Axl Rose and the Latter Rain: Childhood Trauma in a Postwar Pentecostal Subculture

William Bruce Rose Jr., better known as Axl Rose, lead singer of Guns N' Roses, was deeply affected by his upbringing in a religious environment shaped by the Latter Rain movement in Indiana, which Branhamism strongly influenced. According to Rose, the emotional abuse he experienced— patterns he associates with various sects connected to Latter Rain — left enduring psychological scars.

We'd have televisions one week, then my stepdad would throw them out because they were Satanic. I wasn't allowed to listen to music. Women were evil. Everything was evil.[1]
- Axl Rose

Axl's stepfather and stepmother, Stephen and Sharon Bailey, were intensely religious. They attended the Miracle Bethel Pentecostal Church of God on U.S. 52 in Lafayette, Indiana, pastored by Rev. Vallorie Clymer.[2] Rose sang gospel music with his brother and sister under the name Bailey Trio.[3][4] According to Rose, the congregation was populated by "self-righteous hypocrites" and "child abusers," and his childhood memories of church are inseparable from experiences of physical and sexual violence. Even as he endured abuse, he was expected to participate in the religious life of the congregation, including teaching children.

 My particular church was filled with self-righteous hypocrites who were child abusers and child molesters. These were people who'd been damaged in their own childhoods and in their lives. These were people who were finding God but still living with their damage and inflicting it upon their children. I had to go to church anywhere from three to eight times a week. I even taught Bible school while l was being beaten and my sister was being molested.[5]
- Axl Rose

The Miracle Bethel Pentecostal Church, which Rose and his stepfamily attended, was organized shortly after William Branham's burial in 1966.[6] It was organized as an "Independent Pentecostal Church",[7] but was strongly affiliated with Latter Rain churches and apparently taught the Full Gospel / Latter Rain version of William Branham's "Message".[8] When the Assemblies of God denounced the Latter Rain movement and began sanctioning William Branham, many Assemblies of God congregations in Indiana became Independent Pentecostal churches. Some were organized under the Independent Assemblies of God under the direction of Joseph Mattsson-Boze of Chicago, as was the case with the Laurel Street Tabernacle when Rev. Jim Jones of Peoples Temple preached for the Assemblies of God. Others became fully independent, known simply as "Full Gospel" or "Independent" churches.

Within this broader realignment, the Miracle Bethel Pentecostal Church became independent but continued to host Assemblies of God ministers,[9] and Rev. Clymer preached in various Full Gospel congregations.[10] The church also hosted notable stage acts associated with the Latter Rain and Voice of Healing revivals, such as Ronald Coyne,[11] the "boy who could see through a plastic eyeball". Prior to pastoring the Miracle Bethel Pentecostal Church, Rev. Clymer was a Church of God minister.[12] This situates Rose's formative religious experiences within the overlapping networks of postwar healing revivalism, Latter Rain theology, and independent Pentecostalism.

The painful memories of physical, emotional, sexual, and religious abuse deeply affected Rose and shaped both his mistrust of organized religion and his later artistic output. Yet his church background also had a paradoxically positive dimension. Without his early exposure to church music, including choir singing and piano, there may never have been an Axl Rose as the world came to know him, nor the distinctive vocal style that contributed to Guns N' Roses' global success.

The painful memories of physical, emotional, sexual, and religious abuse deeply affected Rose.  In some ways, his church background was positive; without his experience singing in the church, there may have never been an Axl Rose or the vocals that made the band famous.

Without church, there may have never been an Axl Rose, or a Guns N' Roses. It allowed him the time to experiment with 'different voices,' during choir practice, and it also gave him the opportunity to study and learn the piano. But Axl was being drawn in a different musical direction altogether. Citing songs such as Led Zeppelin's 'D'yer Maker,' and Elton John's 'Someone Saved My Life Tonight,' as well as a love for all things Queen, Axl began to think about starting a band. He knew just the friend to start it with, too.[13]
- Appetite: The Axl Rose Story 

Rose's later work also appears to engage, at least indirectly, with the theological and cultural world of his upbringing. The lyrics and title of Guns N' Roses' "One In A Million" are particularly significant when placed alongside the preaching of William Branham. "One in a Million" was the title of one of Branham's 1965 sermons, a sermon that is especially popular among adherents of Branham's cult of personality.[14] Within Branham's preaching, this motif carried a stark doctrinal implication: only one person in a million would be saved. Those outside the movement — including other Christians as well as non-Christians, "the millions"— were portrayed as destined for eternal damnation.

It appears that Axl Rose gave a nod to not only Branham and the Latter Rain but also his experience with the cult's position against watching Television:

Don't need your religion
Don't watch that much TV
- One In a Million - Guns N' Roses