Closing Arguments - A Logical Refutation of Branham's Message

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me”

- English idiom

The question has been asked over and over again: why do people believe the Message? Even setting aside the fact that some of us were conditioned since birth to believe it, why do most of us continue to cling to it into adulthood? What’s the coercive factor behind the extraordinary following the Message enjoys despite the numerous contradictions and additions to the Bible the prophet taught? The answer to this question is simple and open for all to see: it’s because of the supernatural events surrounding the prophet’s entire life. If William Branham was an ordinary preacher with no powers to do anything extraordinary, he would’ve have been dismissed a long time ago by the small number of people who would’ve heard him preach because he most likely wouldn’t even have been heard of beyond his locality.

It’s incontestable that Branham’s supernatural events are the single most compelling factor for people to believe his message. Message introduction cards will almost always have the photograph of the cloud and the pillar of fire photo. As a matter of fact, message introductions will have a statement similar to

‘God promised to send us a prophet in these last days. That prophet is William Branham, and the Lord confirmed this to us: when he was baptizing in the Ohio River… when he appeared on Mt. Sunset…

vindicated his prophet by a pillar of fire… discerned the hearts of people…’ Indeed without the supernatural aspects of Branham’s life, Message Believers have no case to present to people they’re trying to convert.

This is a sorry state of affairs as we shall see shortly. This is indeed the very same way many cults in existence today take in their daily breath of life: by invoking the supernatural abilities of their founders.

And mind you many of these founders have dazzled hundreds of thousands of people with their extraordinary powers, just like William Branham. Message Believers tend to have a false perception that William Branham is the true prophet because he had a great faith healing ministry that attracted hundreds of thousands of people and a lot supernaturalism surrounding his life. If we followed this line of thinking, a lot of people can be validly declared true prophets. William Branham never came close to possessing exclusivity when it comes to faith healing abilities.

Smith Wigglesworth was a British evangelist who began his healing ministry in the early 1900s. He dazzled hundreds of thousands just like William Branham. He used to lay his hands on people and there were many reports of people who had been healed through his prayers. He anointed people with oil and also passed out healing handkerchiefs like William Branham, one of which was sent to King George V. He had an amazing international ministry, travelling to many countries in North America, Europe, Africa, Oceania and Asia. Wigglesworth claimed to raise several people from the dead. Many people, including other evangelists, came forward and testified that they had witnessed God performing extraordinary miracles through Wigglesworth.

Oral Roberts is the next candidate for the faith healing discussion. His healing ministry amazed millions all over the world. He travelled to almost all continents in this world and gathered huge crowds and many claimed to have received miraculous healings as a result of Oral Robert’s meetings. He claimed his life was surrounded by supernatural events, including visions of Jesus telling him to build centers and things. He said that Jesus appeared to him in person in 1983 and instructed him to find a cure for cancer.

It’s safe to say William Branham’s miracle ministry comes nowhere close to the success Robert’s

ministry achieved. Roberts is credited for founding the prosperity gospel – God wants us to be rich, in a nutshell.

Let’s not leave the faith healing podium without mentioning Aimee McPherson, founder of the Foursquare Church. Although she did not make faith healing the central focus of her ministry, many people claimed physical healing. Aimee vigorously pursued the idea of a bigger role of women in the church and was therefore obviously famous with Christian women in America. Around 1925 she began her famous tent revivals, and her preaching reached millions through the media.

Some other prominent Christian leaders are not credited with faith healing but they derive their influence from the supernatural events they say surrounded their lives. Joseph Smith, the founder of the Christian cult known as Mormonism, told us that he had extra ordinary events in his life. He said that he had his first vision in 1820 when God told him that all churches are false. He claimed that he had supernatural powers to locate treasure. He was visited one night by an angel named Moroni who gave him the golden plates among other artifacts, and describes many other paranormal events surrounding his life. Smith was taken at his word by some people and as a result, millions of people across the world are now affiliated to Mormonism.

Ellen White’s ministry founded the Seventh Day Adventists movement. Supernatural events were reported around Ellen’s life since 1844. She saw visions, one in which she saw the Advent people rising higher and entering the New Jerusalem. She also saw other visions, such as the new earth and the bridegroom visions. These supernatural events provided Adventists with proof that what they believed in was indeed true and that they indeed were headed for heaven.

These narrations are meant to help you realize one important thing - that Miracles, especially faith healing miracles, are NOT exclusive to Branham’s ministry. There are many other people who have had successful faith healing campaigns before millions of people across the world just like William Branham.

There are also many people who have had incredibly mystic abilities, but they weren’t even Christians.

