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5.22.9 Accessibility statementSkip to main content Democracy Dies in Darkness SubscribeSign in Deep Reads A PASTOR SAID HIS PRO-TRUMP PROPHECIES CAME FROM GOD. HIS BROTHER CALLED HIM A FAKE. Jeremiah Johnson became a sensation when he embraced politics. His brother Josiah, also a preacher, couldn’t shake his concerns. Josiah Johnson has faced blowback since he spoke out against his brother, Jeremiah Johnson, a self-proclaimed prophet who said God wanted Donald Trump to be elected president. Story by Danielle Paquette Follow Photography by Bryan Tarnowski August 10, 2024 at 12:00 p.m. Share Comment on this storyComment Add to your saved stories Save Read by the author|Listen32 min ORANGE BEACH, Ala. — On the morning he could no longer stand it, the preacher was sipping coffee at his kitchen table. The house was quiet. The boys weren’t up yet. Josiah Johnson wanted to savor the peace, but his attention drifted to his younger brother, the one he had decided was a false prophet. How many souls, he wondered, was that Christian influencer manipulating on social media right now? Hundreds of thousands followed Jeremiah, who’d helped popularize the far-right belief that God handpicked Donald Trump to lead the United States. Maybe his conscience was nudging him. Or perhaps it was the Lord. The wall sign above him read: In the morning when I rise, give me Jesus. Jeremiah wasn’t channeling Jesus, though, as far as Josiah could tell, when he claimed that God spoke through him about American politics. So, Josiah began typing on his matte black iPhone. “What if you found out that your favorite prophet or pastor wasn’t sexually abusing anyone,” he wrote in a draft message to his 5,000 Facebook friends, alluding to other religious reckonings, “but INSTEAD they were completely and totally fabricating their dreams, visions, and prophetic words?” Story continues below advertisement Advertisement In an era of surging disinformation, as Americans clash over what’s real and what’s fake, Josiah took no issue with Trump. An opponent of abortion, he’d voted twice for the Republican nominee. What outraged him was his brother twisting the Lord’s words, he thought, in a politically savvy bid for fame and fortune. Jeremiah, 36, ran a church with hundreds of congregants and a school preparing students for the end-times. He marketed himself as a “globally recognized prophet,” spoke at Christian conferences nationwide, advertised e-courses that explored “developing prophetic maturity” for $19.99, and had garnered millions of YouTube views spreading what he framed as divine messages about Anthony S. Fauci, George Soros and President Biden. Josiah, 37, had just started yet another dead-end gig as a cocktail server, pulling double shifts to support the 25-person ministry he’d founded with his wife on Alabama’s Gulf Coast. HOW THE POST REPORTED THIS STORY This spring, a former high school classmate urged Post reporter Danielle Paquette to look into why two brothers from their Indiana hometown, both preachers, seemed to be feuding on Facebook. Paquette didn’t know Josiah or Jeremiah Johnson growing up, though she attended sixth grade with one of their younger siblings. She was surprised to learn that Jeremiah had become a star among the religious right — and that Josiah had accused him of being a “false prophet.” Paquette wanted to understand: Why had their relationship fractured? PreviousNext Their father, a retired pastor and a towering figure in both their lives, had sided with Jeremiah for as long as Josiah could remember, he said, telling him that criticizing the prophet was like criticizing God. But Josiah didn’t know how many others would defend his brother, too. He didn’t know that Jeremiah — who declined to answer any questions for this story — would strike back to his 328,000 followers on Facebook, writing, “I have chosen silence over the last several months as I have been publicly slandered, threatened, and falsely accused online by my older brother Josiah.” He didn’t know that strangers on the internet would call him “delusional.” Staring at his screen, Josiah mostly sensed that he could no longer stay silent. The Bible warned that false prophets led vulnerable believers astray. The stakes couldn’t feel higher: spiritual life or death. He hit “post.” Josiah's father baptized him when he was 8. They were the oldest two of four boys but presented like twins. Both had hazel eyes, stocky builds and a tendency to speak like they were onstage. Both loved wrestling and Miami Hurricanes football. Both attended the same private Christian college in Florida. Yet childhood was rough for Josiah, while Jeremiah made their upbringing sound magical. “I was blessed to grow up in an environment where my parents made the supernatural feel natural,” Jeremiah