Dominion or Delusion: The Lust for Power and "Stuff" - Bob Scott - Podcast Episode 335 - video Dailymotion

William Branham Historical Research

Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/branham   Available on Spotify, Google, and Apple Podcasts: https://william-branham.org/podcast   Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR: Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962   Some Say They Blundered: https://a.co/d/2cEkDyF  John and Bob dive into the deep roots of dominionist theology, comparing its modern expression with ancient history and Christian scripture. They examine how efforts to merge religion with government power have consistently failed throughout time. From biblical kings to American prohibition, the discussion underscores that without internal transformation, external laws fail to produce lasting change. The hosts critique contemporary movements attempting to legislate morality, drawing parallels to movements like the New Apostolic Reformation and even historical regimes.  Through a historically grounded discussion, they trace dominionist ideology from early Christian persecution, through Constantine’s Rome, to modern evangelical politics. They highlight the parallels between dominion theology and authoritarian structures, revealing how pride and the pursuit of status often drive these movements more than genuine faith. Along the way, Bob shares personal stories from his past involvement in religious and music institutions, while John offers critical insight into the legacy of groups tied to prohibition, religious nationalism, and authoritarian youth programs. The conversation closes with reflections on spiritual authenticity and a challenge to critically rethink what genuine faith looks like.   00:00 Introduction   01:03 What Is Dominionism and Why It Matters   06:38 How History Shows Dominionism Fails   13:19 Entertainment, Culture Wars, and Control   17:17 The Pattern of Religious Power Corrupting Movements   24:06 From Prohibition to the New Apostolic Reformation   30:41 Constantine and the Political Hijacking of Christianity   36:03 Why Cozying Up to Power Always Backfires   44:02 Generational Rebellion and the Failure of Forced Faith   51:02 Was There Ever a Real Conversion?   56:22 A Call for Discernment and Heart Transformation   ______________________ – Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham – Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ – Visit the website: https://william-branham.org – Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg  – Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham – Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr – Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books

Transcript

00:00:00You

00:00:31Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Branham historical research

00:00:35podcast. I'm your host John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham

00:00:40historical research at william-branham.org, and with me I have my co-host

00:00:45and friend Bob Scott, former co-founder of the Kansas City Fellowship and author

00:00:50of three books. The latest is Some Say They Blundered, breaking my decades of

00:00:54silence on Mike Bickle, the Kansas City Prophets, and the International House of

00:00:59Prayer. Bob, it's good to be back and talk about the seven mountains of fun. We

00:01:05we're getting into Dominionism today, which is something that fascinates me

00:01:11because you're a historian, we talked a bit offline, you think logically and

00:01:17historically in the same way that I do, and when you see what has developed

00:01:21today around all of these movements and largely to people who I think the issue

00:01:28is they just many of them have not read their Bibles. So whenever these apostles

00:01:33and prophets and whatnot, these evangelists come out and they teach this

00:01:37stuff, the people aren't familiar enough with their Bibles to understand that

00:01:42it's a little bit off what they're teaching and it's relatively new. And I've

00:01:47actually listened to some of the speeches by these guys and they try to

00:01:50say that this Dominionist theology has always existed, which you know if you

00:01:56take what they say with a grain of salt and just kind of think outside of

00:02:01their box, in a way it kind of did, but it did not exist in the way that they

00:02:06present it. And so today I wanted to deep dive into that and see how can we make

00:02:11sense of this nonsense that has developed into the new Dominionist

00:02:16theory. Yeah, we're gonna get ourselves in trouble again, John, which we like to do.

00:02:23But no, it's an interesting discussion and I think relevant. Truth be told,

00:02:33in our current political environment right now, there are a lot of people

00:02:39close to the current president who come from this worldview. People that are advising him,

00:02:49trying to tell him where he needs to go, what he needs to do, and who he needs to do it

00:02:57through. And so it's a very relevant topic. I sort of feel sorry for the guy though in a way

00:03:05because given the fact that he doesn't have a theological background or much

00:03:12understanding of Christianity, I'm sure it's a little bit overwhelming.

00:03:18And so some of the people that are speaking into his life, I have concerns about,

00:03:30which I think a lot of other people do too. So the whole concept of the seven mountains

00:03:37in Dominionism is a very relevant topic for the moment because there's a lot of

00:03:45that thinking that's driving some of what's going on right now. We may not hear that word,

00:03:54especially from the political class, but at least the religious leaders that are

00:04:02currently have a voice, they're being driven by it.

00:04:07Pete For me, it's interesting because it's such a hot political issue right now.

00:04:12You're seeing religion and politics merge together in this weird way. A lot of these

00:04:19guys, they condemn the Catholic Church, which is interesting because the very thing that Martin

00:04:24Luther led the Reformation against, they're bringing much of that back into the world,

00:04:30into the United States in Protestant religion. And so you have this weird mixture of church and

00:04:34state that they want. They want to claim this as our new dominion. And if you go historically

00:04:43from a biblical standpoint, just using Bible history alone, you have all of the foreign

00:04:50pagan nations and you have the children of Israel and King David is close friends with the King of

00:04:57Tyre and various nations. They were creating trade alliances. And you don't see them trying

00:05:02to push dominion over all of their alliances and say, you must convert to Yahweh. Instead,

00:05:08they have a political alliance and relationship, even though both are serving, one serving a

00:05:13pantheon of gods and one is serving Yahweh. So you don't see that being pushed. And if you

00:05:19walked historically through the Bible, through each one of the various scenarios that's being

00:05:26taught or history that's being written in the Bible, you don't find the politics of Israel

00:05:34enforcing dominion in the way that they enforce it today, because it simply doesn't work.

