Did William Branham attend church as a child?
Paul Rader was probably the first national radio preacher in the United Stats. He died in 1938 at the age of 59 and was America's first nationwide radio preacher. He was senior pastor of the Moody Church in Chicago from 1915 to 1921.
Did William Branham attend church as a child?
William Branham often gave the impression that he did not attend church as a child:
- I was raised in a home that was sinful. My father and mother, their people before them are Catholic. And my father and mother married out of the church, and they had no religion at all. And I never was in church till I was a young man, about twenty years old, twenty-five." [1]
But a day after saying this he also stated:
- I love Paul Rader. Oh, I was a little boy, set at his feet back there when he was teaching. He preached. I remember one of his sermons he preached when he was in some land, and oh, what taken place. And he's setting on the log, saying, "I'm riding on it; I'm riding on it." He had malaria fever, or something or other, done blacked out and God healed him, and he believed it." [2]
A couple of months later he repeated this story:
- And I'm hearing that glorious old song "Only Believe," and of Paul Rader, the writer of that song. And I was a little boy setting at his feet when he was writing that song. Guess, little did he know then that would be my theme song around the world. [3]
And again he repeated it in 1956 and was even specific about the church he attended (which appears to have been in Fort Wayne, Indiana:
- ...when I was a little old boy, setting up there at the Rediger Tabernacle, listened to Paul Rader preach, that I'd ever pack his song around the world. How many knows the Rediger Tabernacle, would you hold hand up? Sure.[4]
So he was "never" in church as a child? Really???
Was William Branham good friends with Paul Rader?
William Branham stated:
- How that I've seen, wondered through the meetings, how the leadings of the Spirit. There's a woman setting present now that I wish to speak to. I was in Fort Wayne, Indiana. A great revival was going on there from the B. E. Rediger, and Paul Rader, many of those gallant men. Brother Bosworth was setting; he was at the meeting, speaking. I got up in the Indiana Hotel and they found out I was in Indiana Hotel, and the usher come, a bellhop come told me, said, "Brother Branham, you can't even get down, there's so many people there."[5]
This is troubling because it seems to state that William Branham was in a meeting with both F.F. Bosworth and Paul Rader. However, we know that Bosworth never met William Branham until at least 1947 and that Paul Rader died in 1938.
in 1965, William Branham states:
- I remember my first experience I was at Rediger Tabernacle in Fort Wayne, Indiana. And I was speaking, having a healing service, after the death of—of Brother B. E. Rediger. And Brother Bosworth had been there, Paul Rader. And many of you older men, like me, you remember Paul Rader; and he was a Baptist, and we was, so we were great friends. And so while speaking there, was going to pray for the sick. It was a strange thing to them then. But a lady brought a little boy down, that was crippled, and, as he come across the platform, the vision of the Lord appeared and told him all about what was the matter with the little lad. And I asked the girl to hand—to hand me the little boy.[6]
When was William Branham friends with Paul Rader? It would have to have been before Rader's death in 1938, when William Branham was still less than 30 years old. And how could F.F. Bosworth have known William Branham prior to 1938?
It seems highly improbable that this was the case.
Footnotes