told his YouTube viewers. When he was in the womb, he said, their mother dreamed he would have a “prophetic call” and that Satan would try to kill him. Indeed, he continued, he was born “purple” with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. Their parents named him after the Hebrew prophet. Josiah never heard that story from anyone but Jeremiah. He doesn’t know the details of his own birth, either — just that his name came from a king in the Bible charged with abolishing the worship of false idols. The brothers grew up near Indianapolis, where their father led a Christian church. It was not a solemn place. People spun, sobbed and cried out in what the boys understood to be tongues, a heavenly language. They were part of a movement that believed in modern prophets and apostles — one that went politically mainstream when Trump’s top spiritual adviser, Paula White, became the first pastor from the brothers’ strand of Christianity to serve in the White House. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement When they were children, their father, Joseph, would invite Jeremiah to speak at church — the man they called Pops was his “biggest fan,” Jeremiah wrote on Facebook — but Josiah tended to talk back and get in trouble. Pops responded, he said, by elbowing him, spitting on him, kicking him and punching him in the face. Three times, Josiah said, his bruises were so bad that he had to stay home from school. (An adult he’d confided in at the time backed up this account to The Washington Post.) As far as he knew, Pops never hit Jeremiah. Their parents, siblings, other family members and a former co-pastor of Joseph’s did not respond to calls or texts from The Post. Josiah’s wife of 12 years, Jenn, said he told her about the physical mistreatment soon after they started dating. “Pops was always a ticking time bomb,” said the freckled real estate agent, 38. Once, during a family dinner, he’d shoved the table at her, she said, and then leaned in to scream so close that saliva flecked her face. “He would just lose it,” she said, “especially with Josiah.” One brother was the golden child. The other was the black sheep. For a while, Josiah struggled with his faith. He drank, used drugs, got into fights, and later posted in a Facebook confession that he’d been a “liar, a thief, a cheat, a gambler and a womanizer.” He’d stood up in church as a live stream captured the service and said, “I have used my anger and my rage to manipulate and to intimidate and to make people afraid of me.” Often, he said, he was fixated on justice — righting perceived wrongs, especially when he thought anyone was abusing authority. He’d considered becoming a cop before Jeremiah opened a ministry 14 years ago in Lakeland, Fla., and Josiah opted to join him. That partnership dissolved after Jeremiah invited Pops to provide Christian family counseling. “The man who’d beat me as a kid?” Josiah had thought. Eventually, he said, he left for Missouri after Jeremiah relayed a dream that Josiah would find “prosperity” there in Kansas City. Instead, Josiah moved into a basement apartment that flooded with sewage. So began his decade in what he calls “the wilderness” — bouncing from state to state, managing sports bars and selling cars, preaching here and there. Jeremiah, meanwhile, was running his ministry and self-publishing books about what he said God was telling him. He started appearing on Christian podcasts and talk shows. He launched a YouTube channel. He headlined Christian conferences, ascending in an industry of self-styled prophets who promoted each other’s content. His audience exploded when he leaned into politics. Josiah and his family moved last year into a quiet neighborhood in Orange Beach, Ala. In the summer of 2015, a few weeks after Trump announced his long shot quest for the Oval Office, Jeremiah published a prophecy about the reality television mogul from Queens. “Trump shall become My trumpet to the American people,” he wrote for a Christian web magazine, employing God’s voice. “... I am going to use him to expose darkness and perversion in America like never before, but you must understand that he is like a bull in a china closet.” Holy forecasts about Trump soon took off like a “prophetic meme,” religion scholar Matthew D. Taylor pointed out, and Politico would describe Jeremiah as a “wunderkind” who had helped seed the idea among the religious right that the Lord was backing Trump. At the time, though, Josiah remembers recognizing his brother’s words from somewhere else. They both followed Kim Clement, another self-professed seer from South Africa. “Trump shall become a trumpet, says the Lord,” Clement had declared years before Jeremiah’s prediction. Still, Josiah accepted Jeremiah’s offer to man the merch table on his speaking tour. For every one of Jeremiah’s books