Drinking and Homosexuality in the Message

While William Branham and other leaders in the Post WWII Healing Revivals took a strong position against drinking alcohol in their doctrinal teaching, the reality was quite different. Many leaders in the movement were drinking alcohol and some of them in Branham’s inner circle were profiting from alcohol.

Branham’s brother Howard drank alcohol and was the owner of a bar back home in Jeffersonville[1] while he traveled with William Branham and Ern Baxter. Branham himself entered the ministry in Roy E. Davis' Pentecostal Baptist Church of God sect, and Davis publicly described his church as being full of drunkards on most Sundays, much to the protest of other church leaders in the local area.[2]

In my own church in this city I have had to leave the pulpit to raise drunken men out of the laps of members of my congregations. I have had to take women—drunken women—by the arm in the presence of my congregation and lead them to seats. It is not an uncommon thing to see from one to half dozen "drunks" in my audience.[3]
- Rev. Roy E. Davis (While Branham was an elder in the church)

Davis and Branham partnered with former Congressman and revivalist William D. Upshaw,[4] and Upshaw was the face of alcoholic "healing elixirs" such as Sargon[5] — even though Upshaw was also the face of the Prohibition movement in the United States and ran for President under the short-lived Prohibition party.[6] A. A. Allen, who joined Branham’s revivals,[7] was often drunken and was caught driving under the influence.[8] The KKK’s supreme religious chaplain who also held revivals with Branham and Davis, Rev. Caleb A. Ridley, was also caught driving under the influence.[9]

The most interesting of all, however, is Branham’s partner in the revivals from 1947 to 1953, Ern Baxter.[10] According to William Branham’s publicist, Rev. Lee Vayle, Ern Baxter was a "womanizer" and a drunkard. When Baxter and Branham traveled to India after Branham prophesied that the world would hear of "tens of thousands time tens of thousands being saved in India",[11] Baxter allegedly boarded the plane drunk and offended the people of India with his advances toward women.

And I'm going to speak very plainly, and I've said it before. And I'm not the least alarmed to say it, because it's the truth. Baxter was a womanizer. He even got drunk on the plane and came off doing the goose-step and everybody laughing at him. In India, he consorted with women. They came to Brother Branham and said, 'Is it right for the father to have these women?'[12] - Rev. Lee Vayle, Branham's parter and publicist

It should come as no surprise that Branham's alleged India Prophecy ended in failure.

And when…I had been very much constrained to go to—to India. And yet, as many of you might know, the Indian trip wasn't the success that it should've been, because I failed to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit[13]
- William Branham

Drinking alcohol, drunkenness, and "womanizing" was not the only double-standard in Branham's healing revivals. According to many witnesses, there were multiple homosexual men in Branham's inner circle — and even some of the rank-and-file members of Branham's cult of personality were aware that they were homosexual. The most notable of the homosexual men were Gene Goad and Leo Mercier, the two men that William Branham entrusted with the recording and distribution of his sermons, collectively called "the Message".

In 2000, William Branham's close friend, partner, and publicist, Lee Vayle, finally admitted that many homosexuals were engaged in homosexual acts within Branham's inner circle.

I believe it was about 1956 and no later, that Leo and Gene, Leo Mercier and Gene Goad, God told Bro. Branham to hire them; two homosexuals. So I want you to get the drift of what I'm saying. This, what I'm talking about here, where God made Himself known, and through a Prophet, is where men turned back and the homosexuals were standing right there to take over.[14]
Lee Vayle, Godhead P19, July 1, 2000

William Branham made no efforts to stop or even to dissuade his secret homosexual community within the leadership, yet continued to preach strongly against homosexuality as a sin.[15] Branham frequently took men on hunting or fishing trips and took photographs with them holding hands in an affectionate manner. He also photographed himself lying on the crotch of other men. When transsexual Leslie Douglas Ashley and Caroline Lima were on trial for murder in Houston,[16] Branham left his planned hunting trip during the 1963 Mystery Cloud event to save the transsexual — but made no mention of trying to save the girl.[17]

According to Rev. Willard Collins, former pastor of the Branham Tabernacle in Jeffersonville, Indiana, no attempt was made to "abstain from all appearance of evil.[18] Branham placed himself into precarious positions with men, offering to sleep with them in piles of hay or alone in bed together.

One day, he said, "Let's go down to your dad's squirrel hunting." I said, "Okay". Well, we went down there, he said, "We'll hunt tomorrow and we'll stay all night and hunt the next day." And I said, "Okay".

We got there and he said, "Now, I saw a pile of hay out in the barn. You and me will just sleep out there."

