Support the show:
https://www.patreon.com/branham
Available on Spotify, Google, and Apple Podcasts:
https://william-branham.org/podcast
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
John and Ralph discuss what appears to be one of the largest financial and spiritual scandals in modern religious history, tracing a network of evangelical institutions that supported Gospel for Asia (GFA), a missionary organization founded by K.P. Yohannan. Ralph, a former insider with extensive experience in Charismatic, Pentecostal, and Vineyard churches, recounts how he was pulled into GFA through trusted Christian networks and unknowingly promoted it to others, only to later uncover the deception. The story unfolds to reveal that GFA manipulated supporters with stock photos, misrepresented how funds were used, and operated like a cult, complete with a secretive compound and spiritual control tactics. The scale of fraud shocked even the whistleblowers, with funds totaling over $1 billion, supported by prominent evangelical leaders including Chuck Smith and Francis Chan.
The conversation also connects the scandal to other movements and figures like Mark Driscoll, and explores how the evangelical infrastructure—from church boards to conferences—may have enabled or overlooked financial corruption. Ralph details how he worked with the GFA diaspora and investigative blogger Warren Throckmorton to expose the fraud. Through lawsuits, leaked documents, and firsthand testimonies, the scope of deception and spiritual abuse comes into sharp focus. What began as a well-meaning attempt to support missions turned into a painful lesson in manipulation, whistleblowing, and the hidden machinery behind many large Christian organizations.
LEGAL DISCLAIMER:
This podcast, its host, partners, and affiliates are not responsible for the information presented in this podcast or the links provided below.
Ralph's Links:
https://www.christianpost.com/news/francis-chan-defends-gospel-for-asia-after-legal-settlement-no-money-was-misappropriated.html
https://wthrockmorton.com/2015/05/21/gospel-for-asias-k-p-yohannan-and-the-ring-kissing-ritual/
https://www.businesstoday.in/technology/news/story/notice-to-google-facebook-on-defamatory-content-on-ngo-35434-2012-11-28
USA Headquarters: https://www.mapquest.com/us/texas/wills-point/75169/antioch-rd-32.66739,-96.08689
“Several prominent evangelical leaders spoke out and endorsed Yohannan’s integrity, including George Verwer, pastor and author Francis Chan, Anglican Church in North America bishop Bill Atwood, and D. James Kennedy Ministries president Frank Wright.” https://www.christianitytoday.com/2024/05/kp-athanasius-yohannan-gospel-asia-founder-died/
https://kpyohannan.org/2024/05/24/k-p-yohannan-radio-ministry-touching-millions-of-lives-across-the-globe/
https://www.christianpost.com/news/church-offices-raided-in-india-foreign-f
https://www.patreon.com/branham
Available on Spotify, Google, and Apple Podcasts:
https://william-branham.org/podcast
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
John and Ralph discuss what appears to be one of the largest financial and spiritual scandals in modern religious history, tracing a network of evangelical institutions that supported Gospel for Asia (GFA), a missionary organization founded by K.P. Yohannan. Ralph, a former insider with extensive experience in Charismatic, Pentecostal, and Vineyard churches, recounts how he was pulled into GFA through trusted Christian networks and unknowingly promoted it to others, only to later uncover the deception. The story unfolds to reveal that GFA manipulated supporters with stock photos, misrepresented how funds were used, and operated like a cult, complete with a secretive compound and spiritual control tactics. The scale of fraud shocked even the whistleblowers, with funds totaling over $1 billion, supported by prominent evangelical leaders including Chuck Smith and Francis Chan.
The conversation also connects the scandal to other movements and figures like Mark Driscoll, and explores how the evangelical infrastructure—from church boards to conferences—may have enabled or overlooked financial corruption. Ralph details how he worked with the GFA diaspora and investigative blogger Warren Throckmorton to expose the fraud. Through lawsuits, leaked documents, and firsthand testimonies, the scope of deception and spiritual abuse comes into sharp focus. What began as a well-meaning attempt to support missions turned into a painful lesson in manipulation, whistleblowing, and the hidden machinery behind many large Christian organizations.
LEGAL DISCLAIMER:
This podcast, its host, partners, and affiliates are not responsible for the information presented in this podcast or the links provided below.
Ralph's Links:
https://www.christianpost.com/news/francis-chan-defends-gospel-for-asia-after-legal-settlement-no-money-was-misappropriated.html
https://wthrockmorton.com/2015/05/21/gospel-for-asias-k-p-yohannan-and-the-ring-kissing-ritual/
https://www.businesstoday.in/technology/news/story/notice-to-google-facebook-on-defamatory-content-on-ngo-35434-2012-11-28
USA Headquarters: https://www.mapquest.com/us/texas/wills-point/75169/antioch-rd-32.66739,-96.08689
“Several prominent evangelical leaders spoke out and endorsed Yohannan’s integrity, including George Verwer, pastor and author Francis Chan, Anglican Church in North America bishop Bill Atwood, and D. James Kennedy Ministries president Frank Wright.” https://www.christianitytoday.com/2024/05/kp-athanasius-yohannan-gospel-asia-founder-died/
https://kpyohannan.org/2024/05/24/k-p-yohannan-radio-ministry-touching-millions-of-lives-across-the-globe/
https://www.christianpost.com/news/church-offices-raided-in-india-foreign-f
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Transcription by CastingWords
00:30Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.
