This Day in F.F. Bosworth History (April 6): Birth of William M. Branham

By Roscoe Barnes III
Author, F.F. Bosworth: The Man Behind Christ the Healer
Copyright (c) 2018


#FFBosworth

William M. Branham

On April 6, 1909, William M. Branham, friend and protege of F.F. Bosworth, was born in a log cabin near Burkesville, Ky. A controversial figure, Branham was the acknowledged leader of the post-WWII healing revival that spread throughout the United States and other countries in the 1940s and 1950s.

Branham's followers believed he was an evangelist and a prophet with the supernatural ability to read minds, diagnose sickness and disease, heal the sick, and see into spirit world and into the future with help from an angel.

Bosworth, author of Christ the Healer, thought highly of Branham, and he worked with him as a friend and brother in Christ. He once wrote, "I have never seen or read of anything to equal the healing ministry of William Branham."

Bosworth wrote an article about Branham titled, "Gifts of Healing Plus," which appeared as Chapter 20 in William Branham: A Man Sent From God, a book Gordon Lindsay wrote with Branham.

Branham is hardly known outside of Pentecostal churches. But in the 1940s and 1950s, he was a force to be reckoned with in divine healing campaigns. Through the management and promotional efforts of Lindsay, Branham became an internationally known healing evangelist who drew massive crowds of people in his meetings.

Branham's place in Church History is significant. Historian David Edwin Harrell Jr. noted, "It was Branham who unleashed God's miraculous powers in the postwar period." With the exception of students of Pentecostal church history, most people today probably have never heard of Branham. However, things were different during his prime. According to Harrell:

[I]n the 1950s Branham's name was on the lips on nearly every pentecostal. It was spoken with reverence and awe; it was a name that bespoke powerful miracles and supernatural happenings. (Foreword, The Healer-Prophet by C. Douglas Weaver)

In her book, My Diary Secrets (1976), Freda Lindsay wrote about Branham. She wrote in frank terms about his strengths, his flaws, and his eventual demise. Her book presents a view of Branham that was absent in the writings of her husband, Gordon. Even so, she was careful to mention the important role that Branham played in the divine healing movement. Here's an excerpt from her book:

Perhaps no minister in our generation had as great an effect upon the lives of so many other preachers regarding the supernatural as did William Branham. He came to the fore at a time when the ministry of divine healing and the supernatural was at a low ebb. But when men saw what God was doing again in the world through this simple man, they too were inspired to believe God for a greater outpouring.

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To learn more about F.F. Bosworth, visit here.