00:05:41In the book of Kings, for example, when it's talking about all of the different

00:05:45kings of Israel that rise up and they rise up and then they fall into idolatry. They rise up again,

00:05:51they fall into idolatry and think about that alone. So they had the mosaic law, which is

00:05:58essentially what the NAR is trying to recreate today in various forms in the United States

00:06:05with the idea that if they can create law and dictate it to people who don't align with the

00:06:10religious views, they can enforce it and the world will be bliss. Well, even the Old Testament shows

00:06:16you the children of Israel themselves tried to do this and it failed miserably because every single

00:06:21king that rose up fell to idolatry. Most of them fell to idolatry. And in the end, what was being

00:06:28established wasn't a kingdom in the way that Israel thought. So if you walk backwards through time,

00:06:35which is something that I like to do, I like to start with the present and then go back and see

00:06:39where did this weird notion come from. There are a lot of major milestones along the way backwards.

00:06:45And I thought it'd be fun to talk through some of those.

00:06:47Pete Yeah, one of the things that

00:06:53is a red flag for me is when you separate out ideology, philosophy,

00:07:03you know, perspectives, without dealing with the soul.

00:07:11I have seen so many great ideas go to hell in a handbasket, if you want to use an old cliche,

00:07:20right? And the reason was, because of humans. In my first book, Saving Zimbabwe, I have a phrase

00:07:30and the phrase is, transformation of the soul is the soul of transformation.

00:07:39So where this gets tricky, is that Jesus never tried to establish himself

00:07:50as having political authority over the Romans. Right? He didn't start a political party.

00:07:58You know what I mean? He didn't run for office as it were, you know, he seemed disinterested in

00:08:04that. What he was interested in was changing human hearts. Right? What Jesus was focusing on

00:08:15was the establishment of the kingdom of God, which to him, yes, outside of creation, there's the,

00:08:25you know, there's God ruling in the heavens. But it was the, it was the morals, ethics,

00:08:32and values of the kingdom of God that transform our hearts and switch us from our default setting,

00:08:42which is based on our survival instincts, which causes us to lust after status and stuff,

00:08:48right? And this desire, this craving that so many have to rule over others.

00:08:59Right? In other words, to be in control over other people. And Jesus had a worldview,

00:09:08a kingdom of God worldview that was 180 degrees difference, right? This is where it gets really

00:09:14confusing because he tells the whole parable about going to a wedding or a feast or whatever.

00:09:20And the tendency or the, you know, the way it was always done was the people that had status

00:09:29and stature always sat at the front. Right? When they walked in, they expected a seat at the head

00:09:35table. And Jesus comes along and goes, no, sit in the back. Right? Humans are driven by this desire

00:09:45to accumulate more. And Jesus is saying, well, if you have more than one, give the other one away.

00:09:52Right? In other words, almost everything that he talks about is 180 degrees different

00:10:00than the whole concept of ruling and controlling others. He tells everybody being a servant

00:10:08is the way. And so that's where with, for me, there's been a bit of a clash,

00:10:16right? Between the concept of dominionism, right? Which is where Christians rule and reign over

00:10:23everyone else. And we establish, you know, biblical morality, ethics, all that kind of stuff

00:10:32over everyone else versus Jesus who comes along and says, no, no, be a servant to everyone else.

00:10:42Right? And honestly, you know, I've been walking with God since 1975 and I still struggle

00:10:50with these two very diametric kind of worldviews. You know what I mean? It's like, it's like,

00:10:58so here's where I was going with this. I think what Jesus understood

00:11:04was exactly what I wrote about. Transformation of the soul is the soul of transformation.

00:11:10If you do not first deal with the heart and deal with selfish ambition and greed,

00:11:16like James wrote about in James 3.16, right? If you don't deal, you know, with your ego

00:11:24and your lust for stuff, greed, right? What you're going to get is chaos and evil.

00:11:30Well, everywhere that I have seen this dominion worldview, whether it was with the Catholic

00:11:36church, the Holy Roman emperor, you know, everywhere you go, it never works. Right?

00:11:44So on paper, it looks really good. Like on a whiteboard, it all looks really good,

00:11:49but in reality, it's never worked. And the reason is, it's because without the transformation of

00:11:55the soul, without the transformation of the heart, what ends up happening is the power

00:12:01ends up corrupting everyone. You know, I've put a lot of thought into exactly that because what

00:12:06they're essentially trying to do is they're trying to set an established set of religious laws that

00:12:12are mixed in our political system, and then enforce those upon people who don't agree with

00:12:17the religion in the first place. And there are two colliding worldviews. And you can look at

00:12:23any nation. I mean, if you look at Israel and Palestine and look how many decades, centuries

00:12:29these two have been fighting each other over conflicts of ideologies, it just never ends.

00:12:34What they're trying to do historically doesn't work. But even more than that, the leaders that

00:12:40are pushing this, they take prey upon people who can't critically think for themselves.

00:12:47And that's really the sad part for me because what they do, if you listen to any of their

00:12:52speeches on this dominionism, they vastly oversimplify the issue. They'll say things like,

00:13:00their laws are against our God. Therefore, we must change the laws. And it's not that simple.

00:13:06You can't just change the laws and then suddenly everybody agree and say,

00:13:09wow, this is wonderful. Now I'm obeying Christian laws, even though I'm not a Christian.

00:13:14That's not how it works. So the Seven Mountain Mandate, which is a byproduct of all of this,

00:13:23one of the so-called mountains is the Mountain of Entertainment.

00:13:27And they have been trying to conquer this mountain since long before the Seven Mountain Mandate

00:13:32existed. You can go find, in Christian Identity, they were doing the same thing.