00:37I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research at william-branham.org.
00:43And with me, I have my very special guest, Ralph Jesperson, former member of Pentecostalism, Charismania, and the Vineyard Churches.
00:51Ralph, it's good to have you on.
00:53And I'm a little bit excited for today, if you can't tell, because you're very much like me.
01:00You're a whistleblower.
01:02And I don't get too many people like that who are on the show.
01:06So I'm very excited to have you.
01:08Maybe if we could just, you know, as a broad overview, I'll say that we're talking about one of the biggest religious scams that I've ever heard of.
01:17It's massive what you're about to talk about, and it involves everything from the Calvary Chapel churches to Francis Chan to Mark Driscoll.
01:27We're talking about a very wide-reaching story, and a lot of people were scammed by this.
01:35So very glad to have you on as a whistleblower.
01:37Before I start, I think legally I'll say this.
01:42The research that you're about to give is not research that we have been involved with or share.
01:47However, in the description, I'll put some links that you have put.
01:51So if anybody questions what you say, they can, you know, go on the web and they can find most of what you say.
01:58I've looked at some of it, and legally I can't say, but it appears to be in order.
02:03So I'll say it like that.
02:04Maybe if you could start and just tell everybody a little bit about yourself.
02:08I've been a Christian since I was five, brought up in a charismatic church led by an Episcopal priest who was kicked out of the organization for wanting to bring the charismatic stuff in.
02:26And I've spent time in that charismatic church until I was 18, then seven years in a non-traditional AOG church, two years in a vineyard, and then 17 years in a church that was involved with the Toronto blessing thing before I got there.
02:48And I was involved with an IHOP-related wannabe prayer group in a little town for a number of months.
03:00So I have a lot of broad experience.
03:04We know from one whistleblower to another, it's really difficult whenever you know something is wrong, and you look around and not everybody can see what's wrong.
03:15But deep inside, you know it's wrong.
03:17You know that people should be made aware.
03:20And if you have the personality like me, you just can't sit still.
03:23You've got to tell people.
03:25So I'm assuming that's similar for you, right?
03:28Yes, and I am like you.
03:32I am a very deep, slow thinker.
03:39Very, very logical.
03:42I'm an ultra-logical kind of person.
03:46And so in the midst of all the things that I went through and experienced,
03:51I can't just ignore things that are going on that are wrong.
03:58Having experienced all of these movements, I'm sure you have a lot of knowledge that not a lot of people have.
04:06Some people will join one of these sects, and they'll just be in it.
04:10But what I have learned in examining all of these groups is that you find weird similarities between each of them.
04:17And if you can understand the framework that caused that similarity, you understand the architecture of the movement,
04:24and that really gives you the bigger picture.
04:25So I'm interested to pry into your head since you're a critical thinker as well.
04:31Yes, and I have to thank you for all the video work that you've done and your website as well.
04:41Because just in the past couple months, I think it's put a whole lot of light.
04:45I would say the exact same thing that you just said.
04:49And it actually makes sense going all the way back to John Alexander Dowie,
04:56where a lot of this stuff just comes from.
04:59So you reached out to me via email, and we started going back and forth.
05:03You're sharing some of your information with me.
05:06And you said that you had a sizable scandal to tell about.
05:09And so I invited you on the podcast.
05:11So let's get into it.
05:13What was this scandal?
05:15This is the biggest scandal that I'm aware of.
05:19I would put it on par in what you're saying that Dowie did over 100 years ago.
05:26This is just as big.
05:28Wow.
05:28But I'm going to start the story with how I learned about them.
05:35So my story starts after graduating college with an IT business degree.
05:41So I got a degree as a computer systems analyst, business-related.
05:50And after graduating, a friend suggested to me that I should do a short-term mission trip using my new skills.
06:00And in our church that I was in at the time, there was an attendance, the presidents of a missions org called Harvest.
06:10And so I started meeting with him weekly, and he soon gave me a list of a couple of good orgs to choose from, in his opinion.
06:23So I had these choices which one of these orgs I wanted to go and volunteer at short-term.
06:34And in this list included a very small gospel for Asia back in the early years.
06:44Now, I ended up choosing a different choice, but this is where the problem started.
06:53This man that I was meeting with, the president of Harvest,
06:57he was deceived about what it was, what it really was.
07:05And because he was deceived, then he promoted it to me to be something for me to be involved in,
07:15which doubled his error.
07:18This was in the spring of 88.
07:19And the short of that story was that he brought a proposal before that church
07:28for them to fund my short-term mission trip.
07:34And that was located in McCormick Ranch, Scottsdale, Arizona.
07:39So there was a whole lot of money.
07:41That is a wealthy area.
07:46But the board shot it down.
07:47So I'm familiar with the Scottsdale area, and I'm familiar with the Arizona tax code.
