Vaylism

Lee Vayle taught a number of heretical doctrines including the Parousia doctrine, a view of the Godhead that some refer to as the "Twinity" (the denial of the deity of Jesus Christ and espousing Nestorianism. Some of these doctrines are remarkably similar to some of the foundational beliefs of the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Did Lee Vayle have a Ph.D?

One of our colleagues wrote to Lee Vayle a number of years ago, and got this reply from his assistant:

Brother Vayle only attended post high school for about 6 weeks at the age of 18 years old. He attended a Baptist Bible college and proceeded to get kicked out for teaching the young men to speak in tongues. He received his doctor tag from Brother Branham who said Br. Vayle was an profound teacher and began introducing him as Doctor Lee Vayle. Who better to give him the title of Doctor, than the prophet of our day?"

Marriage and divorce

Lee Vayle stated that:

... I do know that [William Branham] never would marry a person who was married and divorced; no matter what they said or did, he would never do that. Once you're married, divorced, he would not ever marry that person. And I appreciate the fact even after Marriage and Divorce, the sermon, the opening of the Seals, he never deviated from that.

This comment was made notwithstanding the fact that William Branham officiated the marriages of these divorced family members:

1. His brother Jesse Branham’s second marriage - to Agnes Gulleth (also divorced) on August 1, 1938.
2. His brother Jesse Branham’s third marriage - to Mary Merryman on February 1, 1941.
3. His brother Melvin Branham’s second marriage - to Catherine Hendricks on January 27, 1945. Melvin divorced Charlotte Brumbach (the sister of William Branham's first wife, Hope) in June 1944.

Lee Vayle's Teaching

Lee Vayle became widely known in message circles for preaching heretical doctrines and destroying what little unity there was in the message by creating a special group within the message (who already thought that they were a special group).

As an individual, he could become extremely vulgar, to the point where he encouraged men to rape a woman rather than to use seduction.

The Parousia

Now in 2 Thessalonians 1:7, It says, "Those who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels." (That has taken place already in 1963.)

Which so many people don't understand where we stand here in this ministry of Bro. Branham's, on the Presence, which is the Appearing. Every single one of those words has started, and is moving, and moving, and moving--as Christ started to appear, and move into His Church, in 1933! But it was in 1963, that we saw Rev 10:1 join with Rev 10:7, you see, bringing forth the Seals and all. And at that time Bro. Branham said he had to decrease, so that Christ would come more and more, and God would take Headship--God in the form of the Holy Spirit in a Pillar of Fire.

Now this running of the... looking as though the Millennium and the New Jerusalem are run together, so you can't differentiate--you can. This only appears so, because time and eternity have blended. And New Jerusalem is, actually, only a continuation of what we are about to enter into by way of the Resurrection and Rapture, as Christ started coming into the church, through His Appearing in June 11, 1933, and finally took Headship, in about 1963, right when He came down. See? That's the idea. He's got to come down to take Headship in order to raise the dead, finish off that Shout.

Now God left him. The body was raised up and put behind the throne on the mercy seat. But in March 1963, He left the mercy seat, went to the Father's throne, took the Book of Redemption out of the Father's hand, ripped off the Seals, put the Book back in the Father's hands, the Father vacated the throne, and that one climbed upon the throne. Now that's what the Bible teaches according to Bro. Branham. And that's "THUS SAITH THE LORD", because he is a vindicated prophet. All right.

In these places the New World Translation renders Paramia as ‘be present’ or ‘present himself’ from the contrast that is made between the presence and the absence of Paul, both in 2 Cor 10:10, 11 and Phil 2:12. ... The terms Paramia and Parousia are never used for the coming of Christ in the flesh. And Parousia never has the sense of ‘return’. I think it’s the word ‘Parousia.’ Because its put in the Greek there. Let me see if it does? Yeah. I’m not a Greek student. The idea of more than one Parousia is first found only in the latter church not before Justin a basic prerequisite for understanding the world of thought of primitive Christianity is that we should fully free ourselves from the notion of more than one Parousia. I tell you; it’s just one and that’s it.