00:13:36Latter Rain was doing the same thing. And what they're trying to say is that

00:13:42because there are so many people that are watching television and movies that have sin in it,

00:13:49they're glorifying sin. I've heard that phrase being used. And it's way oversimplifying the issue

00:13:56because I'm a fan of watching crime drama. I love it. I love watching a bad guy set up the perfect

00:14:03plot. I love watching the good guys go undermine his plot and catch him and put him in jail.

00:14:09I love that stuff. But what he's doing is sin. And these ministers will get up and they'll

00:14:15preach against whatever is the hot topic political sin and say, they're glorifying sin because they're

00:14:21showing it on television. They're showing it on movies. And they're totally ignoring all of the

00:14:27various other sins that are being shown in an entertaining way, such as train robberies, bank

00:14:34robberies, divorces. There's a vast number of sins that if you understand how entertainment works,

00:14:42if you understand that there must be a climactic event, there must be some sort of a villain,

00:14:48whether it's a person or a theme, etc. And then you have something to rise up and conquer that

00:14:53theme. That's entertainment. And that goes all the way back to Shakespeare. You can trace the

00:14:58way that entertainment has been structured. So for me, it's entertaining. And if people were to

00:15:04follow all of this out to its logical conclusion, if what they're pushing actually got accepted,

00:15:10which it never will, but if it did, nobody would even want it, man. Can you imagine watching a

00:15:16television where there are only good guys, there is no sin, everybody is, you know, it'd be like

00:15:22watching the Smurfs without Gargamel. Pete Well, I'll circle back to the music

00:15:29sector. And the reason I want to do this is I actually have firsthand experience having run a

00:15:34record company for a decade. What's interesting is that the whole of the music world is actually

00:15:41rooted in the church. This is what's so fascinating when you unpack it, and you really

00:15:47drill down. It all started there. Well, what happened? Like, how did we go from the, you know,

00:15:53from, you know, music that came out of the church world to the absolute decadence? And you know what

00:16:01always happens? And the reason I know this is because I've spent 40 years of my life picking

00:16:06up the pieces of these artists. And it's the same thing I just talked about. What happens is,

00:16:13is they start off, you know, recognizing that God's given them this gift, and then that gift

00:16:22gives them status and stuff, right? Status and stuff. And what happens when you get status and

00:16:28stuff? You get prideful, and you get arrogant, and you get corrupted, and you become self-centered,

00:16:35and you end up exhibiting narcissistic tendencies, and the whole thing falls apart. So

00:16:44I'm like, okay, this is really interesting. Yes, you know, you want Judeo-Christian

00:16:51values to take over the industry. Well, it started there.

00:16:56But by virtue of the fact that it's all about stardom and, you know, idol worship, you know,

00:17:06all of this kind of stuff, it corrupted and destroys almost everyone that comes through that

00:17:13system. So let's take this political world, right? I think you and I have talked about this before.

00:17:201920s, religious leaders realized that we're consuming copious amounts of alcohol. It's

00:17:29causing problems in marriages and all kinds of things. So the solution is we need to adopt the

00:17:35Judeo-Christian value system and get rid of alcohol so we can get rid of the drunkenness.

00:17:41So the religious leaders, doing dominion, you know, with their dominionism worldview,

00:17:50convinced the federal government that we should outlaw alcohol, because that's the problem,

00:17:57right? It's the problem. Well, what happens? It doesn't solve the problem!

00:18:02Petey It turned into a mess, man. Prohibition,

00:18:05mafia, mobs.

00:18:07Petey Exactly. What it did is it created an

00:18:09opportunity for evil to prosper. The very opposite of what the religious leaders assumed was gonna

00:18:17happen, happened. Suddenly evil people discovered that human beings who haven't been transformed

00:18:24in their hearts, right, they haven't had this transformation, will figure a way around the law.

00:18:33Even Paul the Apostle, when he's writing in his letter to the Roman church,

00:18:39is talking about how the law actually increases sin. It's like the more you tell people you can't

00:18:45do something, the more they rebel. And so this is where it gets really crazy for me, because

00:18:52I'm, you know, as a sociologist and somebody who loves to study human psyche, you know what I mean,

00:19:00what drives humans, like what's underneath us, it's the very thing that a lot of these people

00:19:06are talking about and want to see, we've already seen before, and it never turns out well.

00:19:14It's never worked. So it looks good on a chalkboard or on a whiteboard, right?

00:19:21It all seems like, wow, this would be amazing if we could do this. But it never works, because

00:19:28we don't deal with the root issues. You know what I mean? It's like putting a lipstick on a pig,

00:19:34I guess. That's another, you know, ancient, you know, rural kind of thing. But that's what

00:19:40dominionism, a lot of times, from my perspective, it's like putting lipstick on a pig. Okay,

00:19:47let's all do it. It all looks right, right? We're going to do all these right things,

00:19:52but it doesn't work because humans don't have their hearts changed. So therefore,

00:19:59they just fight the system and come up with all these workarounds.