they sold with Trump’s face on it, Josiah pocketed a cut of the profits. People cheered and wept when Jeremiah took the stage, and Josiah clapped along until one conference in Fort Mill, S.C., in December 2018. Josiah, far left, and Jeremiah, in the knit cap, grew up with their brothers near Indianapolis. They called their father “Pops.” He recalls freezing when Jeremiah predicted a forthcoming cleansing, according to footage of the event — “a boom in the upper room.” A boom in the upper room? Nights earlier, when Josiah couldn’t sleep, he’d jotted down a poem called “the boom in the upper room.” He can’t find a copy of it today, he said, but he’d been so proud of the verses, he’d shared them with Jeremiah. Had Jeremiah just ripped off his poem? And then passed it off as a prophecy? That was harder to let go than the Kim Clement incident. Josiah’s wife, who had been startled awake when he rose to write the poem, felt the same way. “Jerry … Jenn was really upset when you took my message ‘the boom in the upper room’ that I shared with you and released it as your own,” he later texted Jeremiah. “Just seems really shady bro,” Josiah continued, “and unappreciated by us.” “Josiah, I have been as gracious to you as I can,” Jeremiah replied, according to screenshots Josiah shared with The Post. “I got you your job. Don’t forget that.” He added: “You shouldn’t be offended. You should feel tremendously blessed.” Josiah did not feel tremendously blessed. He quit. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Josiah said nothing when a Christian blogger later accused Jeremiah of stealing another pastor’s reaction to the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, publishing side-by-side Facebook screenshots. “Today, Ginsburg discovered that there is a court higher than the one called ‘Supreme’ and she does not sit in the seat of the judge,” J.D. Hall posted on Sept. 18, 2020. “Ginsburg has now discovered that there is a court higher than the one called ‘Supreme’ and she does not sit in the seat of the judge,” Jeremiah posted the next day. Then before Election Day in 2020, Jeremiah assured his online audience that Trump would win again. Dozens of other self-professed prophets on Facebook and TikTok echoed that sentiment long after the results showed otherwise, lending their brand of spiritual credibility to Trump’s false cries of election fraud. After rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, however, Jeremiah apologized and closed his ministry with a three-part YouTube series called “I Was Wrong.” Watching from afar, Josiah hoped his brother would retreat from the spotlight in repentance. Soon, though, Jeremiah opened a new ministry under another name and was back on YouTube, claiming that the Biden administration was unleashing “demonic activity.” When approached by a Post reporter, Jeremiah declined to comment, citing the sensitive nature of family matters. Instead, he requested to pray over the reporter, thanking God for her “desire for the truth” before veering into a personalized prediction: She was meant to help “small children.” Josiah and his wife, Jenn, wanted a fresh start by the coast in Alabama. The Lord is here with us right now, says Jeremiah, pacing the stage in a flannel shirt and ripped jeans. Can you feel Him in your seat? Stage lights flood the auditorium, which resembles the inside of a wooden ship. Hundreds of people clap and cheer. Some are crying. They stretch their hands toward the sky. Or toward Jeremiah. Several are recording him on their phones. “A round of applause for God!” he shouts. It’s Saturday evening, the second night of a “Prophetic Weekend” conference at the Ark Fellowship, the church that Jeremiah runs in a suburb of Charlotte. He descends from the stage and scans the crowd, a mix of regulars and out-of-towners. His keyboardist plays a melody fit for a Hollywood redemption scene. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement “Brother in the glasses,” Jeremiah calls out. “It’s time, man.” A man in a black shirt looks around. Me? A staffer guides him to the front of the room. A cameraman trails them. Jeremiah places a hand on the brother-in-glasses’s head. “The Lord says, ‘I will take what has been sowed in here,” Jeremiah says, “and I will begin to stir a fire deep down in your bones.” He purses his lips and blows into his mic. Whoosh. “I loose the prophetic anointing upon you,” he says. Over the past two hours, Jeremiah has mentioned Trump just once, asserting that too many Christians these days are behaving like the former president: “all the vitriol, all the anger, all the offense.” DEEP READS The Washington Post’s best immersive reporting and narrative writing. PreviousNext Since whiffing his 2020 prediction, he has stayed away from forecasting election outcomes. He doesn’t say if he’ll vote for or