The authors of the Bible anticipated this scenario. To guard against such people coming against the doctrines the authors laid down, they told their audience that there would walk evil people on earth with powers to perform miracles and that there would be people in hell who performed miracles in Jesus’ name during their time on earth (Mathew 7:22-23). Please take a moment, let that sink in. This was very prudent of them, given that people with amazing supernatural abilities exist across many religions.

The supernatural stories surrounding Branham’s life played different roles in his ministry. We have the numerous stories told in books such as the Supernatural series where it is told of how he had mystic abilities even in normal life situations, but many people (including many Message Believers) have not heard of most of these stories. Then we have those that Branham himself relied on in convincing people that he was a true prophet of God. He talked about them from the pulpit in many instances, and people strongly hold these supernatural events as evidence of God’s endorsement of Branham’s teachings.

These are the events we’d like to address.

William Branham says that when he was born, a halo of light hovered over him. As a child, he would hear a strange voice over and over. The voice told him not to drink or smoke since a special job was awaiting him once he became of age. He says that one day, when he was baptizing the seventeenth person in the Ohio River, a voice spoke from the heavens and said that his message would forerun the second coming of Jesus Christ. He claims that he made seven special prophecies that were all to come true, such as the one about Hitler’s death. He claimed many other supernatural things, such as being visited by angels and numerous visions.

These are indeed the events that convince people to believe that William Branham was a true prophet of God. These same kinds of events convince Mormons that Joseph Smith is a true prophet of God.

These same varieties of events convince Seventh Day Adventists that Ellen White was God’s true messenger. And the list continues. A Message Believer will claim that Branham is an exception because the supernatural events surrounding the founders of the other religious groups cannot be proven to have truly happened. It’s important to note that similarly, no one can truly confirm to us that most of the things Branham talks about truly happened.

Surprisingly, the events Branham relies on the most are the hardest to verify. No one testified to us as having seen the pillar of fire when Branham was born. No one else heard the voices that haunted Branham during his childhood. We don’t have any reports or witnesses who heard the voice talking to Branham at the Ohio River and telling him that his Message would forerun Jesus’ second coming. We take Branham’s word for it – we believe these stories just because he told them. Just like the Mormons take Joseph Smith’s word, Adventists take Ellen’s word and Muslims take Muhammad’s word about the supernatural events surrounding their lives, Message Believers take many of Branham’s stories that he relies on to be factual despite the lack of evidence or witnesses to confirm them.

Some of these ‘supernatural’ events and entities have been proven false or at best questionable, such as the sunset cloud, the Texas pillar of fire photograph and his healings which saw people ending up dead after they’d been supposedly healed. As for the famous seven prophecies, do you realize that he told us about them after those very things contained in the prophecies had already happened, claiming that ‘he said back in 1933 that they would happen’? Again we’re supposed to take his word for it and believe that in 1933, he actually prophesied that those things would happen, despite the lack of records or witnesses to the alleged prophecies.

A good proportion of the supernatural aspects Branham relied on from the pulpit fall under two categories: false or unverifiable. Those that are false include stories such as the cloud on Mt. Sunset and the cases of miraculous healings that did not succeed, leaving the sick people dead even after being supposedly healed. Those that are unverifiable include stories such as the pillar of fire shortly after his birth and the voice that spoke from heaven during the Ohio River baptism telling him that his message would forerun the second coming of Christ. Yet these very events that are either unverifiable or false form the very basis upon which many people believe that William Branham was the true prophet of God! This, indeed, is a sorry state of affairs. The supernatural events surrounding Branham’s life are not proof that his message is true. If anything, those supernatural events that have been proven false, such as the Sunset cloud, confirm that he was indeed one of the greatest deceivers to ever walk the earth.

99 Ridiculous argumentation by adherents of the Message

Despite the irrefutable evidence that clearly exposes Branham’s deceptions, Believers who have come across such evidence continue to believe that the message is true. Let’s explore this strange phenomenon. Through a process we may call rationalization; we may fall back to a convenient explanation whenever anything we believe in has been proven false. Some thinkers refer to this process as ad hoc reasoning, which essentially involves the generation of an alternative explanation. This regrettable technique involves employing another procedure we may call spontaneous creation in order to validate the assertion that has been proven false. This is one of the most frequently used methods by Message apologists.

Demonstrating this course of action is not difficult. To show that any statement can be rationalized as truth, we’ll use a statement that is not true for the purposes of this discussion. Let’s say for instance (for the purposes of this discussion) that Branham said that [the Biblical] Cain served two terms as president of the United States. A former Believer, after doing the necessary investigations, comes forward and refutes this statement. He then presents his argument before his or her former pastor. The pastor, after prayerfully searching for an answer (and verifying that Cain was not president of the USA), responds to this refutation by saying that Branham meant that one of the presidents of the USA would be possessed by the spirit of Cain, and therefore the statement is true.