00:20:04Well, and to make it more fitting of an example, it would be as though the farmers were to say,

00:20:10if we put the lipstick on the pigs, we don't need the fences to keep the wolves and prey out,

00:20:15because the lipstick will keep them away. What I've seen, whenever the Christian ministers push

00:20:21this nonsensical agenda, what I have seen is the non-Christian communities understand because

00:20:27they're critically thinking about the religion, even though they're not in it, they're critically

00:20:31thinking, and they understand how absurd some of it is. And so as the religious agenda gets pushed,

00:20:38you find the people who aren't religious trying to circumvent those nonsensical rules through

00:20:44the nonsense itself. And that is a result and byproduct, in my opinion, of the religious leaders

00:20:51who are taking prey upon people who aren't critically thinking. If they were critically

00:20:55thinking, they would understand that, no, the lipstick is not going to keep all of the predators

00:20:59away from the pigs. You must have a fence around them. But that's not what we have. And, you know,

00:21:05your example of the prohibition and all of the mess that was created, you can find it not just

00:21:11with alcohol, but with practically everything that they have tried to push throughout the history

00:21:16that I've been able to examine. You find the same examples being the same problems being created

00:21:24whenever they push these things. So whenever I began understanding that there were strong ties

00:21:31between latter reign and the prohibitionist movement through one of the key figures in the

00:21:37message was William D. Upshaw, who was also a Klansman who was working with William Branham's

00:21:43mentor. They were he was one of the one of the few men who went across the nation pushing the

00:21:50prohibitionist movement. Right. Well, they were collaborating with what was an entity, a business

00:21:56entity that was being established called the Supreme Kingdom. And if you think about what it

00:22:02was in its era, it included the prohibition. And interestingly, some of the leaders were

00:22:09drunken alcoholics who were sleeping around with women in their drunkenness. It was a weird mess.

00:22:15But they were rising against the they're rising in the Christian fundamentalist movement to fight

00:22:21Christian liberalism, much like you have today with the pushing their political agendas. That

00:22:27was the political agenda of the era. And they were saying we can't allow them to teach evolution and

00:22:32schools. And there's a various list of things that they're trying to push against. So they

00:22:36created the Supreme Kingdom and the theology. This is in mid 1920s. I think it is the theology that

00:22:44they had is almost exactly what the NAR had. It was founded by leaders of the Klan. William

00:22:51Branham was attending revivals under this thing. We have evidence suggesting he was in one of the

00:22:57revivals in Nashville, Tennessee in 1928, I think it was. But they were pushing this as a means to

00:23:05create an established a kingdom of God in the United States to fight the opposition, which is

00:23:11Christian liberalism. And from that developed into what we had, the latter rain movement,

00:23:17the charismatic movement, all of these are built building blocks on top of each other.

00:23:21So their history remains intact. But the political sins that they're fighting change from

00:23:29era to era. The things that they were fighting back then, most of the NAR would just laugh at

00:23:34and say, No, we want our alcohol. We we like to drink, but they don't, you know, don't they don't

00:23:39care because it's not a hot political topic. So what I have seen is when these movements arise,

00:23:45and they try to claim dominion, what they're really saying is, I'm a bully. I don't like the

00:23:50people who don't agree with me. So I'm just going to make all of the opposition, I'm going to

00:23:55forcibly convert them. And we've seen what happens when you forcibly convert people, Roman Catholicism

00:24:01is, well, don't you think underneath it, because as a historian, I think you'd agree with me

00:24:07that one of the themes all the way through history, as the few want to control the many,

00:24:15right? That's not unique to religion. That's just a human trait, that you have certain alpha figures

00:24:25who love the status and the stuff. And in order to get the status and the stuff,

00:24:31they have to control others. So one of the things that concerns me deeply about the whole dominion

00:24:38thing is you fall back into this trap again, where it looks so good, it sounds so biblical,

00:24:46but underneath, it's being driven by this lust for status and stuff. I saw it,

00:24:57you know, we can, you know, bring it up to the, you know, to the current thing before the election,

00:25:04they had, you know, they had these events in Washington, religious events in Washington,

00:25:11DC to support Donald Trump for president, right? And the NAR guys put on a few of the events.

00:25:18And I was watching some of this, and I was watching the arrogance of some of these religious leaders

00:25:25standing up saying, because I am an apostle, because I am this, I declare,

00:25:34right? And I just sat there, I thought, gosh, this is sort of embarrassing.

00:25:41You know, because it's like, what's driving this? This need to tell everybody, I'm this, you know,

00:25:49in my view, and this is kind of a sidebar, I equate apostles with missionaries. I don't equate

00:25:57apostles with a system, right, a religious system where they're ruling at the top. I see the

00:26:06apostles as the missionary servants who go sacrifice and lay their lives down to bring the

00:26:13good news to other people. I have a completely almost opposite worldview of what is apostolic.

00:26:21One common theme about all the original apostles, they all died, they all got martyred.

00:26:28Right? They weren't sitting on top of a geopolitical religious institution ruling.

00:26:37So let's go back a little bit, because I've been thinking about this

00:26:42from the perspective of the early church. You know, as we were talking earlier, it seems very

00:26:48clear that at least the original Christian community had this perception that there was

00:26:56a dominion event about to happen, which was Jesus was going to return and set up his kingdom on

00:27:05earth. There was this sense of eminence that this was going to happen. Well, it didn't.

00:27:12And what ended up happening was the early church spent 300 years being persecuted.

00:27:22They were this minority sect, this minority group of people that were living in hiding,

00:27:29right? You go to Turkey, to Cappadocia, there's all these underground cities, and, you know,

00:27:34people were hiding, right? They were hiding from the authorities who saw them as a threat

00:27:42to their kingdoms. And then along comes Constantine.

00:27:52And can you imagine if you're living in 300 AD and you've been living for at least 200 years

00:28:01on the run, constantly wondering if Romans are going to raid you, crucify you,

00:28:09take all your stuff away, and suddenly the ruler of a nation converts to your faith.

00:28:17I would imagine there was just in this incredible sense, oh my God, it's, you know what I mean,

00:28:24it's the seven mountains, right? It's like, oh my God, our guy is in power now.

00:28:32And so I could see that. I could see how they would think, like, how exciting this is. In fact,

00:28:38this is how crazy it is when Constantine wanted, you know, Constantine was so confused as what

00:28:46actually was the truth about Christianity, he convened the Council of Nicaea where he sent

00:28:52out this invitation to all these bishops to come, and like, of the thousands that were out there,

00:28:59only like a few hundred came because they all thought it was a trick, right?

