Sexism, Misogyny, Abuse: The War on Women from Branham to Now

William Branham's "Message" cult and similarities within contemporary American evangelicalism

“Now, there is nothing designed that can deceive, and be deceived, as easy as a woman. There is nothing designed or can stoop as low as a woman can.” — William Branham, February 21, 1965¹

“When a woman gets out of the kitchen, she’s out of her place. That’s right. That’s where she belongs. Outside of that, she has no place.” — him again, May 13, 1956²

The above quotes seem like they could have been written yesterday by any number of “theobros” on X/Twitter or the (mostly) Presbyterian pastors who famously claimed author Aimee Byrd should stick to sharing “some good sammich recipes,” but they come from cult leader William Branham, who died 59 years ago in a head-on collision with another male driver (ironic in itself since Branham often claimed that women accounted for nearly all automobile accidents and “They oughtn’t never let a woman behind a wheel”).³

Branham is gone, but his influence remains. In last year’s election, members of the New Apostolic Reformation resurrected an ambiguous Branham “prophecy,” claiming Kamala Harris would be the wicked, powerful woman who fulfilled it.⁴ (“Beautiful as she was, she was yet cruel, wicked and cunning. She dominated the land with her authority, and she had complete power over the people”).⁵ But Vice President Harris lost the election, so back to the drawing board (watch a series of quotes from Branham about women, women’s voting, the kitchen, and this prophecy here).

Branham disciple (and self-proclaimed apostle) Raymond Jackson, the pastor of my youth, declared in November 1995 that Hillary Clinton would be this wicked woman. He preached this incessantly for several years. Those who left in the decades after me say the prophecy shifted to Michelle Obama, then back to Clinton, before settling on Harris last year.

The prophecy is one of seven visions Branham claimed to receive in 1933, although he didn’t tell anyone about them until 1953. The wording and even content of these visions changed each time he told them, although key themes remained. Preceding his claim about a “cruel, beautiful woman,” Branham said:

God showed me that women began to be out of their place with the granting of the vote. Then they cut off their hair, which signified that they were no longer under the authority of a man but insisted on either equal rights, or in most cases, more than equal rights.⁶

Branham then said God had first shown him that women would be given the right to vote in 1933. Women would eventually vote for the wrong man (which he explained to be President Kennedy), “which will finally be to full control of the Catholic church in the United States; then the bomb comes that explodes her.” However, women had won the right to vote in 1920. Further, polls showed that men were more responsible for Kennedy’s election than women.⁷ The Catholic church did not take control of the U.S., nor did this scenario lead to our nuclear destruction.

Several contemporary Christian Nationalist influencers and their legions are calling for the repeal of the 19th Amendment. Joel Webbon, a typical representative, claims the “Christian” position is “one vote per family.” The family member who considers a woman’s opinion would be her husband, father, uncle, or brother. In a viral sermon clip, the same man said he will not let his wife read a book he’s not familiar with, telling her, “I’m not going to let you outpace me.”

Webbon is an extremist, but mainstream leaders also advocate for positions that harm women. The work of researchers like Sheila Gregoire has exposed how the evangelical “purity culture” that began in the 1980s harms girls by, among other things, making them shoulder the responsibility for the lust of boys and even grown men.⁸

When I was a teen in the cult, I got caught making out with my girlfriend, which necessitated a meeting at the church with deacons and our parents (at this church, the pastors had supreme spiritual authority, but the deacons were their enforcers). The meeting was essentially a kangaroo court to berate her for “tempting” me and to caution me against doing anything to ruin my testimony and prevent God from being able to use me for his glory when I grew up (they taught that premarital sex forever disbarred a male from a future in “the ministry”). After a lifetime in this church, my teenage self thought this all made sense. I perceived this message as if the gavel had come down as hard on me as on her. I didn’t realize how much more shame and responsibility had been heaped upon this girl (who was two years younger). I wish I could say this kind of thing was restricted to our cult, but it’s all too common.