I found within the Message today there appears to be a split in some of the fundamental teaching, most of you predict the fact that some feel 1963 mark the dispensation of change which precipitated the coming the Parousia of the Lord. ... That's not true. What 1963 was Rev 22:10, and it's not so much a dispensation, it's a winding up of all the mysteries and those things; which started under the Seven Seals, back in the Garden of Eden. Adam could not go to the Tree of Life and live forever. ... So therefore, He's coming quickly at this particular time when the Word divides the people from the non Word. Matthew 24, into those who are now in the Rapture of Luke 17. So therefore this is not of something concerning the Parousia, He's already here. He came in 1933. But he never set Himself the head of the church until the church was set in order by the Word; coming more and more into the church. No problem, just the same as you're going from Israel. If they would of gone on and on, the kingdom... God that was in the holy temple that left the tabernacle, would have been right there to go to the Millennium and right to the New Jerusalem. The coming God, the becoming God, moving on, moving on.

Denial of the Deity of Christ

Lee Vayle denied the deity of Jesus Christ and, as far as we can determine, preached a mashup of Nestorianism and Arianism. It's difficult to tell exactly what Lee Vayle taught on this issue because his teaching was convoluted and complicated. However, this should come as no surprise because the teachings of William Branham on the subject are also confused and convoluted.

Arianism was a heresy first taught by Arius (ca. AD 250–336) in Alexandria, Egypt. Arius asserted that the Son of God was a subordinate entity to God the Father. Similar doctrine is also taught by Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons.

Nestorianism is the heretical doctrine that Jesus existed as two persons, the man Jesus and the divine Son of God, rather than as a unified person.

What we do know is that Lee Vayle and his followers deny the deity of Jesus Christ, believe that Jesus Christ was a man who was simply possessed by God. As a result, they also deny the incarnation.

Here are a few quotes by Lee Vayle that clearly demonstrate the heretical nature of his teaching:

Well, let's just talk about this then, and go back two thousand years at the time of the Lord Jesus Christ when He was upon earth here, the Father indwelling the Son. "This is My beloved Son, and I the Father am pleased to dwell in him." Now neither the Father nor the Son were impersonating each other, or someone or something else, as to their individuality and separateness. In other words, the Father was the Father and the Son was the Son. We're talking of individuals.

...Now, yet the Father indwelt the Son, and yet they had a separateness, and though the two roles were there simultaneously as were the two persons, they still were not one like my finger's one. There is a oneness that you and I can apprehend by scripture, which simply says, "He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit."

...Now, the Son was the physical body and manifested himself, but the Father also manifested Himself through the Son. You say, "Hey just a minute now, we've got this... this is really bad. We've got dual personalities here." Yup. Don't you know the Father actually spoke through the mouth of Jesus? True. "Thy words were altogether in my tongue. You moved my tongue and I heard myself talk." Oh you talk about a dilly! How many heard that tape, where that strange kind of voice speaks through Bro. Branham on the tape, and says, "This is not Bro. Branham speaking, this is the Lord Jesus Christ." How many heard that? Let's get that tape and play it. Find the place and play it. So everybody hears it.

...So, again we have a duality. We have a prophet in whom this Spirit is, which is Almighty God. Giving him the works, which everybody knows has to be of God, vindicating the man is of God, pointing to the words, which that people have to have to get them ready!

...God, His Own prophet, with the man of His choosing, also called a prophet, and William Branham had his role, and God had His role, and they're absolutely individual and separate, and yet one met within the other.

...Now, where is He? On the throne. See, you're looking today at our elder brother, we're looking at Him in every aspect of God in life, that's the family of God, and we're seeing here that He is the author and the finisher. And notice what it says, He sat down at the right hand of God. That's been changed. He's on the throne of God! Waiting for us. That's why Bro. Branham said, "When He died, I was there paying for my sins on Calvary. When He rose, I rose with Him." And the truth is, when He climbed on His Father's throne, then we had to climb on with Him!

All right, now. He's putting the two together; and remember, Bro. Branham said, "Jesus was a dual personality." And we know that the Father indwelt him.

...Now, when we're looking at Jesus, we're looking at duality, and the big thing is this: what if we find that God merely made a body for him, and this Son of God was allowed to inhabit this body and come down here. Could he then do for us what is necessary to be done? No! By no means, no! Because Jesus, the Son, is not Jehovah-Shepherd, although he is the Shepherd, that's conferred upon him. He is not even Jehovah-Savior, although that is also part of it, and conferred upon him. He is not the Supplier; He is not the Healer, though every one of those things are in him on the grounds of him being the Son of God and God Himself operating as all of those nine tremendous characteristics and qualities of grace that God has toward us, were actually poured into Christ, because the fullness of the Godhead was in him bodily.