00:29:03Pete Right.

00:29:04They had been so conditioned to getting beaten up and killed, right, that they didn't want to come

00:29:10because they thought the whole, there was a big trick to get them all there and he was going to

00:29:14kill them all. But that didn't turn out to be the case. Well, then what ends up happening, right?

00:29:20We see Constantine decide that it's not cool to kill Christians anymore, so he legalizes

00:29:29Christianity, saying, yes, this can exist in the Roman Empire free from persecution.

00:29:37What people don't understand is Constantine didn't make Christianity the official

00:29:44religion of Rome. That happened two emperors later. Well, again, what happens? Everybody's

00:29:50all excited. Now the Roman Empire has converted to Christianity. This is the kingdom of God on Earth.

00:29:59Right? Our political leaders have embraced all this. Well, what's the fruit of that?

00:30:06It didn't turn out very well, did it? Pete

00:30:08It didn't turn out very well, no. Pete

00:30:10No, because what ends up happening is by the time you get a few more hundred years down the road,

00:30:17the popes are feeling so threatened by the other geopolitical powerhouses that they have to then

00:30:26create a holy Roman Empire so they can have an army to go to war and protect their status and

00:30:31stuff. So the reason I'm bringing this up is I'm going to say something that may be controversial

00:30:38to people, but hear me out. It seems to me that whenever the people of God, the Christian

00:30:46community, lose their spiritual power and influence, in other words, the truth, the reality

00:30:56of what they believe is impacting people, whenever they lose that, they always turn to government

00:31:06and institutional power to try to force people. Right? And you get into this thing with Jesus

00:31:15where I've said this to people before, the religious leaders were driving people

00:31:25to Judaism out of a fear that if you don't conform to our ways, bad things are going to happen to you.

00:31:34Jesus comes along and he draws people, right? He talks about, I'm living water, I'm bread,

00:31:42I will feed your hunger, right? He comes from a completely different perspective and he's

00:31:49drawing massive crowds because of it. Jesus has no political power. He's got no wealth,

00:31:58but he's got this incredible influence. The first generations of Christians had this influence,

00:32:04but then they lost it. So then what do they do? They turn to the Roman emperors.

00:32:10Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of

00:32:15modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, Charismatic and other fringe

00:32:20movements into the New Apostolic Reformation? You can learn this and more on William Branham

00:32:26Historical Research's website, william-branham.org. On the books page of the website, you can find

00:32:34the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon,

00:32:40and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book. You can also find

00:32:46resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you

00:32:52want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at

00:32:57the top. And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that

00:33:03you're listening to or watching. On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to

00:33:08thank you for your support. What's really fascinating about the history, the actual history,

00:33:14is that it is so different from what you hear whenever these leaders try to push the

00:33:20dominionism agenda. Whenever they talk about the martyrs and the Christian persecution,

00:33:27it's always, they spiritualize it because they want it to be in this realm of spiritual warfare,

00:33:34and so they try to frame it into a mythology that doesn't really coincide with history,

00:33:39it doesn't exist in history. But the early Christians, if you think about, there's a,

00:33:45I can't remember what book this is in, but there's an instance where Paul is talking about

00:33:50the unknown God, and he's going and saying, look, you worship the unknown God, now let me tell you

00:33:55more about Jesus. And that is an example of how polytheism worked. They didn't care what God you

00:34:02served. You could have all kinds of gods. You could serve this God if you had this ailment,

00:34:07you could serve this God if you wanted to be a mighty warrior, whatever it was. It was a

00:34:13pluralistic society of gods, and the politics and the religion were all combined and merged in the

00:34:20ancient world. And so I've heard ministers say that they persecuted the Christians because the

00:34:28devil was rising up against them, which it may be, but they paint this picture that it was solely

00:34:35because they were Christian that they were persecuted. But it's more complicated than that.

00:34:41In a polytheistic religion, whenever the enemy nation comes in and tears through your kingdom

00:34:47and destroys your land and pillages your villages, the first thing that's going to

00:34:51happen in those ancient religion politics societies, they go through and say, okay,

00:34:57which one of you is serving the weaker God? And oh, by the way, here's this group of Christians,

00:35:02their God is Jesus, and it's only just a few years old, so that must be the weaker God. And that's

00:35:08likely how the persecution happened and began. But what you don't find whenever Paul is going to

00:35:16the unknown God, the people who are worshiping the unknown God, he doesn't try to forcibly convert

00:35:23them. It's a situation where he's coming to them and he's trying to, like you said, trying to change

00:35:30their heart. Because if you change their heart, you have a convert. If you forcibly convert them,

00:35:36what happens is you have persecution. You have manslaughter. This turns into a big, big mess.

00:35:42Yeah, and I hope people hear my heart here, but I have real concerns right now

00:35:51when I see the religious leaders in our nation all cozying up to the political powers.

00:36:00I'm not saying it's wrong, but what I'm saying is based on history,

00:36:06cozying up to political powers and having them implement or institutionalize or create laws

00:36:17or whatever to fit your agenda has never worked, ever.

00:36:25Yeah.

00:36:27And for some reason, and well, maybe we know what the reason is, it's like we keep doing it,

00:36:35we keep doing it. There's this need, right? And so, what concerns me

00:36:44is where are the spiritual leaders, and I'm going to throw this out here,

00:36:52where are the spiritual leaders who have such stature, who have such wisdom,

00:37:01who have such influence that the presidents of the United States come to see them? You see,

00:37:09it's backwards. It's like what we have right now is we have a bunch of weak Christian leaders

00:37:16who are all graveling at the foot of institutional power so they can get their agenda done.