against Trump. Jeremiah touches on none of the conspiracy theories he has mentioned lately on YouTube — like his sense that Soros is secretly bankrolling pro-Palestinian demonstrations or that Fauci has accepted money from “not American” men pushing a satanic agenda. Tonight’s theme is dislodging grudges. Evil spirits are hanging over some people in here, Jeremiah says, tempting them to dwell on grievances instead of what actually matters: their relationship with God. A little girl hugs her mother’s leg. A woman in a lime-green jumpsuit clasps her hands. A man in a red polo yells, “Yes, Jesus!” “You are wrestling with how justified you are in your offense,” Jeremiah says. “Let it go!” The energy is electric as he calls for healing. “Lord,” Jeremiah says, “I pray for family reconciliation.” He doesn’t mention his brother. Or what he’d posted on Facebook about Josiah five weeks earlier. “It is with great sadness that I share this document that has been published today from a team of leaders in the body of Christ,” Jeremiah had typed. He linked to a statement titled: “Warning the Body of Christ About Josiah Johnson.” Their youngest brother, also a pastor, had posted it on his own ministry’s website. Printed out, the collection of accusations stretched 25 pages long. “Full of envy and malice,” the statement read, “Josiah Johnson has appointed himself as the chief prosecutor of the church.” One of Josiah Johnson's sons plays outside of their home. On the Alabama coast, past the surf shops and the crab cake joints, Josiah’s fellowship meets for Wednesday evening Bible study in a modest living room. The worshipers ease into a circle of foldout chairs. Muted Christian music videos play on the wall-mounted television, next to a framed watercolor of angel wings. The dress code looks to be pajama-casual. Three 20-something couples and a grandmother listen as Josiah reads from his dog-eared Bible. Fittingly, he says, this verse is from the book of Jeremiah: Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you; They fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, Not from the mouth of the Lord. The fellowship formed about a year ago, when Josiah, unsatisfied with his string of odd jobs, felt a tug to return to ministry. This thrilled Jenn. Their sons, now 8 and 10, could grow up, she hoped, in the glow of genuine Christianity. They reached out to friends: Who else was tired of cookie-cutter churches? Did anyone want to try something new? Then the couple rented a five-bedroom, slate gray house in a quiet Orange Beach neighborhood and opened their doors to those needing a place to crash. “It’s like ‘The Real World: Austin,’ except it’s ‘The Real World: Jesus,’” says one roommate, 28-year-old Tiffany Williams, who’d scooped ice cream at nearby Sweet Cone Alabama before taking maternity leave with those she calls “the family.” They share meals. They watch each other’s kids. They’ve pledged to hold each other accountable. When someone struggled with a porn addiction, for instance, Tiffany had admired Josiah’s blunt feedback: “That’s not fair to your wife.” A small group attends a Sunday fellowship meeting led by Josiah Johnson in his home. Jenn wants her boys to grow up with what she considers genuine Christianity. A few past roommates have gotten fed up with “how they move,” as Jenn puts it, and left. One woman who’d stayed at the house for a few weeks was quoted in “Warning the Body of Christ About Josiah Johnson,” accusing Josiah and Jenn of desiring “control over people.” (The roommate did not respond to requests for comment. The Post reviewed text messages she sent to Jenn that appeared to contradict some of her statements.) The fellowship read the “Warning” post all together, Tiffany says, after Josiah had pasted the link on his own Facebook page, seeking prayers to reveal “what the Lord says is Truth and what is lies.” A truth, according to Josiah: He’d cursed at Jeremiah and their youngest brother two years ago during an argument. He’d written, “It’s Jerry I’m coming for.” The screenshot they’d included in the post was real. A lie, according to Josiah: He was not a “master manipulator” who’d pushed a 28-year-old man in this group, Elijah McCurley, to ghost his family, move here from Georgia and then marry Jenn’s sister. “That is just 100 percent false,” McCurley says, backing him up. A former drug addict, McCurley says he’d been feeling depressed in his hometown. He didn’t want to relapse. When he prayed about it, he got the sense that Orange Beach could offer a fresh start with a tight-knit Christian support system. Over the past year, he says, he’d started a window tint business, wed Jenn’s 25-year-old sister after six months of dating — a match he described as “God’s work” — and stayed clean. McCurley says he rarely speaks to his mother because she still tells