A Misogynist's Paradise

I'm still not completely sure how my parents found Branhasim. They were both very vague about the whole thing, but I think they were introduced to it through some friends or by a stranger at a religious event they went to.

My parents were not particularly religious at this time. My father was likely more religious than my mother, but neither of them attended a church or had a specific religion they followed. My grandparents on my father's side were Greek Orthodox, while on my mother's side they were general Christian/protestant but, like most families, not practicing.

Before Branhasim my mother was a bit of a loner and what you might call back then a “typical country girl”. I know, this sounds like an inappropriate label in the #MeToo era, but it's the best I can come up with to describe her early life, of which I don't really know a whole lot about. A bit of a tomboy, she rode horses and was out in the forest just as much as she was at her mother's dance school learning ballet.

My mother was talented in both areas, equally at home in the saddle as in her dance shoes. My grandmother was a dancer her entire life and started her own school in which became quite well known in the area. It was perhaps one of the better-known schools in the city and when my grandmother retired and left her dance school of 50 years, she was even given a key to the city by the mayor.

Throughout my childhood I remember how much my mother would talk about horses. We eventually owned five horses when I was a teenager. But it was dancing that was my mother's first foray inter entrepreneurship.

Before she met my father she was living alone and was very self-sufficient. Only in her early 20s, she had bought her own small house and had her own private dance business, where she would teach dance classes out of her mother's dance school. She rode horses in her free time and seemed to have a decent handle on life before things unraveled when her boyfriend at the time left her. I think about this sometimes. The act of a breakup and hurt from feeling betrayed led her to take a trip to Montana, meet my father, join Branhasim, and have many hardships in her life. That one decision to hop in the car and take a road trip to clear her head changed her life forever.

Branhasim is not the type of religious group that is supportive of someone like my mother. Independent women with ambition and dreams of their own that do not involve being subservient to a man are not welcome. William Branham had a disdain for women which is clearly evident throughout his teachings.

There is technically no central organization to Branhasim and Branham himself despised organized religion. He never organized his following into one umbrella religion. He had his own church and his followers and then he would go and preach at other churches around the world.

All these churches were in what they call The Message, which refers to the message of William Branham. Each church would follow what Branham taught but would not receive any direction or financial support from Branham's church (free literature and tapes of his sermons were always available, however). Many of these churches had their own interpretation of Branham's message and they would follow his teachings in their own way. What you had was essentially Branham claiming to be the prophet to the last days and interpret the Bible to his followers, and then you would have the leaders of all the different churches in his following providing another level of interpretation of what Branham interpreted.

This leads to two or more levels of interpretation. Some churches were perhaps more liberal than others, but a liberal church is one that allows its followers to have a television and listen to non-religious music. Most churches were, and to my understanding continue to be, very conservative and follow a message that William Branham devised in the 1930s.

In this message the place of a woman is in the kitchen or in the bed. The most desirable goal a woman could achieve in life is to be married, and women must be obedient to their husband no matter how much they might disagree.

Branham taught that a woman could not refuse sex.

If her husband wanted it, she had to satisfy him even if she didn't want to. Birth control is generally frowned upon by Branham followers and children are considered gifts from God, so many Branham families have numerous children. In my own family there were 7 of us, including a younger sibling who passed away very young.

Not only were women meant to have sex whenever their husband's so desired, and not make any attempt at birth control, they were responsible for everything in the household. Taking care of the children, cleaning, laundry, cooking, and every other household chore imaginable was the responsibility of the woman and, when they were old enough, the children. The father and patriarch of the family was not responsible for anything.

Sure, he could lend a hand if and when he so desired. But it was not something he was required to do. Beyond these tasks the wife was responsible to constantly support her husband emotionally and psychologically. She always had to take his side and agree with him even if he is blatantly and obviously wrong. No matter how undesirable the task, if the husband asked the wife to do it, she must comply.

This is the environment in which I grew up.

Thinking about it as I write these words, it angers me at how misogynistic and unfair Branhasim is to women. It makes me wonder why any woman who was not born into it would decide to join or marry into it. Throughout my childhood I cannot recall a time in which my father regularly helped with any chore or household task. He shoveled snow for a few minutes every now and then and when he was alone would do things such as add more wood to his beloved fires in the winter or make himself a cup of tea, but no matter how small the task, my father had six living children and a wife to do anything and everything for him. And they would listen, because to defy him would be the same as defying God.

After meeting my father and joining Branhasim my mother lost everything. Her family. Friends. Business. Home. Independence. Freedom of thought. Everything that made her who she was, was lost, and she became an entirely different person, transforming into the loving and caring wife that was at her husband's beck and call no matter the circumstance or time of day.

I can't help imagining that when my parents got involved in Branhasim, my father must have loved what he was hearing and reading as to the place of women in the religion. Not only did he have a new beautiful wife, but now he would basically have a servant the rest of his life, and possibly more if he had children.

It was total freedom for him to treat his family as his private kingdom, with him on the throne of deceit.

Maybe he didn't think about it in this way, and I'm sure if you ask him, he would say that he didn't. But a part of me always believes that misogynistic men like religions or religious groups that allow their behavior to continue not only unfettered, but in full support of such behavior.

Say you are a man, and you love cookies. Eating cookies is looked down upon where you live. In fact, most people in your country/state/region think it is wrong to eat cookies. Then you find out about a group in which it is okay for men to eat cookies! Eating cookies by such men is not frowned upon, but whole heartedly encouraged in this group! And not all men can eat cookies, only married adult men who have a family. That just happens to be you! If you join this group, you can eat all the cookies you want. Even if you do not say it out loud to anyone, deep down wouldn't you think that this is a good group to join because of this benefit, considering how much you love cookies?

This may be a poor analogy, but to me this is what joining Branhasim is like for misogynistic men.

Like many others, I grew up in Branhasim and knew no different until my teenage years when I started to have contact with some in the outside world. From an early age I had to read assigned chapters in the Bible and Branham's tracts, as they were called, and write reports to my father about what I read and learned. I recall doing this as early as I could read and writing them out on an old school typewriter when I was 8 years old. One thing I am thankful for from this experience – I became an excellent typist at an early age.

It was during my early youth in which my parents first spoke a little about their previous lives before their involvement with Branhasim. I have a vivid memory of my father telling me that he and my mother used to sit on the beach in their bathing suits reading Branham tracts. From afar they likely seemed like normal people, but the words they were reading were anything but normal.

There they were, my father would say disgustedly, reading God's prophet's words in bathing suits at the pool! How ashamed they should have been of themselves!

You see, it's not just the bathing suits that were against Branhasim, but also the very act of swimming. Basically, anything fun that those outside the Message would do was wrong for followers of the Message. Maybe you could swim, but it only had to be in a secluded place far away from the eyes of others who were not in the Message and you must be covered in conservative clothing with not even your ankles showing.

My father used this as an example to describe how terribly filled with sin he and my mother were before they “were saved.” He would also use it as an example to let me know how lucky I was. I was born in Branhasim and knew the truth from birth. I didn't have to deal with any of the horrible things that abound outside.

I only had to concern myself with the Message, what Branhasim taught, and my father's own interpretation of this.