07:54So I know exactly what you're saying, and between the lines,
07:57there's actually a lot there if somebody really wants to understand it.
08:01But let's talk about – so we're talking about the gospel for Asia,
08:04and you came in contact with them.
08:07What was it that really lured you into them?
08:10So now I'm going to fast forward in the story.
08:13Some years in the 1990s, I got a job, I bought a house, I got married.
08:22And somewhere in there, after all that happened, I found a gospel for Asia literature again.
08:30And I decided to give to their Native Missionary Support Program that they had.
08:46That was their biggest part of what they did.
08:50It wasn't the only thing they were raising funds for,
08:52but it was the biggest part of what they were raising funds for.
08:58And I will explain that.
09:01I heard you and Charles talking about how you could create a message church in India
09:11for $10 a month once upon a time.
09:15Right.
09:15And their program was very similar.
09:17This was the 90s now.
09:19So for $25 a month, this was a spin.
09:23For $25 a month, I could support a Native missionary.
09:29And working a couple hours a week, I could give that money –
09:35or just a couple hours in a month, rather.
09:38I could give that money to them,
09:41and then they would give it to the Native missionary.
09:43And then he would go out and preach the gospel in the boonies in India somewhere.
09:50And I would have my own personal –
09:54even though I didn't know the language and I wasn't there,
09:58I could create this huge impact on India just by sending in my $25 a month.
10:08And so that's what I did.
10:10And I contacted them.
10:14I gave them my first check, and they sent me back a letter,
10:19a handwritten letter in English with a picture.
10:24And this was the picture of my Native missionary that I was supporting.
10:29And the letter explained who he was and basically what he was doing, more or less.
10:39And so then I continued to give, for years, that $25 a month.
10:47And I think eventually it increased to $35 a month.
10:51And so I gave that amount every month, thinking that I was having this major impact in India.
10:58So again, we're talking about the Gospel for Asia, which was founded by KP Yohanan.
11:03And I know the listeners are dying to know.
11:06So how does this tie to – you mentioned in your emails – Calvary Chapel.
11:09How did this movement tie to Calvary Chapel?
11:12Calvary Chapel, I saw KP live at my Calvary Chapel church I was going to in Phoenix.
11:19So they brought him in to speak.
11:21Wow.
11:23And I share that because Chuck Smith was – and this needs to be linked on your website –
11:34Chuck Smith was a big-time promoter of Gospel for Asia.
11:39And so the major group of people that he was raising money from was the whole Calvary Chapel denomination.
11:49So this ties Chuck Smith to the spreading of the movement, the Gospel for Asia,
11:54and looking at the Calvary Chapel congregations as donors to fund the movement.
12:01I'm sure that's not the only source because they had their magazine and then they had internet websites.
12:09And so anybody in the West could have found – eventually found the information once their website went live.
12:18But because I was in Calvary Chapel – and you'll even see that – KP started out in Operation Mobilization.
12:31And there eventually came out a man who worked in the early years with him from Operation Mobilization.
12:40And he even mentioned Chuck Smith as well as the major time promoter of this.
12:47So you were brought into this thinking that you were supporting a good charitable organization, a good cause, furthering the Gospel, spreading the Gospel.
12:57And then came to realize that not everything really is what they said it was.
13:03What was that like?
13:04How did that come to be?
13:06I had this thought that I could support somehow some good Christian org that was doing something that I related to, something that I thought was important.
13:23This ended up being the second worst mistake I have ever made as an adult, and I cannot emphasize that more.
13:30I would later learn that by knowing Jesus Christ personally and simply functioning in my God-given gifts, I was already involved in the biggest thing that exists, the true body of Christ functioning as it was designed to.
13:46And in that, I was able to blow the whistle on not one but two big charity frauds, which is a far greater thing that I ended up doing than all the free IT work I could have done in any Christian charity or church you might think of.
14:07Oh, wow. So not just one scam, but you're talking multiple scams.
14:11So I considered moving to Carrollton, Texas, where their GFA headquarters was in an ideological move, because if I was nearby and I had free time, then I could go volunteer there.
14:27Or if I was nearby, I could somehow support and do other things that I couldn't do from a thousand miles away.
14:33Now, what ended up happening is I ended up moving instead to Bartlesville, Oklahoma, to help out the Voice of the Martyrs organization, which turned out to be an even worse scam.
14:47Oh, wow. The twists and turns, man. So tell me, how did you learn that this was a scam?
14:52We got unpacked. We started looking for work. And then because of the reason I was there, we decided to take a day off of the job search pretty early on to volunteer.
15:04So my ex and I, we both went in and we were packing blankets to be shipped overseas for a part of the program that they had.
15:17And while we were there doing that, we met a couple in the spring of 2003.
15:23This other couple returned for another volunteer episode.
15:30And when they came, they came to visit me and we compared notes as they were also seeing red flags from their own particular point of view, which was very different than mine.
15:45And so I introduced them to Gospel for Asia because I had all their paraphernalia there that I could share with them.