people he has joined a cult. “The only thing I’ve ever done against my will,” he says, “was get handcuffed by a cop.” “Are you sure you’re not in a cult, dude?” Josiah asks, and the group laughs. Josiah hugs his younger son during a fellowship meeting. It’s Friday afternoon, hour four of Josiah’s double shift at a beach pub. A bachelorette party is scream-talking as the ladies down tequila shots. Tom Petty’s voice blasts through the stereo: But let me get to the point. Let’s roll another joint … Josiah hums along as he fetches someone a vanilla milkshake with vodka. The un-Christian atmosphere doesn’t bother him. Elijah had picked up weekend shifts here and brought Josiah in, too. After a couple of weeks, he’d earned about $2,000 in wages and tips. That was a relief. He and Jenn had been cutting into their savings. “What can I get for you?” he asks a table of women in denim shorts and bikini tops. He didn’t know this Friday would be his last double shift. Four days later, his manager abruptly let him go, he said, and didn’t say why. (She told The Post that she cannot comment on personnel matters.) Josiah wondered: Was the “Warning” post pinging around Orange Beach? Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Even weeks later, he hadn’t found a new job. Josiah deactivated his Facebook account, in case his personal life was spooking potential employers. The “Warning” post, though, was findable on Google. Dozens of the friends he’d shared with Jeremiah had blocked him on social media. Hundreds of strangers were trashing him in comments on Jeremiah’s Facebook page, calling him “manipulative” and “possessed” and “delusional.” One of his neighbors had joined in, too, writing, without elaboration, that she is “subjected everyday” to “witnessing what is taking place.” Their father, meanwhile, was urging Josiah to delete the “false prophet” accusations, according to a screenshot Josiah shared with The Post. “It’s an embarrassment to me and our whole family,” Pops texted him. But his brother’s reputation seemed shinier than ever. There Jeremiah was, leading an e-course that tackled “true prophets vs. false prophets.” There he was, seeking applicants for his in-person school ($1,249 per semester). There he was, promoting his new book: “Secrets to Stewarding God’s Voice in a New Era: The Power and Price of Influence.” There he was, speaking at a conference in Texas. There he was, surpassing 20,000 views on a YouTube video called, “I Woke up … And The Lord Told Me THIS!” Josiah wasn’t ready to give up. “There is still real mercy available if you repent and throw yourself on the truth,” he texted Jeremiah. No response. He typed out another approach, one he thought reflected his motive. “I love you bro,” Josiah wrote. “I really do.” This time, his message would not send. Jeremiah, he figured, must have blocked him. Aaron Schaffer contributed to this report. ABOUT THIS STORY Story editing by Cathleen Decker. Photo editing by Natalia Jiménez. Design and development by Talia Trackim. Design editing by Betty Chavarria. Copy editing by August Phillips and Shay Quillen. Project editing by Ana Carano. DEEP READS PreviousNext Guilty: Inside the high-risk, historic prosecution of a school shooter’s parents School turned him liberal. His mom loves Fox News. Will their bond survive? Public memories. Private struggles. In Milwaukee public housing, a padlocked patio becomes a battleground He threatened Marjorie Taylor Greene amid a mental health crisis. Then came the consequences. Riding the baddest bulls made him a legend. Then one broke his neck. The hero An incident of intolerance at a playground leaves a couple asking: ‘What is justice now?’ He spent his life building a $1 million stereo. The real cost was unfathomable. After abortion attempts, two women now bound by child He’s 14. He’s been to five funerals. Can he avoid his own? A priest, a pastor and the battle for souls in the deepest Amazon In Iowa, an aging couple navigates diverging political views Tokitae, a beloved orca, died before being freed. Then came a reckoning. What home schooling hides: A boy tortured and starved by his stepmom Their sons’ lives ended in gunfire. In grief, they found a second act. After affirmative action, a White teen’s Ivy hopes rose. A Black teen’s sank. The librarian who couldn’t take it anymore A trans woman joined a sorority. Then her new sisters turned on her. ‘What does next look like?’ Inside the unfolding recovery of the Fetterman family. Share 2014 Comments Danielle PaquetteDanielle Paquette is a national correspondent for The Washington Post's America Desk. She previously served as West Africa bureau chief and has reported from more than 20 countries on four continents. @dpaqreportFollow Subscribe to comment and get the full experience. 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