For Branham, the problem of womanhood begins in the Garden of Eden. His “serpent seed” teaching (which we’ll cover much more next week when we talk about racism) says that the woman’s interaction with the serpent and the man in Genesis 3 is a metaphor for sex: the serpent seduced her, and then she seduced the man. Both impregnated her, leading to a “seed of the serpent” (Cain) and a true human (Abel). Branham says this shows that “By her beauty and her sex control, her shape that was given to her by Satan, the by-product that Satan did, she is sent to deceive sons of God,”⁹ and somehow, even more incredulously, “Every criminal case was ever done in this United States, a woman was behind it. That's exactly right.”¹⁰

Credible pastors, theologians, and biblical scholars don’t believe this. Still, it’s surprising how many claim that there is something shameful about women (or that there would be something shameful about a man who learns from women). John Piper is far from a heretic and has said many good things. But here, he pontificates that it is only okay for him to learn from Bible commentaries written by a woman because he isn’t face-to-face with her. In a sense, he can forget the author is a woman:

“Here is a truth. A woman saw it. She shared it in a book, and I now quote it, because I am not having a direct, authoritative confrontation. She is not looking at me and confronting me and authoritatively directing me as a woman. There is this interposition of the phenomenon called book and writing that puts the woman as author out of the reader’s sight and, in a sense, takes away the dimension of her female personhood.”¹¹

When you believe something about a woman’s personhood must be taken away, you will fall for all kinds of things. This devaluing leads men to ignore or downplay abuse. In 1997, an embezzlement scandal threatened to destroy Branham-acolyte Raymond Jackson’s ministry (a scandal that he nonetheless mainly kept under wraps through masterful mind control and strongman tactics. It came to light in 2007, three years after his death). On June 1, 1997, he began to shift attention away from a meeting where deacons discussed claims that Jackson was misusing church money. During Jackson’s sermon “Flesh versus Spirit,” he noted that someone had seen cars in the parking lot the day before (because of the meeting).

“The sight of that was communicated into a certain home, as part of the congregation. A certain sister. She could not stay off the phone. ‘What’s going on? What’s going on? What’s going on?’”¹²

When people are enculturated to view women as more gullible and less intelligent or capable than men, and their voices simply less dependable or authoritative, then it is easy for a conman or abuser to dismiss the testimony of women. Jackson cleverly shifted the focus from the meeting to a woman who wondered about the nature of the meeting, playing into a trope that we were apt to believe: “Oh, you know women. Can’t stay off the phone. Gotta gossip. Easily misunderstand ‘church business.’ Just stirring up trouble.” Having primed his congregation thusly, he shifted gears into an attack on the board. It worked.

A similar low view of women made it easy for many Southern Baptist leaders to deny the SBC abuse crisis for decades. Even after ABC News’s 2007 investigation,¹³ many ignored, downplayed, or stonewalled the issue until the dam broke in 2022:

Not only has little changed since then, but just over a year ago, the
”amicus brief saga” showed how a low view of women causes powerful men to use them as pawns, no matter how they’ve already been abused.

An amicus brief is a legal document filed by someone who is not a party to a case but is an interested observer. It’s often a “chess move” because the case's outcome might set a precedent for a future case they will be involved in. On October 24, 2023, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported that The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Southern Baptist Executive Committee, and Lifeway Christian Resources had filed an amicus brief against the rights of a sexual abuse survivor in a case that had nothing to do with them.

The survivor had been raped repeatedly by her adoptive father, a Louisville police officer, in her childhood. She was trying to bring suit against former LMPD officers who allegedly knew about the abuse but failed to report it and who were defending themselves based on the statute of limitations. The SBC entities filed against her because, in the words of their amicus brief, they were “named defendants in a separate civil action pending in a Kentucky circuit court that involves allegations of childhood sexual abuse dating back to 2003.”¹⁴ If they could deny justice to a rape survivor in a current case, then maybe they could keep the woman suing them from ever having her day in court.

