no idea what was going on And so we all kind of met like we were celebrities you know and like the paparazzi would be following us and stuff in this back door you know or uh this back room of this restaurant And for like an hour and a half we talked the about the gay agenda in California and how like the gays were trying to get a hold of all of like um government and push their agenda And it was it it was the one of the first moments where I just like sat back and I was like "Isn't that what we're doing like are we not projecting onto them?" Like because we're talking about we need to get everyone who's gay out of of um leadership and like that It was very specific It was like all of these all of these gays and I'm speaking very offensively so I apologize for that but I am just re re um rehashing the language that was spoken in that But all of these um different politicians who either supported the gay the gay agenda or who were gay themselves we needed to make sure that they were ousted from government positions And we needed to make sure that everybody who is Christian in again not just Christian but this type of Christian were placed within the the the group leadership And it was it was really weird because I I had been a part of WWAM and it was this sort of like I was seeing the the nasty underbelly of Christian dominionism of it being like this is just a plot to take over the United States like this is a plot to turn the United States into a radical sort of latter reign style theocracy not like just a a generic Christian theocracy because like Christians who believed gay marriage was fine They didn't count as Christians Christians who like supported you know were pro-choice those weren't Christians Christians who were like um you know said that there was multiple ways that you could kind of be saved or that were against hell you know like whatever it was those weren't Christians so it was like this specific type of Christianity that they were trying to get their people including me like I was a part of that group like that was that was the plan it's like how do we take over all of these different spheres of society and as much as like people really like Lauren and and you know he was more understanding of cultures than than these other leaders He was more appreciative of people who are different than him Like I I definitely think that that's true He also was like absolutely pedalling some extremely danger dangerous Christian dominionist rhetoric and to a bunch of Russian doll youth um missionaries who had just you know like I said earlier baby Christians teaching baby Christians teaching baby Christians catching the zeal of Christian dominionism which is 100% led to like there is a huge out u out outbreak of like young men who are like frankly neo-Nazi Christian uh nationalists Um and that's just like very much a thing that is happening right now And like I don't think people are aware of how much like WWAM and the latter movement really fostered that sort of en environment that created these people The historian and researcher in me is just dying to dig deeper in exactly what you said So maybe we'll maybe we'll put that off for the next episode because we're almost an hour here But one thing that you said I I can't help but laugh anytime I hear it Whenever I hear the term the gay agenda I'm like do you guys know what agenda means and how agendas work and uh I I had actually I had one person who started emailing me whenever I said something similar and they said yes but the stories in Hollywood they have now written in people who are homosexual homosexual and I'm like you know they're writers and they write about what's happening in the world They're also writing I love a good murder mystery They're writing about murderers but you don't hear the outcry of the murderer agenda Right it's it's a story guys It's a story Come on But I I understand where it's coming from But to end this properly again picture the nation where suddenly you have this group of people and I'm glad you brought up the seven mountain mandate in this episode because it helps me end it Picture yourself as a foreign nation who's watching this silent invasion Like you said there's pick any city They're everywhere So there's there's this s silent invasion of a group who wants to take do and proclaim dominion over our people and they send our their kids What on earth is going on here so it leads you to and and again I'm not going to go too far with this but consider that same network of YWAM institutions spread throughout the globe and think of the potential if it were to be espionage which I'm not saying it is Think of the potential there because they're everywhere Yeah And and they've sent the kids Why are they sending the kids why I can imagine foreign leaders of foreign governments thinking they're invading to push dominionism on our region with those children what's happening here but again I I think in my opinion the strategy isn't really for the agenda of YWAM itself It's a bigger strategy of making it look like something is happening whether it is or not because people they buy into this That's how psychology works Read the book propaganda if you don't understand how that works But we'll cut it off here There's so much more I could say but I want to dig deeper into how similar this was to latter rain and some of the ways in which they're they both kind of cross-pollinated I think a little bit So we can we can go there next time Yeah absolutely And I I mean I saw a lot of that crosspollination of like the way that these different leaders were talking I mean it was quite explicit that they were all kind of sharing the same message So I think that would be um great to explore further Awesome Well if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information you can check us out on the web You can find us at william-brandom.org For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation you can read Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the N available on Amazon Kindle and Audible [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat Heat [Music] Heat Heat [Music]