...God indwelling that body, God was amongst us. And yet It says, "Thou shalt call His name, the born one, Jesus, for he shall save us from our sins." And God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto him. It's a duality, the Father and the Son, but the Son is not God! The Son is the Son of God. He had a beginning. Essentially he is like God, but he's not God. God does not have the value and virtue of being able to make a decision.

...Now right in there you can see this body born, was born with a personality, the man, we call 'Christ Jesus', and at that time, God came in to his very being, and now, as Bro. Branham said, "You have a duality."

...So what we're looking at now is the supreme Deity of Jesus, not as the Trinitarians, not as the Oneness, but we're seeing the supreme Deity of Jesus. God has now invaded him and taken over so that Jesus has now sublet his body to God: God in perfect supremacy, complete Dictator in this body, completely running it, "He that has seen me has seen the Father. You're looking at me, aren't you?" So what is it? he says, "It's not William Branham does these things ever so perfectly, tells these things and they come to pass," nor was it Jesus, the man. It was God. And that was the body of God. Even though it was the body of Jesus, it was the body of God.

...There's more than one place where the Father and Son are a complete unit, a duality: two people dwelling in one flesh, that evidently God Himself prepared for Jesus. And then It says, "God was in Christ reconciling the world."

...the church has made the great mistake in making Jesus equal to God — which he is in a certain way — but he’s not God. He’s not Deity. I’m sorry, but he’s not, because God is not in him. No way. What God was in him is not Deity, same as what God is in you is not Deity, concerning Deity Himself, which is Sovereign God and Creator and Maintainer.

Now with the subject of sovereignty, what I wanted to do was to bring to you the understanding that Jesus is not Deity. When Bro. Branham said, “He’s God, but he’s not God,” in our minds we placed that with the incarnation, and that is true. But, when you realize that in the incarnation, which is to come, when that Spirit that’s in our midst, and that’s the Spirit of God, He will become incarnate to us again.

...

We’re going to talk about, as I said, in the fact of sovereignty, Jesus cannot be Deity. Now Jesus can’t be Deity when we consider true Deity.

...

Jesus definitely is not God. He is the Son of God. And his form, as I’ve mentioned already, Bro. Branham said, “The only difference between God and His Son is that sons have beginnings.”

What do you mean, “sons have beginnings?” Well, sons are procreated. The thought of having a son does not give anybody the ability to create one. The substance must be there in order to be passed on to that person, to bring that person in the likeness of the progenitor.

So, Jesus was the Son of God, which he was. That life had to be already there, and that life simply had to be passed on in a mold, and that mold would have to be what was ever within the intrinsicality and essentiality of Almighty God. That’s why Jesus was the image of God. And that’s why, when God said, “Let us make man in our image,” it was made in the image of Jesus, and it came out a man. That’s why Bro. Branham said, “God was the first man; Jesus, the second; and Adam, the third,” because God comes in threes. What for? Not as persons: one, two, three gods, but in God doing what He did to bring forth Himself through children. As it is said by people, “Men and women achieve a certain immortality by having children.” But, if the line suddenly dies, the immortality is gone.

So, Jesus can’t be Deity, when we consider true Deity. He is the Son of Deity, Son of God, and since elevated by God, he is worthy of worship, but not as God is worshipped. He can’t be. It is wise to regard Jesus, Son of God, in the light of Hebrews, as written by Paul, and glorifying God for His wisdom and power, for so setting us all in divine order.

...

And, how was he equal with God? Because he was the First-begotten Son of God. So therefore, positively, he was equal in the inheritance, because it split the kingdom right down the middle. But God didn’t split Himself down the middle. God didn’t split His sovereignty down the middle. He had an equality, the same as Bro. Branham says, “Satan was one time equal with God and led in the worship.”

Was he equal with God as per Godhead? Oh, don’t be ridiculous. Was he equal, then, in the majesty and the glory and the power? Don’t be ridiculous. He had to be a controller of some description, as the great CEOs are of all the money you’ve got invested in stock, and they act as though it were their own, with their golden parachutes, and their divvying up, and their perks, and God knows what.

...

Now again, in Jn 14:6 - I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. (So, he’s not the Father, and he’s not God. “There’s one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.” [1 Tim 2:5])

And It places it right there that Jesus is not God. See? I’ll tell you: I believe calling Jesus ‘Deity’, which we’ve had people here do that, is an entire misunderstanding or no understanding of Seed: that God is the Father, the Progenitor, the Author, the All in all of a race of His Own children, genetically, legitimately, spiritually, physically, every single way. God is not our Creator; He is our Father; He is our Source; He is our Progenitor. Call it what you want. Out of the Great Fountain, God, came every one of His sons, and nothing else came from that Lifeline, because the Bible says, “In him was life.”