00:37:25And I got to say, I got red flags going off all over the place. And honestly, I probably am an

00:37:32anomaly here because everyone else seems to be so excited about this and think it's the greatest

00:37:39thing and we're in the... In fact, you hear this all the time, we're on the verge of revival and

00:37:45blah, blah, blah. I'm thinking revival? We're going to get a revival from a political leader?

00:37:52How does that work?

00:37:55You see where I'm going with this? It's like we have lost... I think of Peter... What was that

00:38:06line where Peter comes up to the crippled guy who's begging and he goes, silver and gold I have

00:38:16none, but rise up and walk. It's like we want silver and gold because we've lost the power to

00:38:24say rise up and walk. Does that make sense? It's like we've lost the capacity to actually

00:38:32transform people. And so that's where I'm deeply concerned right now. I feel like

00:38:40we're missing the boat as it were, that it's either they've lost hope that there's going to

00:38:49be a spiritual transformation. And so therefore we're going to grasp onto political power.

00:38:55Or the truth of it is, is they're actually being driven by a lust for status and stuff.

00:39:02And this is very personal because they want to be seen as being near power.

00:39:08It is such a mess. And looking outside of the religious realm, just think, put yourself into

00:39:14the minds. If you're a Christian, put yourself in the mind of a non-Christian. You see this leader

00:39:20who doesn't resemble Christianity at all, not in any way, shape, or form, who doesn't behave like

00:39:26a Christian, who doesn't act like a Christian. Just the fundamentals of Christianity, the basics,

00:39:32the love of your neighbor, that kind of thing. This man has none of it. And yet he's being

00:39:39touted as the leader that's going to lead this revival. So if you are a non-Christian, what you

00:39:44see is, like you said, it isn't him going to the religious leaders. It's him using the religious

00:39:52leaders. And he used that to his benefit. That's actually, in my opinion, that's probably what got

00:39:58him elected. But he used that to his benefit. And the whole religious world who's under this

00:40:04umbrella doesn't realize that they're being used. But the non-Christians do. And if you are a

00:40:12thinking man, it doesn't take a smart man to realize that if you have an entire group of people

00:40:18being used, you can also manipulate that entire group of people. So the way that Christianity

00:40:24will shift after this worries me even more than what I see right now. Because in that hierarchy,

00:40:31what you have created is, you've taken all of these central figures of maybe not destructive

00:40:37cults, but there are many cult followings that are under this pyramid. And now they have just come

00:40:41under the umbrella of one single central figure. Darrell Bock

00:40:45One of the more intriguing characters that I've been watching is Franklin Graham. I think I told

00:40:52you that Franklin was a year ahead of me in school. But Franklin's kind of cozied up. He's

00:41:00one of the guys that's in this inner circle. And the reason it's intriguing to me is because his

00:41:04father did the same thing. And at the end of his life, he's on record as saying, I regret it.

00:41:11For the very reason that you just articulated, I got used. I thought that I was having influence,

00:41:20and I was actually a pawn to get votes. And that's one of the things, again, that I got a red

00:41:27flag about this. And it's like, you guys are all under the illusion that somehow or another you're

00:41:36having influence, and you may be just getting played. That's what's always happened, right?

00:41:43You see this over and over again through history. It's like you saw this struggle in ancient Israel

00:41:57when Samuel's having to deal with the fact that the people now want a King. They want to be like

00:42:03everyone else, and they don't want to be ruled by the priestly sect anymore. They want to be ruled

00:42:10by the political sect. So, they go get Saul, right? And then they get David, and then we get

00:42:16Solomon, and then we get just mess after mess after mess. The whole thing's a mess. For every

00:42:23one good King, there's like four bad ones. Again, all driven by what? Selfish ambition and greed.

00:42:31But what's interesting is all through history, the political class wants to be endorsed by the

00:42:39religious class. And that's just not distinct to Christianity. That's in almost every situation.

00:42:48They want the priestly sect to endorse the king sect. So, there's always this weird

00:42:54relationship going on. My problem is that with Christianity, I see a philosophy and a worldview

00:43:03of Jesus that's so different than dominionism. It's 180 degrees. It's servantism. It's not about

00:43:13ruling over others. It's about serving others. That's the transformative message.

00:43:20For people who are unfamiliar with history, during that time period between Jesus and Constantine,

00:43:30the Roman Empire was plagued with plagues. All kinds of plagues. And what would happen

00:43:40was the wealthy, who had their summer cottages on the ocean in the Mediterranean out in the country,

00:43:47all fled the urban areas to go to the rural areas to avoid hitting the plague.

00:43:56But the poor remained. Well, who went in there to help the poor? The Christians.

00:44:03Yeah.

00:44:04The reason why Christianity became so influential in the Roman Empire

00:44:10was because there was a whole group of people who cared for others more than themselves

00:44:16and did what Jesus said in John, there's no greater love than to lay your life down for another

00:44:22and went into these plague riddled cities and nurse these people and died doing it.

00:44:29Right.

00:44:30That's influence.

00:44:32It's so backwards because when you do it the other way and you don't convert the hearts,

00:44:37but you forcibly go try to take over and try to enforce whatever is your religious philosophy,

00:44:43what happens is the children who grew up under that oppression, it is oppression. You have people

00:44:49who are being oppressed, good or bad, whether you agree with the laws that are being pushed or not,

00:44:54they feel like they are oppressed. They do not agree with what is being dictated to them.

00:45:00So the children rise up and they try to overtake it. They see the oppression of their parents,

00:45:04they rise up, and now you have small wars. That's the other thing that really bothers

00:45:08me about this because as you try to enforce all of this mess, what happens is you're creating

00:45:15the next generation of wars for the world.