15:59So let me try to wrap my head around that and in a way that the listeners can follow.
16:03So you were brought into a scam, we'll call it Scam A, and then in another situation altogether, you're bringing another couple into a different scam.
16:15We'll call it Scam B.
16:16So in the same way somebody was bringing you into Scam A, you were bringing another couple into Scam B.
16:23Am I getting that correct?
16:24I was promoted a scam by a president 15 years prior to that.
16:30And because he promoted that, I was aware of it.
16:35And then later on, I went on to donate and give a bunch of money to it.
16:41And now I was doing the same thing he did.
16:45And I ended up unintentionally ruining an entire decade of someone else's life.
16:52Wow.
16:52And so because of that, I no longer promote ministries or orgs.
16:56My best friend had promoted the VOM scam to me, showed me their literature and introduced me to that a number of years earlier, and it ended up costing me dearly.
17:11That's part of the other story.
17:13And even while paying that price, I did the same unfortunate thing for this poor couple.
17:23And just to be clear for the listeners who are unaware, these scams that you're talking about, these were religious operations that were advertised in churches as religion, right?
17:32Yeah, these are promoting Voice of the Martyrs Christian charity for those who are persecuted across the, well, mostly the third world.
17:51And with GFA, the promotion of the gospel in India and in other places.
17:57All right.
17:57I think I'm getting it now.
17:58So it's like a cascade of scams.
18:00So somebody brought you into a scam and they, you know, they probably didn't know.
18:05It's not their fault that this happened.
18:07So they brought you into the scam and you're a part of it.
18:11You're donating.
18:12You're giving your money.
18:13While doing this, there's another scam that's happening and you're excitedly bringing somebody else into it.
18:20And they're getting involved now.
18:22So what was that like?
18:24How did they come to accept the second scam?
18:26This is how they got involved with the scam, the second scam, because they already were involved with the VOM scam.
18:36The next trip they took, they drove past my town and went down to Texas to do the same kind of volunteer trips at Gospel for Asia now.
18:51So they stopped doing Voice of the Martyrs and they started doing Gospel for Asia.
18:55They did that more than once.
18:58Then they were asked by leaders there to raise support and move and come on staff.
19:05So this was a scam that involved physical labor.
19:08I'm somewhat familiar with KP Yohannan and some of the, I've read through some of the lawsuits.
19:13We're talking, and it's not a small number, it's in the millions of dollars that the lawsuit was involved with.
19:19So it wasn't just money.
19:20People were donating time to that.
19:22Is that correct?
19:23He refused to raise money and pay it to the secretaries and the common little people dealing in the mailroom and all the other support staff.
19:37He made everybody go out and raise support just so that they could go there and give their two-year minimum period of time working in there.
19:50So KP Yohannan didn't even pay his support staff.
19:57And that was true back in 88 in my day.
20:00And that's the reason I would have had to have raised support.
20:04And I didn't choose to do that route because the org was way too small and I didn't think that that would be a good use of my skills back then.
20:14But that's how cheap it was.
20:16So he asked this couple to raise support and that's what they did.
20:23I started receiving quarterly emails from them asking people, sending it out to their, for them to raise support so that they could go there and the ministry wouldn't have to pay them basically.
20:44So basically, like some churches have, where they've got outreach programs and they set up missionaries where the missionaries can go out into the field.
20:52So this was an organization that was working in collaboration with other groups.
20:57You mentioned Calvary Chapel and there's some others that were gathering funds to send missionaries overseas.
21:04They moved out of the home that they had built and rented it out and moved down to Texas and they were there for two years.
21:19And then I kept getting quarterly emails from them while they were there, what was going on.
21:27And then suddenly I got this quarterly update after the two years saying that they were leaving, but they were following KP's right-hand man,
21:40who was starting a spinoff ministry called SIM, Serve India Ministry.
21:49And he needed some people to get on the ground floor.
21:52And so he chose them because no one else was interested, apparently.
22:01And so this man and the two of them, they started this brand new ministry doing the exact same thing that Gospel for Asia claims to do.
22:15And then this continued, I continued getting the quarterly updates, they continued with the support, so people were supporting them,
22:27so the SIM didn't have to pay their salaries.
22:31And this continued, I think, for six or seven years until I got an email from them saying that they were leaving.
22:39After finding hard proof that SIM, this new ministry, was lying to the donors about where the mammon was going.
22:48In his book, Combating Culp Mind Control, Dr. Hassan talks about how these groups, as the authoritarian structure forms,
22:58they like to keep people occupied because if they're occupied, they can't critically think.
23:03And so one of the ways in which they do this is through the free help that they require from some of the members.
23:11Some of the more authoritarian structures will have people actually work for free, and they get nothing in return, really.
23:18But they're doing, quote-unquote, God's work.
23:20And all the while, their mind is occupied, and so they can't critically think enough to leave.
23:26There are other groups that are just as authoritarian, but they don't physically occupy the mind.
23:31Instead, they want you to do mental strains.
23:34And you can read Combating Culp Mind Control, and you can get most of that.
