# 2026-06-20 Leaving the Message — From Intercessory Prayer to NAR Control (Ep. 637) John Collins interviews former NAR insiders Vincent and Judith Desjardins (a second, deeper conversation). Judith traces a decades-long path through the intercessory-prayer and "spiritual warfare" movement — Peter Wagner's teachings, [[brian-simmons|Brian Simmons]]'s "apostolic center" church, [[Cindy Jacobs]]'s Generals International / Reformation Prayer Network, the "Divorcing Baal" campaign — and how each "prayer" practice functioned as a mechanism of control. (Source: `Readwise/Articles/From Intercessory Prayer to NAR Control Podcast Episode 637.md`) > [!note] Source caution > Testimonial and retrospective; post-exit framing shapes it, and it names living figures with serious charges (manufactured trances, deception, spiritual abuse). Strong as lived-experience structure; specific attributions should be corroborated before treated as settled. --- ## Key claims 1. **"The ends justify the means" is the founding rot.** Judith identifies [[C. Peter Wagner]]'s ethic — "the ends justify the means, or else why would anyone do anything?" — as the license for "lies for the sake of a holy end." She and Collins trace the pattern from ancient Gnostic sects (via Irenaeus's *Against Heresies*) through David Berg's "flirty fishing" to modern charismatic grifters who "don't care if it's false as long as it builds the crowd." (Source: Ep. 637) 2. **Apostolic-center mechanics.** [[brian-simmons|Brian Simmons]]'s church grew 100 → 1,000 in 2–3 years "by using any means necessary" — high-production worship, conference-circuit celebrity guests, "a mile wide and an inch deep." Per a worship leader's later blog, staff worked 80–90 hours/week under constant criticism and spiritual abuse while Simmons projected a "gentle, meek, humble pastor" image and asserted apostolic authority: "if you don't align with me, things aren't going to go well for you." (Source: Ep. 637) 3. **Prophecy as recruitment and ranking.** Simmons publicly prophesied over visible "leader" types ("You're an eagle… you got shot down… here you're going to fly"), manufacturing belonging and hierarchy — though most never got a real function, since the structure can only have a few "stars." (Source: Ep. 637) 4. **The intercessor/armor-bearer niche runs on "impartation."** Praying over speakers in spiritual-warfare mode bought proximity to the "anointing"; touching Bob Jones, hearing Bill Johnson, was treated as the ultimate spiritual prize. (Source: Ep. 637) 5. **Manufactured trance and gaslighting.** [[Bill Johnson]]'s speech is described as deliberate cognitive-dissonance creation capped with resolving platitudes — "really gaslighting." Branham's self-induced trance (chanting "1+1=2"), Simmons "falling over" (reframed mid-sentence from "fasting" to "in a trance / the anointing was so strong"), plants in prayer lines, and conveniently-timed wireless mics are presented as staged supernaturalism. (Source: Ep. 637) 6. **A three-category taxonomy of leaders** — "the structure of what became the NAR": (1) sincere believers caught off guard by charismatic confidence; (2) grifters who never believed ("the greatest gravy train"); (3) those in too deep to walk away without losing face, now perpetuating a lie they know is a lie. (Source: Ep. 637) 7. **Dominion prayer escalates into control.** Praying at mosques "calling down Satan," representing states in [[Cindy Jacobs]]'s Reformation Prayer Network, "commanding God," decreeing over the White House and UN, "redigging wells of revival," restoring national "covenants." When revival didn't come (Obama's 2008 election, the market crash, the Lakeland "bust"), they pivoted to a trance-revealed "writ of divorcement" from Baal (John Hamill / Heartland Apostolic Prayer Network), dividing intercessors across America; the 2011 D.C. earthquake cracking the Washington Monument was claimed as answered prayer. (Source: Ep. 637) --- ## Notable quotes > "My mind was not free until after I left the group … I wasn't allowed to apply it." (Vincent Desjardins, Ep. 637) > "They're intelligent and they're curious. That's how they get sucked in." (Judith Desjardins, Ep. 637) > "It's a type of open theism. God isn't sovereign. We can change his mind. … if they give us something to decree and declare, we can go into a region and speak the word of the Lord and it will happen." (Judith Desjardins, Ep. 637) --- ## The break and the diagnosis Judith's near-fatal Guillain-Barré syndrome (Dec 21, 2012), right after solo "portal" prayers at the Connecticut River, gave her time to think: "my reason came back." She frames recovery as reclaiming an analytical mind she had suppressed since youth. The closing argument is structural: non-denominational rebellion (traced rhetorically back to Luther) discards external authority, then inevitably re-forms its own denomination — the NAR "came full circle," becoming everything it broke away from, with power landing on people "who shouldn't" have it. The antidote offered: humility, denominational guardrails, faith *and* reason, freedom to explore, and loving the people next to you. (Source: Ep. 637) > [!contradiction] **Denominations as safety net.** The Desjardins land where this wiki's mainline sources sit — covenantal, accountable polity (cf. [[United Church of Christ]], [[2018-ucc-manual-on-ministry|UCC Manual on Ministry (2018)]]) as a guardrail against self-authenticating authority. They reach it *from inside* charismatic dominionism, which makes it a convergent witness rather than an outside critique. The unresolved tension: their answer ("structure / rules") is the same instinct Potter's House weaponized in [[2026-06-20-leaving-the-message-potters-house-escape-ep636|Leaving the Message — Inside Potter's House: One Man's Escape (Ep. 636)]] — structure protects only when it is itself accountable. --- ## Why it matters here This is the most direct insider map yet of how [[Spiritual Warfare Theology]] and intercessory prayer escalate into [[Dominionism]] and [[Apostolic Authority]] control. It enriches the [[Cindy Jacobs]] and [[brian-simmons|Brian Simmons]] entities with first-person mechanics, supplies a clean "three categories of leaders" frame for the [[NAR Fallacy Taxonomy]], and adds the "Divorcing Baal" campaign and the manufactured-trance pattern to the [[Fallible Prophecy]] coverage. The William Branham entity remains a dead link with many references across the wiki — this source adds two more and again flags it for creation.