My mother found out about it. She said, "You're not sleeping in the barn! You're going to sleep in my bed. Well, that was the first time that I had the opportunity of sleeping with him!
- Rev. Willard Collins, Pastor of the Branham Tabernacle until 2015 (Audio below in "Quotes")

References

[1] 1952, Mar 14. St. Patricks Party. Jeffersonville Evening News. "Ask for a Irish Shillelagh so tasty. Howard Stockhoff, Howard Branham, Kenneth Miller"

[2] One Preacher on Another. 1930, Feb 8. Courier-Journal. "Our brother's sad and disgusting experience in having to stop his services to eject drunks from the building is unique and exceptional. So far as I can discover no other pastor has had a similar experience. {...} Our Brother is but furnishing the very crowd that has sought to make prohibition odious by their uter [sig] disregard of the law, propaganda for their fight"

[3] A Preacher on Prohibition. 1930, Feb 5. Courier-Journal.

[4] Branham, William. 1958, May 21. Behold, I Stand At The Door And Knock (58-0521). "He said, 'If that man could tell me…' Said, 'Dr. Roy Davis ordained you in the Baptist church, didn't he?' I said, 'Yes.' Said, 'He was the one, sent me here.' He said, 'If God has let you know how I was hurt, yeah, I can get out of this chair.' And out of there he went, and run to the platform, and touched his toes, and just as nimble as a sixteen-year-old boy. Congressman Upshaw, at Billy Graham's meeting in Washington, DC, stood on the steps and sang Leaning On The Everlasting Arm."

[5] Hon. W. D. Upshaw Endorses Sargon In Strong Terms. Ex-Congressman Says He's Simply Following Golden Rule in Telling Others of Great Benefits. 1930, Oct 20. Portland Evening Express.

[6] William D. Upshaw"The Georgia Cyclone"our candidate for President in 1932. Accessed 2022, Aug 31 from http://www.prohibitionists.org/history/William_Upshaw_Bio.htm

[7] Attend the 5th Annual TVH Convention December 8-11. 1953, Dec. The Voice of Healing. "A.A. Allen, William Branham"

[8] Was it Liquor or Religion: Whatever the 'Influence' Was It Cost Miracle Man $1,000, Church. 1961, Mar 24. Charlotte Observer. "Allen's arrest came on Oct. 21, 1955, according to records in Tennessee. The highway patrol had received complaints about a man in a three-toned Buick speeding through a school zone. Upon his arrest, Allen was taken to Knoxville city jail for a Drunkometer test. The record shows the test indicated Allen had a blood alcohol content of .20 per cent. In Knoxville, a reading of .15 per cent blood alcohol content is by law sufficient for a conviction."

[9] Sick or Well, Dr. Ridley Says He'll Face Trial. 1923, Nov 21. Macon News. "Rev. Caleb A. Ridley will be in Atlanta on December 12 to face trial in recorder's court on charges of drunk and operating an automobile, according to a special delivery letter received from Dr. Ridley by recorder George E. Johnson."

[10] BAXTER, W. J. E. ('ERN' - William John Ernest) (1914-93). Accessed 2022, Aug 31 from http://www.voiceofhealing.info/04_other%20ministries/baxter.html. "Joins William Branham's team: Soon after, Branham asked to see Ern privately and told him he had been in prayer and the Angel of the Lord had spoken to him and told him that he was to be his companion in ministry. He invited Ern to join his team which consisted of himself, Young Brown, Jack Moore and Gordon Lindsay."

[11] Branham, William. 1954, May 15. Questions And Answers (54-0515). "Mark my Word, write It in your pages of your Bible, for It's THUS SAITH THE LORD, 'Remember, when we land in India, you're going to hear of tens of thousands times thousands being saved.' The Holy Spirit has said It. I've wrote It here in my Bible. It's wrote in tens of thousands of Bibles right here, like the resurrection of the little boy, by a vision that He said. 'There is three hundred thousand of them in there.' And you see if that isn't right! There is how the Gospel is going to be preached just overnight. She'll just sweep like that, from place to place."

[12] Vayle, Lee. 2000, Jul 1. Godhead #11. Accessed 2022, Aug 22 from https://leevayle.net/godhead/godhead-11/

[13] Branham, William. 1957, January 26. India Trip Report (57-0126B).

[14] Lee Vayle, Godhead P19, July 1, 2000

[15] Branham, William. 1965, February 19. This Day This Scripture Is Fulfilled (65-0219). "Now where we at? Our whole system has rottened out from under us. I seen the increase in homosexual across the United States has increased twenty or thirty percent over last year. Think of that, man living with man, just exactly like they did in Sodom."

[16] See Leslie Douglas Ashley

[17] Branham, William. 1965, July 25. What Is The Attraction On The Mountain? (65-0725E). "And someone called me, the one that criticized me about that picture of the Angel of the Lord, the one that took it. I had to go to Houston about his son, for he was going in the death row and was going to be killed in a few days. And he met me in there and throwed his arms around me, said, 'Think, the very man that I criticized comes to save my only son!' The humane society give me what they call an oscar, or whatever you want to call it, for saving a life."

[18] 1 Thessalonians 5:22