23:38But what they don't really cover in a lot of these books is the situation that you're describing,
23:44where the cult exists in such a way that it is beneficial financially for other organizations.
23:53So in essence, it turns into this like pyramid scheme.
23:56And I can't say that, you know, because I don't have the information, financials, that were behind this thing,
24:05but it appears that some of these groups, like this one, may have been giving kickbacks to some of the ministers involved.
24:14Minister holds a conference, group starts to found itself and say,
24:18we're going to do this mission to Asia or whatever it is.
24:21Because they come to the conference, people start donating.
24:24Well, because the ministry brought them in, they give a little bit of kickback.
24:29And so it turns into this financial pyramid.
24:32Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started,
24:35or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign,
24:41charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation?
24:45You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org.
24:53On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley,
24:59Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.
25:07You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.
25:13If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the Contribute button at the top.
25:20And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching.
25:26On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
25:31We had this big house in Scottsdale, needed to be sold.
25:35In its current state, you couldn't even let people in because you could not literally walk through the house.
25:44There was so much stuff in it.
25:45You could not walk through and see the whole house.
25:48So what happened is my wife and I decided to snowbird in Arizona for the winters of 2013 and 2014.
25:56So we spent seven months each time down in Scottsdale getting rid of the stuff, cleaning it up, remodeling the whole thing.
26:08In early February 2015, this lady contacts me.
26:14She's driving around different places and she wants to visit.
26:18And she wants to come by and spend a couple of days down there helping me get this house ready for sale because that's what she does.
26:31And so she comes down and visits.
26:34And at the end of the first workday together, then we start to unravel.
26:40And it was then that she was free to start telling me the full story of what happened with her and her husband at Gospel for Asia and serve in the ministries.
27:00So here's her story.
27:02At Sim, she had become the verbal punching bag of the leader very quickly.
27:10And so she just quit.
27:12She just decided to have nothing at all to do with this thing.
27:17But in spite of that, her husband continued working there.
27:25And that was something that she did not share in her quarterly emails.
27:29And then at Gospel for Asia, she described the final building of the compound, which they never raised any money explicitly for.
27:45So they built a compound north of where their offices were, out in the boonies.
27:55And then she briefly talked about a cult she had joined once as a youth.
28:00Upon arriving there full-time, they quickly realized the Gospel for Asia was also a little cult.
28:09Upon, and that was the reason why they built the compound there.
28:17They had their own little church building they could build, this little prayer room.
28:27And then they could have more control over people because before they lived off campus.
28:34But now they could control all these different aspects of their lives.
28:38So they stayed there two years to honor their promise.
28:44And they were involved in as little as they could possibly be without getting into trouble with KP Yohanan, who was their head dictator there.
28:54And then she told me about things that were going on, things like, for instance, if KP Yohanan did not like something you were doing,
29:10then he would simply be extra slow in getting your support to you because in order for the support to be tax deductible,
29:21you would have to give it to Gospel for Asia earmarked for support for this person.
29:29So if he didn't like you, he would just be extra slow in getting that support to you.
29:37And withholding the funds meant literally you're withholding the food and supplies.
29:41Yeah. How are you going to go outside and buy food at the grocery store?
29:45You do that from the support that you raised, which they would withhold.
29:51If KP didn't like something that you were saying or doing.
29:57And of course, doing that, he could force you to leave as well because you got to eat.
30:05So, and she told me about a group of GFA diaspora, people who had worked there before,
30:14who had formed, and they had wrote two letters to the GFA board concerning, with their concerns.
30:24And they, the two of them had signed the last one.
30:27And here are the specific signs of fraud that she told me.
30:40So beyond the fact that he was starting to call himself a bishop and was starting to act in ways,
30:49like before he would pretend to be humble, but all that went out the window once the compound was finished
30:59and everybody was in there.
31:01And they were chauffeuring him around, and there's some other stories that I learned about
31:07that are just outrageous about things that were going on there.
31:11But the specific sign of fraud that came to me was that they had pictures of their native missionaries,
31:19and they were all stock photos there in Texas.
31:24Wow.
31:25And they were separate from the handwritten letters.
31:29So the handwritten letters would come in from overseas,
31:32and then the manager would go over to the stock photo file,
31:40pick out a photo like the one that I had received in my initial letter,
31:45put it with the letter, and then tell the non-employee to mail this out to the new donor,
31:56just as I had been when I started that process.
31:59And the same exact photos were being sent out to different donors with different letters
32:07with different names.
32:11And to me, that was just the clearest sign of fraud.
32:16I mean, if this were real, the pictures would come in stapled to the letters from the field.
32:23Oh, absolutely.
32:25Yeah.
32:25So this and other things mentioned that would later end up in Professor Warren Throckmorton's
32:34very first blog post got me motivated to find a way to blow a whistle on all this.
32:41Okay, so we have Chuck Smith, Calvary Chapel.
32:44We've got the cult leader that's got the compound.
32:47You mentioned Mark Driscoll.
32:48How does he fit into this picture?
32:50One day I was sitting and I had this cynical thought in my head.
