John Collins - Preacher Behind the White Hoods: A Critical Examination of William Branham and His Message

Copyright 2020

John Andrew Collins.

All rights reserved.

Dark Mystery Publications

ISBN: 9781735160917

The great revolution in the history of man, past, present and future, is the revolution of those determined to be free.

- John F. Kennedy (35th President of the United States)

Chapter 1

JEFFERSONVILLE CHILDHOOD

We were raised in the mountains of Kentucky [1]

F or those of us in the Message, Jeffersonville, Indiana was a very sacred place. During Easter each year, Message believers from all parts of the world made their way to the city of Jeffersonville, Indiana, just north of Louisville, Kentucky. My family was no different. Like other families in the religious movement; we had immediate family, extended family, and close friends that lived in or near the Jeffersonville area. Friends and family, however, were not what brought us to the small Southern Indiana town. Our journey was a pilgrimage of religious intent, and our focus was on heavenly things, not the things or people of this world. Still, we were happy to be together again.

I can still remember making the long trip before my family migrated from the Midwest back to Jeffersonville. I remember the spiritual thoughts that went through our minds as we looked out the window of our vehicle and watched the rolling fields pass by. We were headed to a place that felt just like home, even if home was hundreds of miles away and very few of my memories of Jeffersonville had my immediate family or myself in them.

My memories were similar to the memories of others who made the pilgrimage to Jeffersonville: memories of the life and times of William Marrion [2] Branham, the man we believed to be the prophet for our age. They were memories of a humble man with very humble beginnings as a curious child raised in a one-room log cabin in Kentucky with his siblings [3] . Vivid images of memories he shared about being a young boy trapping and fishing to feed his family in the hills of Kentucky flooded my mind at just the thought of hearing his Life Story. At an early age, the prophet had migrated to Jeffersonville, IN, where he would continue his Huckleberry Finn lifestyle long into his adulthood.

I thought about his early days as a young minister. How painful it must have been to suffer the trials that he faced! The loss of his first wife and daughter during the Great Flood of 1937 must have been more than he could bear. Yet he prevailed for the sole purpose of giving us the Message, which we believed to be sent by God Himself to prepare us for the soon coming destruction of the United States.

It was Easter, a time most Christians celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Message believers from all parts of the world traveled to the prophets hometown in Jeffersonville each Easter. There were events and gatherings almost every day during the week of Easter; from picnics at the local parks and singing in buildings or rooms rented for the occasion; to speeches, sermons, and testimonies in practically every place people could gather. We crowded into rented spaces and the living rooms of local Message families. Sure, other Christians were also celebrating the birth and resurrection of Jesus Christ, but we were celebrating much, much more. We came together in reverence for the prophet and his Message. When our car crossed the bridge over the Ohio River into Jeffersonville, we could almost feel the presence of Someone greater. It was very exciting, even for us children; and not just because of the events scheduled to entertain the children and young adults. I looked eagerly through the window of our car, watching the memories came to life and thinking about the places the prophet described in his recorded sermons. As the buildings whizzed by, the windows of our vehicle became moving pictures of those memories; from the mighty Ohio River to the turn-of-the-century buildings and the people out walking on city sidewalks. This was the prophets city!

Jeffersonville was the city chosen by God for the prophet to build his Tabernacle. We were told that angels lined the walls of that building. It was a sacred, hallowed place. The building itself was nothing fancy to look upon, just a simple red brick building that sat on a corner of a small neighborhood city block downtown. It had two glass entry doors that opened to a tiny foyer where one of the churchs deacons usually stood to smile and shake hands as the faithful entered. Above the door to the building hung an eagle, wings spread, holding an actual sword in its talons. The sword had been replaced several times, and it had drawn significant interest in the local community especially that of the neer-do-wells who would steal the weapon from time to time for their own dastardly purpose.

Across the street from the church to the south and to the west sat rows of small houses, almost close enough to one another for occupants to shake hands with each other through adjacent windows. Sometimes people sitting on their front porches would smile and wave at us as we made our way down the sidewalk towards the Tabernacle. We smiled and waved back, and I often wondered if they knew the prophet or the reason why we gathered. People who lived closest to the Tabernacle were not so friendly, however, and did not seem to view our gathering favorably. Im sure that it must have made their lives difficult before and after services as the crowds flowed out of the building and into the streets in front of their homes.

When my journey began, the little red brick building was just as I remembered it as a child. The small, one-story, building could barely hold all of the people that flooded into it each Easter. So many men, women, and children arrived each year that the church purchased the properties to the north and two properties to the west for additional parking. In the new lot adjacent to the Tabernacle, a large tent was sometimes setup for the overflow. Visitors sat and listened to the sermon over loudspeakers that were connected to a short-wave radio, installed in the church during the time that the prophet was alive. Many families, including my own, sometimes chose to sit in the comfortable seats of our vehicles with the air conditioner running while we listened to the service over the radio. The weather in the Ohio River Valley was unpredictable, and you never knew whether it might be raining, hot and humid, or shivering cold.

Regardless of where we chose to listen, the level of excitement was always the same. All of us: men, women, and children, were eager to hear more about the prophet. The service itself was nothing that would excite most people. It included only a simple, humble song service with a piano and an organ that transitioned into Sunday School and finally the sermon. The prophet had instructed my grandfather to avoid all instruments except for the piano and organ in the Tabernacle, and Grandpa had continued that instruction as though it were written in the stone tablets of Moses and handed down through the ages as the final decision. Slow songs were typically favored, since clapping hands during the song service was also frowned upon. Visitors from other Message churches did not share the same set of rules and were unaware of the format for the Branham Tabernacles song service. Sometimes they clapped their hands during songs that their churches sang with greater enthusiasm, so it was easy to tell the visitors from the home crowd.