00:45:18I was explaining to somebody the other day that if you step back again and get the bird's eye

00:45:24view of history, every generation is a reaction to the one before it. That's why history zigs and

00:45:32zags.

00:45:32Right.

00:45:34I'll give you an example right now. They're all freaking out because Gen Z is ultra conservative.

00:45:43So you have this very liberal generation of millennials who now are having conservative

00:45:51kids. And that's my grandkids' generation, right? So I watch all this and it's very fascinating

00:45:58because how did that happen? Like the millennial parents that are very liberal are going,

00:46:02wait a minute, where did that come from? Right?

00:46:06Yeah.

00:46:06It's the same thing that happened with our generation and our dads. You know, the World

00:46:10War II thing. They were, you know, our fathers were military born and raised and disciplined

00:46:18and loyal and institutionally loyal. And then we came along and everything was about rebellion.

00:46:26We did the exact opposite. And that's the way history's always gone. And so to your point,

00:46:31that's exactly it. Whenever you raise a religious generation, the next one will rebel and be

00:46:39unreligious. And the reason for that, again, I'm going to keep harping on this point,

00:46:45is because you've institutionalized it. It becomes about rules and regulations,

00:46:53modifying, forcing behavioral change, and not dealing with the heart.

00:47:00Trying to impose something on people before they've actually had a transformative

00:47:07heart experience where the Holy Spirit's gone in there and flipped the switch from it's all

00:47:12about me to it's all about everyone else. Unless that happens, unless that switch is flipped,

00:47:19I don't care how brilliant your dominion theology is, you are not going to get what you want and

00:47:26you're going to get the exact opposite. And I don't mean to be soapboxing here, but I'm

00:47:31just saying it's so obvious if you're a historian and you just study the facts.

00:47:36They say that the definition of insanity is trying to do the same thing over and over and

00:47:41try to get a different result. What's funny about this is the minister's pushing this thing.

00:47:47If you look at the minister's kids of any minister out there, they're the ones who usually rebel the

00:47:53most, right? Because they're being the most oppressed. They're forcing their opinions,

00:47:57their religion, their ideology on their kids. And they're the ones that go wild, man. And so

00:48:04history repeats itself. But even in the family unit, they're seeing in a small scale what

00:48:08they're trying to do on a global scale. Darrell Bock

00:48:10Yeah, that happened to me actually in 1975. I did not come from an evangelical Christian home.

00:48:19I'd spent 11 years as a Catholic and 7 years as an existentialist. And I had made a decision to

00:48:31follow God in June of 1975. And then in October, I was in Bible school. So I'd only been a Christian

00:48:38for three months, right? So I'm all excited to go to Bible school, only to get there and find

00:48:44out all the other students didn't want to be there. And the common theme, to your point,

00:48:51was they all have been raised in Christian homes. In fact, at least a third of them were either PKs

00:48:56or MKs. And so here I am, all excited to learn about my newfound faith and meet all kinds of

00:49:04other passionate people at school, only to find out they couldn't wait for class to end so they

00:49:11could go skiing or get out of there. They did not want to be there. I had fellow classmates,

00:49:19females that had already had abortions, had already been busted for drunk driving.

00:49:28I've said this before, Franklin Graham was popping wheelies on his motorcycle down the middle of

00:49:33Estes Park. I mean, they didn't want to be there. And I remember when I was raising my kids, I kept

00:49:40having this phrase go through my head, he's the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but he's not

00:49:46your God. And institutionalism wants to force the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the historical

00:49:54God on people. But he's not your God until you have that experience, until you have a John

00:50:01Newton experience, the famous slave trader who finally has this epiphany that, oh my God,

00:50:08I'm wretched. And we get this incredible hymn, Amazing Grace, from a man who suddenly comes

00:50:15face to face with his lust for selfish ambition and greed, his lust for status and stuff, and goes,

00:50:22oh my God, I am so ugly inside. I am wretched, the fact that I would treat other humans this way.

00:50:29And he has this incredible conversion experience, right? And he spends the rest of his life doing

00:50:35what? Serving others. Where did that go? That's what's really bothering me, my soul. I'm agitated

00:50:44about it, because where has that gone? Where has that kind of true conversion experience happened?

00:50:52Now what we want to do is we want to cozy up the political people and have them change the rules

00:50:58and force everyone down this road, which, as we just talked about, is not going to work.

00:51:05Legislating morality, legislating ethics, legislating that, and then forcing people to

00:51:11behave, you get the exact opposite fruit. Darrell Bock

00:51:16Well, it goes back to something that you said earlier. It's the generation after that you see

00:51:20the consequences from the generation before. In the latter rain movements, it began because

00:51:27it came out of the post-World War fears, right? In the latter rain movement, it began as a platform

00:51:32of fear, and they were having large numbers of quote-unquote converts. And if you really think

00:51:38about that, were they really converted to Christianity? Was there really a change of heart?

00:51:45I can't answer that question, but I see volumes of people coming into this thing.

00:51:50And then you look at the leadership that emerged from it. There were various splinter groups that

00:51:54emerged from it, many of which turned into very destructive cults. They had people who were also

00:52:01their converts, many of them who were converts in the latter rain. But what they were taught

00:52:06wasn't something that was a version of Christianity that required a change of heart. In fact, many of

00:52:12them are angry at the world, and they want to forcibly convert the world to whatever is their

00:52:16cult structure. From that emerged charismatic Christianity into the NAR, and many of them

00:52:23traced their roots. God's General is a key example. They traced their roots all back to this,

00:52:28right? So the question for me really forms, out of all of this mess that we see today,

00:52:35was there really a Christian conversion in those people? I'm not going to say that, no,

00:52:41there was none, because I'm certain that there were Christians in there. But the movement as a

00:52:45whole, whenever you see those – there's photos online of like 100,000 people in auditoriums for

00:52:51these latter rain conventions, right? Were there really 100,000 people who said, I want to change

00:52:58my heart. I want to live in the way that the New Testament teaches. I want to live like Jesus said,

00:53:03love God, love your neighbor as yourself. I want to start with that fundamental and then build

00:53:08Christianity on top of it. Was there a change of heart? And what you see instead in the movements

00:53:15that exist today, if there is opposition, rather than try to show them a better way and teach them

00:53:22like is shown in the New Testament, they want to force them and say, we're stronger than you,

00:53:28we're now more number than you, we want to forcibly convert you. And it shows that there

00:53:34wasn't a change of heart for at least the people that we see publicly.