32:56Why don't I just Google repentant pastor?
33:01For that is something that almost never happens.
33:05And that occurred to me.
33:06And so, what the heck?
33:10Why don't I just see that and come up, see what comes up?
33:14I did and I found a website of ex-Mars Hill Seattle leaders who are apologizing for their
33:25abusing of their flock under Mark Driscoll.
33:30And at that time, I had no knowledge of this.
33:33I had heard about two Mars Hills big churches in the U.S.,
33:39but I didn't know that there was scandal going on at one of them.
33:44So, the next thing I did is I Googled, because now I was interested,
33:48what's going on at Mars Hill that would have like seven or eight different pastors and leaders
33:54all coming on and being repenting and apologizing to people for the abuse that they did to them.
34:01So, I Googled Mars Hill controversy, and guess what came up?
34:08Professor Warren Throckmorton's blog came up, along with some others.
34:14But Warren was the one people inside the church were leaking internal documents to.
34:20And so, I was following his blog all the way from the summer of 2014 up until this period of time.
34:28Got it.
34:30So, one church scandal caused you to research and connect to people who had other research,
34:35and that connected you to figure out that this might be a scam that I'm in.
34:40So, what happened next?
34:41I went on his blog, and it was likely one of the Mars Hills posts.
34:46And I introduced the first little hint there that something was going on at Gospel for Asia,
34:53and would he be interested in looking into it?
34:55And I dropped a few of those hints over a number of posts.
35:02And he expressed a great deal of interest because that thing was winding down at that period of time,
35:11more or less, I think.
35:15And then eventually, I emailed Warren directly about my concerns for Gospel for Asia.
35:22And the Diaspora group was putting together a website,
35:28and that website was not open to the public.
35:33They were putting stuff on there and getting it ready because they were ready to do the Matthew 18 thing.
35:40The final thing was to go public, and they weren't ready yet.
35:43He contacted them and then started interacting with them before they were ready to go public.
35:50And so, they decided that he would be, they would make their website go live,
35:59and that he would be the one to publicize it so that more people would know about it.
36:05And in April 2015, the very first post came out, and that very first post was about the GFA Diaspora
36:14and the two letters, and I believe there are five specific areas that they brought up that were concerns.
36:23So, all of this information is online now, or?
36:26If you will go to Warren Throckmorton's website, you will find 52 pages of blog posts that followed after that.
36:3852 pages.
36:39So, all of this information comes out.
36:42It's now being made known to the public.
36:44And suddenly, anybody who's involved with this, they suddenly realized, wait a minute, this is a scam.
36:50I can picture all kinds of people with pitchforks ready to come after this guy.
36:55People started sending him internal stuff from all over the U.S., Canada, Australia, and even India.
37:05And major events that proceeded that you will find there and you can find on other places on the web
37:17is that the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, which GFA was a founding member,
37:27they did a review and found that GFA only passed three out of their seven criteria,
37:35so they pulled their fake stamp of approval off of them.
37:40Then, an insider leaked the full report, which ended up being published on Warren's blog in its absolute entirety.
37:50So, you can read the full report yourself if you go on his blog.
37:56Indians sent Warren pictures of priests because one of the things that happened was
38:02K.P. Yohanan didn't just send out missionaries.
38:09He started his own cult church, his own denomination, and declared himself as high bishop.
38:16And there were pictures of the priests underneath him kissing his ring like he was the pope.
38:25And this was being his primary source of funds was from Protestants who would not look at that well.
38:35And then that became Warren's favorite picture.
38:38Before then, he would use stock pictures from GFA stuff.
38:42After that, every time there was a post, here was this picture of this priest kissing K.P. Yohanan's ring
38:51while he's sitting there in his bishop's gown and dress in this throne, I would call.
39:02I can imagine the bottom fell out at that point.
39:06Everybody was halting their money, and this turns into a big scandal.
39:10So, all right.
39:10So, my head is going a million different directions with all of this.
39:14You've mentioned so many names and this massive scandal that seems to be connected to so many people.
39:20Francis Chan.
39:21How does Francis Chan fit into this?
39:24Francis Chan was one of the board members at this time.
39:29Wow.
39:30Still is, I think, to the current day as far as I know.
39:35Francis Chan claimed K.P. as his mentor.
39:39So, get this.
39:40He's not just a friend or something.
39:43He was his mentor.
39:45And then there was also the head pastor of the big Albuquerque Calvary Chapel.
39:52He was on the board.
39:53Francis Chan stayed throughout everything that I'm going to tell you.
40:00Even right up to the day.
40:02But what happened after the ECFA report came out was that the Albuquerque Calvary Chapel pastor just left the board.
40:15Never said a word again.
40:17Never discussed it.
40:18No explanation of what happened.
40:21No apology.
40:22Just, you know, pretends like that.
40:24That's something that never happened.
40:26And as a former accountant, which I also am, during this period of time, I started adding up the numbers because they were being reported.
40:38But how much money was being raised in the US, how much in Canada, how much in Australia, how much in Europe.
40:48And I started adding all these numbers up.