The initial false statement has been rationalized by spontaneously creating another idea that was not in the original statement, that an actual president would be possessed by the spirit of Cain. This preposterous procedure of rationalization is used to excuse the myriad of deceptions evident throughout Branham’s sermons which Message Believers believe to be God’s voice, including strange allegations of the world being square, successfully injecting animal embryo cells into the human blood stream, woman being designed by Satan and so forth. This is the first method to look out for.

When an individual, with the aim of protecting a false doctrine, spontaneously creates a new explanation that was clearly not included in the original statement, your initial reaction needs to be a rejection of that creation. A good example of this wanting method is demonstrated by Rebecca Branham, who after noting the irreconcilable aspects of the Sunset cloud story, changed the story in her Only Believe magazine to imply that Branham didn’t say he was on the hunting trip when the cloud appeared. She instead said that Branham saw a vision that he would go on the hunting trip several days later – despite the numerous quotes in which Branham says that the cloud appeared during his hunting trip.

Another barren argumentation method commonly used by Message proponents is circular reasoning, also called circulus in demonstrando. Basically, the use of such a method may be demonstrated in such an argument as this one: Everything Branham said is true. Since everything he said is the truth, this means he was a true messenger of God. Since God cannot tell lies, everything Branham said is true. This may be a little confusing to grasp, but finding out whether you’re a victim of such thinking is not difficult. If you believe that Branham’s message is true because he said so, then you’re definitely using this method to convince yourself on a daily basis that the Message is true.

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Message Believers accept as true Branham’s assertion that the Sunset cloud was Jesus because Branham said so. They say Branham’s assertion that the strange light in the Houston Coliseum photograph was the Israelite pillar of fire is true because Branham said so. Branham, according to them, was the seventh messenger - because he said so. This situation is anything but novel. As we have seen earlier, Mormons believe Joseph Smith to be the true messenger because he said so, and Jehovah’s Witnesses believe Charles was the true messenger because he said so. This kind of thinking may seem very dull, but it’s one of the most powerful forces that drive belief in false doctrines. When confronted with the evidence that proves that Branham was an incredibly crafty deceiver, a Message sister, contributing to a message discussion, responded as follows:

“God bless you my brother, I have read the *material+ you posted and yes it has a lot. But there is one thing that makes this message the truth. And makes being a Christian sound insane. It’s never about proof but always about believing.”

The bold faith displayed by this sister will make a Message Believer shout a good number of ‘amens’. But there is something fundamentally wrong with this argument, in that it can be used to protect each and every false doctrine on earth. It also tends to suggest that something is true just because people believe in it by faith. Out of such an unfortunate scenario, a Mormon lady, when presented with proof that her beliefs are false, may successfully invoke the ‘never about proof but always about believing’ argument and successfully send you off, and she’ll be left still clinging to her ridiculous beliefs. An Adventist will similarly tell you that going to church on Sunday is wrong – similarly invoking the belief argument since we don’t have any Biblical support for such an assertion. This shows that believing in something by faith does not imply that it’s true. Mormons believe Smith was a true prophet by faith. Adventists believe Ellen was the true messenger by faith. And despite the numerous evidence to the contrary, Message adherents believe that Branham was the true messenger – of course by faith.

The other commonly used form of irresponsible argumentation used by Message apologists is the use of force, also known as argumentum ad baculum. They’ll tell you something like this for instance: “my dear brother you are blaspheming the Holy Spirit by speaking against Branham. Remember this sin cannot be forgiven, in this world or the next therefore do not speak against the true Message of the Hour,” or “may God forgive you for what you’re doing. Do you not fear what God can do? The message is true.” This corrupt form of argumentation has the effect of instilling fear in the opposing party. Another use of this method may be demonstrated as follows: “a man tried to disprove the prophet just like you. The prophet says that he was smitten with cancer and tuberculosis .This shows that Branham was a true prophet.”

This scheme is utilized by members of many other cults, and the Muslims too. Another cunning use of force is the act of appealing to your emotions. “A person who had never walked before was healed by the prophet. He raised a young boy from the dead. He spoke against racism. He advocated for morality especially for women. He never got rich from his ministry. He was a righteous man who was from the Lord indeed.” The important thing to remember about the use of this method is that the statements made do not address the evidence that proves the opposing party right.

Argument from ignorance is also commonly used in protecting Branhamism. Also called argumentum ad ignorantiam, the user of such a method implies that something is true just because it cannot be proven

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otherwise. In their article Common objections against William Branham, Brian Gan Arts imply that Branham was right in saying that Capernaum sank into the sea, saying that this is so because it cannot be proven or disproved. The danger relating to the use of this method is that no one can prove or

In document A Logical Refutation of Branham's Message (Page 95-106)