When asked for an explanation, SBC Executive Committee members said they had no idea how it happened. SBC President Bart Barber said he signed off without knowing what he was doing and “did not give this decision to file this brief the level of consideration that it deserved,” Lifeway refused to issue any statement.¹⁵ SBTS President Albert Mohler would only say:

“As is often the case in questions of law, significant constitutional and legal questions arise and require arguments to be made before the courts. In such cases we must refer all questions to legal counsel. We respect the rule of law and must work through the process with legal representation, who must speak for us in this case.”¹⁶

This is what happens when women are treated and taught to be “less than” and used as pawns, whether by a fringe cult leader or the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. But this is not how Jesus treated women, as Dorothy Sayers wrote in 1938 (when Branham was building his following). Sayers will get the last word today:

“Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man …. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronized; who never made arch jokes about them …. never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unselfconscious …. nobody could possibly guess from the words and deeds of Jesus that there was anything ‘funny’ about woman’s nature.”¹⁷

At the church of my youth, we used to sing, “To be like Jesus, to be like Jesus / on earth I long to be like him / All through life’s journey, from earth to glory / I only ask to be like him.”

May it finally be so.

Next Monday: William Branham, racism, and contemporary evangelicalism.

1. William Branham Historical Research: “Women,” Accessed January 24, 2025, https://william-branham.org/site/research/topics/women

2. Believe the Sign, “The Misogyny of William Branham,” Accessed January 24, 2025, https://en.believethesign.com/index.php/The_Misogyny_of_William_Branham#cite_ref-21

3. William Branham, “The World is Falling Apart,” para. 211, April 12, 1963, quoted from Believe the Sign, Accessed January 24, 2025, https://en.believethesign.com/index.php/The_Misogyny_of_William_Branham#cite_ref-21

4. James Lasher, “Did an 81-year-old Prophecy Include Kamala Harris as President?” Charisma Magazine, Accessed January 24, 2025, https://charismanews.com/culture/did-an-81-year-old-prophecy-include-kamala-harris-as-president/

5. Jessilyn Lancaster, “William Branham’s 7 Spectacular End-Times Visions,” Charisma Magazine, Accessed January 24, 2025, https://charismanews.com/opinion/the-flaming-herald/william-branham-s-7-spectacular-end-times-visions/

6. William Branham, 1964 retelling of 1933 prophesy, quoted from Believe the Sign, Accessed January 24, 2025, https://en.believethesign.com/index.php?title=Morality

7. Believe the Sign, “Women’s Suffrage,” Accessed January 24, 2025, https://en.believethesign.com/index.php?title=Women%27s_Suffrage

8. Sheila Wray Gregoire, Rebecca Gregoire Lindenbach, and Joanna Sawatsky, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2023).

9. William Branham, Feb. 21, 1965, quoted from William Branham Historical Research, “Women,” Accessed January 24, 2025, https://william-branham.org/site/research/topics/women

10. William Branham, Dec. 8, 1960, quoted from William Branham Historical Research, “Women,” Accessed January 24, 2025, https://william-branham.org/site/research/topics/women

11. Interview with John Piper accessed October 10, 2024, desiringgod.org/interviews/do-you-use-bible-commentaries-written-by-women

12. Charles Paisley, Come Out Of Her My People: A History of The Message of William Branham Vol 2: Hearts of the Children (Independent: Jeffersonville, IN, 2025), 131-32.

13. Baptist News Global, “’20/20′ investigates sexual abuse in SBC, other Protestant bodies,” Accessed January 24, 2025, https://baptistnews.com/article/20-20-investigates-sexual-abuse-in-sbc-other-protestant-bodies/

14. Baptist News Global, “SBC Executive Committee members surprised to learn they filed an amicus brief against a sexual abuse survivor in Kentucky,” Accessed January 24, 2025, https://baptistnews.com/article/sbc-executive-committee-members-surprised-to-learn-they-filed-an-amicus-brief-against-a-sexual-abuse-survivor-in-kentucky/

15. Christa Brown, “The ‘Oopsie’ of That Awful Amicus Brief … and how it served the SBC’s institutional ends,” Accessed January 24, 2025, christabrown.substack.com/p/the-oopsie-of-that-awful-amicus-brief

16. Baptist News Global, “SBC Executive Committee members surprised ….” Accessed January 24, 2025, https://baptistnews.com/article/sbc-executive-committee-members-surprised-to-learn-they-filed-an-amicus-brief-against-a-sexual-abuse-survivor-in-kentucky/

17. Dorothy Sayers, Are Women Human? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971), 68-69.