40:50And it became really obvious very quickly that the total take KP Yohanan has for this scam is way over $1 billion U.S.
41:07Wow.
41:08No doubt.
41:10And so I consider him, on a modern day, the biggest scam artist that nobody pays attention to or notices because he's overseas.
41:21And we can't see.
41:23We aren't in India.
41:25We didn't see what he actually did.
41:27That's hard to wrap your head around.
41:29$1 billion is a heck of a lot of money.
41:33So, to remind the listeners, this started out with this little, little tiny thing, a few pamphlets.
41:39And, you know, it might be a cult.
41:41It might not.
41:42And then grew into a billion-dollar scam.
41:45That's, it's really hard to wrap your head around.
41:47Their income, their total income, went from almost nothing in those early years.
41:53And then started adding up to some very large sums.
42:002013 was almost $100 million to take just in the U.S.
42:06And also, KP became a prosperity preacher on Indian radio.
42:13So, in the U.S., we have our prosperity teachers.
42:15And over this period of time, KP Yohanan became a famous radio preacher in India.
42:26And he was also raising money from Indians that way.
42:31The same way that a Ken Copeland raises money today here in the U.S.
42:37I'm still just shaking my head, man.
42:40A billion dollars.
42:41That's a lot of money.
42:42How do you even explain?
42:44How do you account for that?
42:45Where does all the money go?
42:47Things that were never fundraised for.
42:52And eventually, a lawsuit came out.
42:54And in the lawsuit, they claimed that only 13% of what was raised went to the field.
43:01When they were claiming that 100%, you give us this, and 100% of this will go to the field
43:06to help with the spread of the gospel in India.
43:10Yeah, but, I mean, what did they use the money for?
43:13So, the first thing is that they bought the acres in the rural Texas to build their cult compound
43:19so they could have greater control over their workers.
43:23And they brought money back in from the field, $20 million to buy the land, put in the roads, build all the buildings, the offices, the chapel, the houses for the cult members who live there, all that.
43:40And they never raised a dime.
43:44And they never mentioned anything about raising money for that.
43:47Yeah, but, I mean, even that, we're talking a billion dollars.
43:51That doesn't account for the billion.
43:53Where did the money go?
43:54They also bought Shero Valley Estate, which is a rubber plantation in India.
44:01And that was big news in Indian news websites because they bought it from an organization that had leased it from the government.
44:14And according to the government, they didn't own it, so they couldn't sell it.
44:19So, the scammers got scammed by buying an estate from a company that didn't actually own it.
44:31I remember reading something similar that happened in Dowie's life.
44:35It's in my book.
44:36I wrote about Dowie, but he got scammed as well.
44:38So, he's scamming the people.
44:40The scammers scam the scammers.
44:42That has been in the Indian court system, and it still is today.
44:49So, there's a continuing lawsuit.
44:52Government says, you don't own it.
44:55It is our land.
44:57And they're saying, no, we bought it.
45:01We own it.
45:02And the lawsuits just keep on continuing because KP Yohanan has big enough wallets to keep bribing the courts and keeping this thing going.
45:21And so, it's still in the court system.
45:24So, you have all of these Christian people who are attending church.
45:27They're going to these conferences, and the conferences, they're saying, hey, give this organization the money because they're spreading the gospel into the other nations.
45:37And all the while, they think they're supporting missionaries like you.
45:40They think they're supporting missionaries, and none of the money is actually getting to the missionaries.
45:45Warren found millions sitting in an Asian bank account that was never transferred into the field.
45:52And there were interviews going back and forth with the Gospel for Asia, KP Yohanan, and the other people.
45:58Why hasn't this money ever been transferred over into the field?
46:02So, I can imagine this group does not want this money to be stopped.
46:07Have they tried to stop the whistleblowers?
46:09They sued Google, Facebook, and some others.
46:12And you can find this on Indian websites.
46:16They sued them because they were trying to silence people who were speaking out against their cult.
46:25And so, this is not just something that happens in the U.S.
46:29Also, in India, this kind of thing happens.
46:32They try to get rid of free speech by suing the people who have the free speech on there.
46:40And this is still going, right?
46:41This is still happening today.
46:43And that's just something that's amazing.
46:48And I don't know why anybody in the West is still donating to them.
46:52But KP is still raising those funds.
46:55And they're still going somewhere to something.
47:00So, you're talking India.
47:01And this thing, you know, it's in the United States, too.
47:04And now, the United States, there's a lot of people that's been made aware.
47:07Have there been any lawsuits filed in the United States?
47:10A doctor here in the U.S. with deep pockets decided to file a RICO lawsuit against GFA,
47:20which was eventually settled in 2019 for a $37 million rebate to donors.
47:28And they've tried to pressure or bully you online, right?
47:31Didn't you write some sort of a blog post that they got involved with?
47:35I made the comment.
47:36And then, that was it.
47:42And then a couple hours later on the blog, something very interesting happened.
47:47A John Varghese, who had never been there before, came on the blog and responded to that post.
47:53John Varghese said, I am their lawyer.
48:01Daniel Varghese is my brother.
