Television and the Internet in the Message Movement
William Branham called television the devil’s instrument and said the enemy personally “put the television in your house.” The movement turned that into a rule. Then came the internet — which Branham never addressed — and the same movement now runs on it.
The Message movement teaches that William Branham was “Branham for this age,” whose recorded sermons carry God’s guidance for believers today. Television is a clear test of that claim. Branham preached against it constantly — and the movement built a household rule on those sermons.
But two things complicate the rule. Branham himself drew the line at worldly content, not the device — he endorsed religious broadcasting “100%.” And Branham died in 1965, decades before the internet, the smartphone, and social media, which the corpus shows he never addressed at all. The movement extended the rule to all of it on its own — and then built its entire reach on the technology it was condemning.
This article documents that in the speakers’ own words. Every quote below is a verified excerpt from a sermon transcript, with the source file linked so any reader can read the surrounding context.
The strict pole
The screen itself is the danger — get it out of the house.
Golden Dawn Tabernacle, Tucson. Pastor Isaac Noriega has preached against the internet for decades — he says he owns no smartphone and no internet, that no one on the church’s ministry team has access, and members are discouraged from having it at all.
The shotgun. The movement’s inherited image for a television in the home — “get the shotgun and blow it out of the house” — still quoted approvingly from the pulpit by Chad Lamb and others.
Kevin Crase, Faith Assembly Church. The set itself is the devil’s entry point: with a television, “you’re just allowing the devil to come into your home.”
Jonas Hildebrandt. Preached against television and worldliness until the congregation shrank to “the good ones” — and called the people who left “blessed reductions.”
The permissive pole
The rule itself is the error — it is legalism.
Tim Pruitt, Evening Light Tabernacle. The long list of don’ts — don’t watch television, don’t go to movies — “that’s a law. We’re not under the law.”
Daniel Evans, Tucson Tabernacle. Raised his own children with no television — yet preaches that the no-TV rule is “something that was fifty or sixty years ago,” and that the decision belongs to the individual, not the pulpit.
Wayne Lawson, True Word Tabernacle. The era of hard television-preaching was “almost a stage of legalism — and we moved on from that.”
Doug Baker, Love Divine Fellowship. “I’ve been to a movie. Your prophet went to a few movies” — and challenges the rule-keepers to “give me one scripture for it.”
One pole treats a screen in the living room as a soul in jeopardy and a church that shrinks under the preaching as a church being purified; the other treats the rule against the screen as the thing that has gone wrong. Most of the movement lives somewhere between the two — but the distance between the ends, inside one movement that calls one man its prophet, is itself the finding.
Total separation
No television, no internet, no smartphone. The technology itself is treated as sin, and members are discouraged from owning any of it.
In practice: Golden Dawn Tabernacle, Tucson · Luke Gibson Sr.: “we don’t have television, none of us do.”
The renamed device
No broadcast television and no cable — but a screen for DVDs, recorded sermons, a “monitor,” or a home computer is kept. The device survives under a new name.
In practice: Described by Steve Alvis — “they renamed it to monitor” — and by Chad Lamb, below.
Content, not the box
The device is neutral; worldly programming is the sin. This was Branham’s own position — he endorsed religious broadcasting “100%.”
In practice: William Branham, on the Oral Roberts and Billy Graham broadcasts.
Filtered and supervised
Screens and the internet are allowed, but filtered, time-limited, and watched — the danger managed rather than forbidden.
In practice: The implied standard wherever a pastor faults a home for an “unfiltered” internet, as Nathan Bryant does.
Liberty, not law
Rejects the rule itself. The believer is led by the Spirit, not a list of prohibitions; to make “no television” a command is “law.”
In practice: Tim Pruitt — “That’s a law. We’re not under the law.”
From an exhaustive scan of 45,506 sermons — every transcribed sermon by a Message minister, with Branham’s own and critic channels excluded — 42,319 reference screen technology and 8,533 condemn it, across 2,764 ministers, 903 of whom condemn it at least once. The mention count is deliberately complete: it includes passing references, such as a pastor greeting an online audience, which is why the totals run so high — in the streaming era nearly every sermon touches the subject. By topic, sermons mentioning / condemning: internet 40,688 / 3,870 · social media 9,427 / 1,792 · movies 9,308 / 2,988 · television 6,870 / 1,893 · phones 5,050 / 883.