00:53:37Pete Yeah, one of the things, you and I

00:53:39talked before we got on the air, was there's a common theme all the way through the groups

00:53:47that embrace dominionism, which is they're oppressed. They're in a weaker position.

00:53:55It's always the person in the weaker position, and it's sort of like a wrestling match. And what

00:54:03they're trying to do is a reversal. Like you're on the bottom, and now I'm going to do a reversal

00:54:09move so I can be on top. But it's always about being on top. That's what concerns me. Because

00:54:16Jesus kept talking about the fact that the guy in the bottom actually has the power. See, this is

00:54:22the clash of these kingdoms to me. It's like this collision here that we're talking about

00:54:27between the kingdom, the real kingdom of God, and how it operates versus this geopolitical version

00:54:35of the kingdom of God, where we dominate others and we control them. That's the real struggle.

00:54:41And I think if you go back to what you just talked about, what was driving all these guys?

00:54:50Well, they were poor. They were in a minority. And I'm talking about the latter reign guys.

00:54:56They're all poor. They're all in a minority group, like all the other minority groups

00:55:06who now want to do a reversal because they want to be on top. They want to be in control.

00:55:12So what's really driving it? Is it really about Jesus in the kingdom of God,

00:55:17or is it about their need to control others and their lust for status and stuff? That's what I

00:55:23think is the million-dollar question, because whatever that is underneath, whatever's driving

00:55:28it, whatever the root is, I think that's the big question. And from my understanding of Jesus'

00:55:37worldview, you can judge the root by its fruit. Pete Turner Absolutely.

00:55:43What happens? And we've just discussed it's never worked. Well, the reason it most likely

00:55:52has never worked was the motives way back in the beginning weren't right. It wasn't driven

00:55:58by a love for others. It wasn't driven by laying your life down for others. It was driven by me

00:56:07wanting to be seen as somebody powerful and influential and me wanting to have more stuff.

00:56:16That's really what was driving it. So again, where we got to be careful here is you can get a guy in

00:56:24the pulpit, and he can be a great orator and a great speaker and be a dynamic personality,

00:56:31and it all sounds good, but what's really driving it? So I think to probably use an overused

00:56:42kind of word picture, it's the men of Issachar who knew the times and seasons. I think

00:56:48right now, more than ever, we really need to be discerning and get to what's underneath things.

00:56:56What's really driving it? Not what they're saying, not what it looks like, right? It's not

00:57:02about words and pictures. It's about what's driving this. What is the motive here?

00:57:08Darrell Bock You know, that's exactly right,

00:57:10and I've been trying to think what's the solution to this. There really isn't a good solution

00:57:16because you have so many people that are claiming Christianity but have obvious signs by their fruit

00:57:23that they have no change of heart, and more problematic than that is there are people in

00:57:28leadership now who don't show and display the fruits of having learned what is Christianity.

00:57:34For me, it was as simple as I read the New Testament, I read the Old Testament, I read it all

00:57:40over and over and over, washing all of this nonsense out of my head, but I read it in a

00:57:46critical way. I critically thought about what I was reading, and if you can read it in that way

00:57:52and you can critically think about what it is you're reading, you understand the consequences

00:57:57of the actions that were taken in the Bible by certain people. You see the consequences of their

00:58:03actions, and that's one of the biggest, I think that's the most powerful thing for me to read and

00:58:09understand is learning that there are consequences to the many actions. But I don't know what the

00:58:14answer to this is. Maybe let's do this. Let's open it up to the audience. What do you think

00:58:19is the right way to solve this problem? Just let us know in the comment feeds.

00:58:24Pete Yeah, we love the comments. What it tells us

00:58:28is that you're an engaged audience, that you're listening, you're pondering these things,

00:58:35and you're coming back with a perspective because the thing that I've learned in life is that

00:58:43it's like Paul wrote in Ephesians, the manifold wisdom of God, the many-faced,

00:58:48the many-faceted. So John and I are two guys just trying to dialogue back and forth and share our

00:58:55perspectives, but when we hear from the audience and you guys share your perspective, it's really

00:59:01great to hear, and we appreciate it very, very much, and I'm grateful that you're so engaged

00:59:08with the issues that we're talking about. Darrell Bock

00:59:11I was actually a little surprised after the first few that we did. I thought we were going to get

00:59:15an onslaught of hate mail. We actually didn't get very much. We'd got a few, but there wasn't

00:59:21much, and the comments seemed to be overwhelmingly positive, which tells me there are people out

00:59:26there who really want to critically think. So I'm actually – I'm glad that this is helping.

00:59:32Pete Yeah, we got a good audience of people

00:59:35listening in that I don't take that for granted. Darrell Bock

00:59:40Yeah. Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on

00:59:43the web. You can find us at william-branham.org. For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic

00:59:49Reformation, you can read Weaponize Religion, From Christian Identity to the NAR, available on

00:59:55Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

01:00:43We'll see you next time.

Dominion or Delusion: The Lust for Power and "Stuff" - Bob Scott - Podcast Episode 335

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