48:03The one that you found is not the same Daniel Varghese.
48:08And then he went on the blog and did what, of course, lawyers do.
48:15They defended.
48:17He defended him.
48:18And this continued on a conversation for some time.
48:21John Varghese would be the one who would keep coming on to Warren's blog
48:26and running interference, you might say.
48:30And then, a couple of days later, through the GFA diaspora,
48:41I learned that, yeah, Daniel Varghese was the one that KP Yohanan had given to watch Warren's blog.
48:49And I had no idea of that.
48:52And then, some weeks later, Wikipedia page.
48:59I had gone on to the Gospel for Asia Wikipedia page,
49:03and I had added a controversy section, and I had followed their rules and outlines,
49:09and I put in quotes from Christian news sources, stuff bigger than Warren,
49:16about the controversy that was going on.
49:18And I had created that.
49:19Someone named Daniel Varghese went on there, and they vandalized their site by deleting this entire section.
49:26And he used his own name next to the IP address to it.
49:31And then, if that isn't enough, a couple years ago, I was looking through an Indian website.
49:37And on the website, they referred to a Daniel Varghese as a part of this whole IT tax scam thing investigations going on.
49:52And they mentioned that he was one of the high-ranking officials in the cult church denomination that he had started.
50:00So, all of this is going on, this organization that was founded by K.P. Yohanan, and he's dead now, right?
50:07What happened to K.P. Yohanan?
50:09K.P. was walking on a road just outside of the Texas cult complex that he had built here in the U.S.
50:19when someone ran him down in a car in an accident.
50:26So, a billionaire fraudster dies a violent death.
50:30Now, I doubt if you go into India and you talk to a typical Indian and you ask him,
50:40do you think this was an accident, I doubt you would find many Indians who would tell you, yeah, it was an accident.
50:49But that's how it was reported.
50:51So, K.P. is dead in a hospital from a heart attack that he had had while they were trying to patch him up from this accident.
51:06Where can people go online to find more information about all of this?
51:09Well, I just sent you a bunch of links to all of those information, but warrenthrockmorton.com is his site with the 52 pages.
51:25Well, this has been a crazy story, to say the least.
51:30I had no, you know, when you mentioned the names that were involved and you're talking Calvary Chapel and Chuck Smith and Francis Chan, Mark Driscoll,
51:38I had no idea where this would be headed, and honestly, I did not expect it to grow into as big of a story as what you actually have told me.
51:47So, this has been quite a wild ride for me, and I can only imagine what it's like for the listeners.
51:53Very few people even know about it.
51:55Oh, yeah.
51:56Yeah, I had no idea.
51:59I'd heard some of the names that you mentioned, obviously Chuck Smith and Francis Chan, Mark Driscoll, that,
52:04but I had not heard of K.P. Johannon.
52:07And I'd not heard of the scam, and I just did a little bit of searching, you know, avoiding the legalese.
52:13I did look for myself to see was there some legitimacy to this, and apparently there is.
52:19And you've sent me a bundle of information, which I'll try to share some of that in the description of the video so other people can go look.
52:26But I had no idea that this existed, although when you think of these big conventions that these churches have,
52:34I've been to IT conventions, and you go into the convention center, you see all of these different booths,
52:40and you're walking past some of the big names, and, you know, it's really reputable stuff.
52:45But then you get into the back corners, and there's some really shady characters in the back of these things, right?
52:51And that's in the business world, and that's in a place where it's somewhat screened and professional.
52:57But now I'm trying to picture this in the Christian world.
53:01What is a Christian convention?
53:04What does it even look like?
53:05I've never been to one, but I'm trying to picture it happening, and I'm trying to picture—so Calvary Chapel, Chuck Smith,
53:13any of these people, they could get blindsided by the same scams that you could.
53:17So they don't know.
53:18Maybe they're unaware.
53:20Maybe it's a pyramid scheme, and they are involved.
53:22I don't know, but give them the benefit of the doubt.
53:25Maybe they're caught unaware, and some shady character is coming in, and he's setting up a scam in the convention.
53:33Well, when you think of that and just take a step back from all of it,
53:38how does any of it even make sense in the world of Christianity?
53:42In the IT world, yes, it kind of makes sense.
53:44You do the networking.
53:45You collaborate.
53:46But Christianity, man, it's not supposed to be business,
53:49and they're trying to structure and run this thing like a business.
53:54And when you do that, you bring all the same problems that you have with a business.
53:58So it's quite fascinating, and I'm sure there's a lot more that you could tell that we've only got an hour.
54:06So there's a lot bigger story here, I think, than you're probably able to tell in an hour.
54:12But thank you so much for doing this.
54:14Glad to be here.
54:15Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want to share your story, you can check us out on the web.
54:19You can find us at william-branham.org.
54:22For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation,
54:25you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.
54:29Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
54:32Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.
55:02Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.
55:32Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.
55:33Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.
55:34Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.
55:35Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.
55:36Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.
55:37Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.
55:38Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.
55:39Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.
55:40Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.
55:41Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.
55:42Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.
55:43Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.
55:44Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.
55:45Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.