William Branham-Prophet Of God

On March 18th, 2004, I attended church at Cloverdale Bible Way. It was a truly disturbing experience. A friend of mine had asked me to accompany him to the service, where he was meeting an acquaintance from his old high school. My friend and I were both practicing Christians at the time, and the idea of checking out a new church was something that appealed to me. 

The congregation of Cloverdale Bible Way are adherents to the teachings of a man named William Marrion Branham. I had no idea who Branham was, nor did I have any prior knowledge of Branhamite practices. 

Arriving at the church, I noticed that many of the cars in the parking lot bore license plates from Washington State, and even Oregon. I would later learn that these people make the drive from their respective states every Sunday morning, to hear the plenary verbal word of god. 

At the front door of the church, we were greeted by the young man that my friend knew from high school. He called me brother and shook my hand. We went inside and he explained to me the code of conduct in the church. Women were not to be spoken to unless they are your wife, address other men as "Brother", and remain in silence while in the sanctuary before the sermon is delivered. My friend and I were introduced to several other members of the congregation, all of which were clean shaven men in suits. The women wore long skirts and some had their hair in a single long braid. 

We eventually sat down in the sanctuary, which was rather like the sanctuary of any other church, save one detail; the people all sat in complete silence......just staring. After an hour, a man came out of a door behind the pulpit and began to speak to the now standing congregation. He was basically like a hype-man for the pastor, who was very old, and who I think may have passed into the throneroom of god. After working the crowd into a frenzy, the pastor came out of the same door and launched into a long, confusing, incredibly convoluted sermon about the end times.....which is what Branham and his ites are waaaay into. The sermon lasted at least three hours, and was regularly punctuated by shouts from those members of the crowd who were feeling particularly zealous on that day, and most assuredly filled with the most righteous indignation. 

Following the sermon was impossible. The way the minister spoke was bizarre, with lots of yelling and wild gesticulations. I'm confident no one in the audience had any idea what on earth he was talking about. We visited with my friend's friend for a while, and it was during this time that I realized this man actually believed that William Branham was god's anointed prophet, and that his teachings were more authoritative than those of Christ, and of all scripture. Most Branhamites are obsessed with the end times, and end time prophecy, and this was further reflected by what our friend was telling us about how the church was eagerly awaiting the apocalypse, and the return of the prophet Branham. Interesting. 

The whole ordeal left me feeling strange, and remains my online real life experience with a legitimate cult masquerading as regulars Christian wieners. If you ever want to experience something off-putting and full of the most genuine false hope, attend a service at Cloverdale Bible Way.

http://www.bibleway.org/home.do#path=/services/latestservices/11-0112

Real wild vibe.

"They teach that Eve had sex with both the Serpent (a monkey-man before he was cursed to be a snake) and Adam. The fruit was the symbolic knowledge of sex. Cain and Abel are twins born from different fathers. Cain is a human-monkey-type hybrid where negros, wisdom teeth, apendixes and all of our imperfections came from. Our genes now are polluted, some more than others but Christ dying supposedly forgives us for this. They have extreme conservative views of sex and hate woman because of this belief. Women serve men, don't work and are the fault of everything bad in this world including disease, weeds, insects and storms."