| Preacher | Sermons | Condemns | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 194 | 98 | 50.5% | |
| 119 | 56 | 47.1% | |
| 223 | 94 | 42.2% | |
| 107 | 43 | 40.2% | |
| 287 | 113 | 39.4% | |
| 268 | 105 | 39.2% | |
| 134 | 52 | 38.8% | |
| 208 | 80 | 38.5% | |
| 255 | 92 | 36.1% | |
| 105 | 37 | 35.2% | |
| 207 | 71 | 34.3% | |
| 1,295 | 442 | 34.1% | |
| 307 | 103 | 33.6% | |
| 142 | 47 | 33.1% | |
| 520 | 169 | 32.5% | |
| 219 | 71 | 32.4% | |
| 293 | 92 | 31.4% | |
| 110 | 34 | 30.9% | |
| 580 | 175 | 30.2% | |
| 137 | 41 | 29.9% | |
| 152 | 45 | 29.6% | |
| 146 | 43 | 29.5% | |
| 499 | 141 | 28.3% | |
| 162 | 45 | 27.8% | |
| 541 | 150 | 27.7% | |
| 120 | 32 | 26.7% | |
| 139 | 37 | 26.6% | |
| 628 | 167 | 26.6% | |
| 103 | 27 | 26.2% | |
| 124 | 32 | 25.8% | |
| 105 | 27 | 25.7% | |
| 670 | 171 | 25.5% | |
| 173 | 44 | 25.4% | |
| 160 | 40 | 25.0% | |
| 275 | 68 | 24.7% | |
| 254 | 62 | 24.4% | |
| 210 | 51 | 24.3% | |
| 232 | 56 | 24.1% | |
| 138 | 33 | 23.9% | |
| 465 | 110 | 23.7% | |
| 600 | 141 | 23.5% | |
| 279 | 65 | 23.3% | |
| 108 | 25 | 23.1% | |
| 284 | 65 | 22.9% | |
| 319 | 71 | 22.3% | |
| 343 | 76 | 22.2% | |
| 82 | 18 | 22.0% | |
| 176 | 38 | 21.6% | |
| 88 | 19 | 21.6% | |
| 683 | 147 | 21.5% | |
| 145 | 31 | 21.4% | |
| 211 | 45 | 21.3% | |
| 1,071 | 227 | 21.2% | |
| 97 | 20 | 20.6% | |
| 212 | 43 | 20.3% | |
| 120 | 24 | 20.0% | |
| 414 | 82 | 19.8% | |
| 137 | 27 | 19.7% | |
| 124 | 24 | 19.4% | |
| 767 | 143 | 18.6% | |
| 309 | 57 | 18.4% | |
| 120 | 22 | 18.3% | |
| 604 | 110 | 18.2% | |
| 171 | 31 | 18.1% | |
| 455 | 81 | 17.8% | |
| 122 | 21 | 17.2% | |
| 105 | 18 | 17.1% | |
| 211 | 36 | 17.1% | |
| 629 | 102 | 16.2% | |
| 254 | 41 | 16.1% | |
| 841 | 127 | 15.1% | |
| 239 | 36 | 15.1% | |
| 94 | 14 | 14.9% | |
| 237 | 35 | 14.8% | |
| 103 | 15 | 14.6% | |
| 388 | 56 | 14.4% | |
| 409 | 59 | 14.4% | |
| 118 | 17 | 14.4% | |
| 299 | 42 | 14.0% | |
| 727 | 102 | 14.0% | |
| 131 | 18 | 13.7% | |
| 134 | 18 | 13.4% | |
| 560 | 73 | 13.0% | |
| 308 | 40 | 13.0% | |
| 1,531 | 190 | 12.4% | |
| 968 | 118 | 12.2% | |
| 108 | 13 | 12.0% | |
| 84 | 10 | 11.9% | |
| 111 | 13 | 11.7% | |
| 179 | 20 | 11.2% | |
| 117 | 12 | 10.3% | |
| 81 | 8 | 9.9% | |
| 268 | 26 | 9.7% | |
| 83 | 8 | 9.6% | |
| 84 | 8 | 9.5% | |
| 762 | 72 | 9.4% | |
| 118 | 11 | 9.3% | |
| 712 | 54 | 7.6% | |
| 80 | 6 | 7.5% | |
| 474 | 33 | 7.0% | |
| 94 | 6 | 6.4% | |
| 264 | 16 | 6.1% | |
| 110 | 6 | 5.5% | |
| 131 | 7 | 5.3% | |
| 119 | 6 | 5.0% | |
| 122 | 6 | 4.9% | |
| 267 | 13 | 4.9% | |
| 357 | 17 | 4.8% | |
| 203 | 8 | 3.9% | |
| 103 | 4 | 3.9% | |
| 162 | 4 | 2.5% | |
| 163 | 4 | 2.5% |
How this is measured. Every transcribed sermon is attributed to a preacher through the site’s normalized speaker records, then counted as a screen-condemnation sermon when a topic keyword (television, movies, the internet, a phone, social media) falls within roughly 260 characters of a condemnation marker. “Share” is that count as a percentage of the preacher’s sermons; the bar scales with it. Every minister listed has 80 or more sermons on record, sorted most vocal to least. One finding stands out on its own: unlike the 1963 cloud — which twenty-five substantial preachers never raise — not one of these 112 ministers is silent on screen technology. Every single one condemns it at least occasionally; what varies is intensity, from better than one sermon in two down to one in forty. The measure is approximate — it can miss an oblique reference or occasionally catch a neutral one — so read it as a careful estimate, not a census.