Jesus is not deity, but He was the fullness of the Godhead as deity, which is godhead was within Him, which is a person, two persons in one body of flesh.

Illustration of this teaching in Vayle's followers

Brian Kocourek, a Vaylite preacher, states the following:

Now, Brother Branham is letting us know that God and Jesus were one in that God was indwelling the Body of His Son. But I also want to show you that this Oneness between God and His Son was more than just God indwelling His Son, the fact is that Jesus and God were one because God is the Word and Jesus manifested that Word in the same sense that God was One with His Own Word.

...And that is how God and Jesus are one. The Father is the Word, and when he is doing in His Word, He shows the son what he is doing, and the son sees God in vision doing (whatever it may be), and he then steps into the vision so to speak (the hat has to be on the chair for him to do it, if you recall how brother Branham told us that all the pieces have to be set up in order for him to step into the vision. You just can’t go do until all the pieces are ready) then he would step into the scene and act out in this dimension what he had seen in that other dimension.

...it really comes right down to not believing in incarnation. And I think it is strange that both the Jew and Moslem can believe that a man can be inhabited by evil spirits, or the devil himself, but they deny that God inhabited a man called Jesus His son. And to me they give more power to the devil than they give to God when they believe like that.

General vulgarity

Lee Vayle was often quite vulgar in his sermons and preached some very strange things, including that it would be better for a woman to be raped than seduced:

Let me tell you something: a woman seduced or raped has been taken regardless of how it was done. And I would sooner know that a woman was raped than seduced, because it shows she didn't put her mind to it. She was forced to it. Yes, let's get that flat, you women sitting here, and young people... And men had better rape than seduce, also. Yeah...

People come from around the world. They come over here, and they say, "Vayle's got the worst spirit in the world. Terry Sproule's got the worst spirit in the world. Roger Smith's got the worst spirit in the world. Mike Hunt's got the worst spirit." Why? Because our foreheads are strong. We've not got whore foreheads. Whore foreheads; they can have their whore foreheads. I've got as strong a forehead as the whore any day of the week. Yes, sir. The same ones like the whore, they partake of their miserable, rotten intercourse. And It says, "She commits her intercourse; she charges money for it."

"Join our church. Give so much. We'll pray... We'll pray and get you out of purgatory."

All that kind of hogwash and nonsense. And that whore's forehead: you can't stop her from her adulteries, because it's a real easy, nice life, and she likes it. She's in a business. She's in a racket. A whore's forehead. And when she goes through the act, it's no more than eating a piece of bread and wiping her mouth.

There's your rotten prostitutes of Rome and protestantism. I'm going to tell you what: It said, "Your forehead is going to be strong against their foreheads."

And these guys say, "Oh, no, no, no. You mustn't be that way when they lie about you, and they seduce the Word..." everything else. You're supposed to stand back and say, "Pretty Jesus. Nice Jesus. I'm a nice fellow."

Bro. Branham categorically said that those who leave the Word: "We don't fellowship with them." Get away. They talk about oneness with God. How do you get one with God, until first you're one with the Word?

"Oh," they say, "I don't believe that."

Then you don't believe Logos. Whore's forehead. Jesus set His face like a flint! How did William Branham feel, knowing he's going down that road that day to be killed in that wreck? You say, "It tore his guts up." You bet it tore his guts up.

"Oh, but Jesus didn't have any guts."

Didn't he? "Let this cup pass, but nevertheless let it be Thy will." And he sweat, as it were, drops of blood. He didn't have any whore's forehead. Why didn't he say, "Oh, great Caiaphas, I'll acquiesce. I'll accede the Word!"?

"Oh, as long as we get together, it's all fine."

"O generation of vipers!" said John, "who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?"

Christ came on with the same story. Let them know they circumnavigated the whole globe with their dirty, rotten, filthy lies and tricks to make them more two-fold child of hell than themselves. Let me tell you: this age goes down with a seven-more-fold child of hell than the first age, because the cup of iniquity is full, you see. I'm not mad. I'm just telling you. I'm no judgment teacher. I'm just preaching the Word of God. You do what you want with it.

Followed William Branham's racist teachings

William Branham preached that biracial marriages were wrong even though there is no Biblical support for it:

Let's see. That's the start of it. Deuteronomy 23:2-I won't get anywhere except on this tonight. We'll go over It tomorrow. By the grace of God, we'll go right to the "Identification," because we're already well into my notes, in order, whatever they are. I've got Bro. Branham's notes in order. All right. Deuteronomy 23:2:

(2) A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD.

Now, of course, we understand illegitimacy in a different way than this here. This is where an Israelite marries a foreign woman, or visa versa-I suppose you could put it that way, too. But illegitimacy is illegitimacy. Anything out of wedlock is not truly illegitimate, (It's only when those couples…) because the woman could be a young virgin, seduced by a married man. The child, then, would not be a bastard child. It would not be truly illegitimate. We have Scripture and things for that. But these are things that Bro. Branham taught, so I know of wherein I speak; and I found the very quote on what Bro. Branham was saying.

Now, what I want you to notice here, for the tenth generation… It takes ten generations to clear it. Now Bro. Branham brought that out. Now, let's just stop a minute. What if I married a black man to a white woman or visa versa, or a Chinese to an Indian, or visa versa, or a Japanese to somebody else of another race and color-talking about the black and white. Let us say that this black man marries a white woman. The child born, (Let us say is a girl.) is called a 'mulatto', because she's one half.

Now she's a pretty girl and very desirable, so she marries a white man and they have a child-beautiful little girl, with beautiful color, and she is called a 'quadroon'. She's one quarter.

Now she has a daughter, even more beautiful still, and beautiful coloring, and she marries a white man. Now they have an octoroon. That's one eighth.

Now this has a daughter also, and she marries a white man. The child is white. Reverse it and it's black.

Now that's your first generation mulatto, the second one is quadroon, the third one is an octoroon, and the last one bows out. That's not many generations.

Then, why would God… And mixed marriages are wrong according to Bro. Branham. And we believe that, because God set the boundaries and all. And what mixed the races but pure lust and what have you. demands ten generations. Here you've got four. So, when you're looking at this, you can't say, "Well, I'll tell you what: we shouldn't have a color mixture."

But, after the fifth generation, it's all blotted out. It's gone. God says that's all for this. So now, where does your fornication take you, if a mixed marriage, which is legal…? And they are legal, according to the law of the land. There is nobody who fusses about them; just leave them the way they are. Whatever they do is their business.

Paul was not a Christian?

While his followers state that Lee Vayle was stating that Paul's teachings were lost in the first century, it certainly appears that he is stating that Paul was not a Christian. Even if that is what he meant, the statement that Paul's teachings were lost make no sense since we have his teachings clearly outlined in his epistles. But when you don't agree with Paul, it's easy to say that his teachings were lost as a way to ignore what scripture (and Paul in his epistles) clearly states.

"Now Bro. Vayle you can't tell a book by its cover." I got news for you; you can if the prophet said so! That's 'THUS SAITH THE LORD'! Not some jackass idiot philosopher that pawns himself as an erudite educationist, thereby thinks he's spiritual... spiritual my foot.

Bro. Branham distinctly said, "Sometimes Jesus was talking, and sometimes the Father was talking in him!" Huh? Huh? Huh? They're like a stupid seal trying to get the smell of fish and get someone to hand them a fish. What is the greatest revelation under the Seventh Seal? It sounds pretty pitiful doesn't it? Huh? It sounds pretty sick. Surely there should be something greater than that. But there isn't. He said, ‘We are not Trinitarian, we are not Oneness, neither do we believe in two gods.’”

I know a lot of people claim it, and they haven't got it, because they just don't have it, Lord. They don't have You, they don't have the end time revelation. They talk about Paul and they don't have him. Paul was lost in the first century; they don't even believe it. Another gospel, another Jesus, another spirit, they don't believe it. They can't. They simply believe that they're fine. But Lord we know it isn't true; eight people made the ark.”

God told William Branham to hire homosexuals

Lee Vayle discusses the two "tape boys" in 2000:

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. And you're going to see more and more of it, and you're going to see more and more corruption, and you're going to see more and more people dying from AIDS. Bro. Branham said there'd come a time when people standing on this ground here-and I said it even, I think even before he did-because when I saw that the Scriptures said that God repented He made man, I looked very closely in the Hebrew to find out what that word 'repent' means 'to be sorrowful'. And God was very sorrowful concerning the state of man which man had found himself, and so, therefore, God did not let the last man suddenly gasp and fall into the ooze and scum of the universe and gag and die with his last breath. He cut them off.

Current status of Vaylism

Some churches that initially started off as followers of Lee Vayle have gone off on a separate tangent, such as the followers of Terry Sproule in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

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