If you had been at a women’s tea at my church last weekend, you would have seen several women pull out lists — from the internet and other sources — of prophetic pronouncements for the coming decade. There were oohs and aahs of appreciation as these women read out loud upbeat forecasts for the future.
Go to almost any charismatic Christian website or ministry these days and you’ll see lists of things that one is supposed to think or pray about for the next decade or what God supposedly will be carrying out. There’s even prophetic conferences in the early part of this year whereby you can go and find out what’s up in heavenly realms and meet individuals who cast themselves as modern-day “prophets” and “apostles.”
Interestingly, none of these charismatics prophesied the killing of Iran’s top general, Qassen Soleimani, last Friday. What’s also not mentioned on any of these sites is the coming environmental catastrophe that secular prophets are saying is up for the coming decade. I’m reading David Wallace-Wells’ The Uninhabitable Earth: Life after Warming, which claims that global warming is so far advanced, large portions of the Earth will be too hot to live in sooner rather than later. As we gaze at news broadcasts of eastern Australia burning up, Wallace-Wells sounds more accurate than these other folks.
Not everyone is in lockstep. Charisma magazine just came out with a blistering editorial slamming false prophets. I find this sort of inside-baseball debate fascinating, since it often points to topics that are in the news or lurking in the background. Here’ a key quote from that.
“… the prophetic nonsense must stop. Not once have I read or heard about any prophecy for 2020 that includes judgment, correction, rebuke or warning. To stuff our spiritual faces with nothing but happy prophetic thoughts is utter foolishness at best. At worst, it will seal the fate of our nation as one that started out godly and ended suddenly under God's wrath.
After mentioning some of the ills and sins committed by the American public,
To publish word after word about how blessing and promotion is our portion in 2020 will do little to nothing to prepare the people for what is to come… Where are the prophets who are warning the church that God himself will come against it? Where are those who are shaking people out of their mediocrity and casual connection to God, awakening them from a lethal slumber?
Bob Smietana of Religion News Service just wrote a very interesting piece about a disgraced prophet that dates back to events that happened almost 12 years ago. His name is Todd Bentley and he made tons of headlines for his starring role in a revival that played out in Lakeland, Fla., back in 2008.
(RNS) — Todd Bentley, a bearded, tattooed Canadian charismatic preacher who once claimed to heal people by punching and kicking them at a Florida revival, is no longer fit for ministry, a group of Charismatic ministers announced this week.
“Based on our careful review of numerous first-hand reports, some of them dating back to 2004, we state our theological opinion and can say with one voice that, without a doubt, Todd is not qualified to serve in leadership or ministry today,” the group said in a statement posted online Thursday (Jan. 2).
Bentley had been accused of “ungodly and immoral conduct,” including adultery, substance abuse, and sexting, according to the panel.
How the mighty have fallen.
I’m glad this panel of charismatic leaders have finally gotten on the ball and sent Bentley packing but that should have happened ages ago. Read a bit more about what this guy was known for.
The evangelist and founder of a ministry called Fresh Fire USA first gained national attention in 2007 and 2008 after holding a series of revival meetings in Lakeland, Florida, that drew huge crowds. He told crowds that God instructed him to knee a man in the gut to cure colon cancer and to hit other people so they could experience God's power.
Among his claimed miracles was a "Grandma slapping healing," where he said God told him to slap an elderly woman in the face. He recounted that incident in a documentary about the revivals.
Bentley ended the revivals after other charismatic and Pentecostal leaders began to question Bentley’s methods and claims about healings.
Soon afterward, Bentley and his wife separated and eventually divorced.
Fresh Fire later announced that Bentley had “entered into an unhealthy relationship on an emotional level with a female member of his staff.”
When you’re covering ancient history in some of these movements, go back to what the local media were saying at the time.
I remember those days well when the Lakeland Ledger was covering this mess. What was truly disgusting was a June 22, 2008, commissioning ceremony in Lakeland featuring some of the best-known folks in the prophetic movement, some of whom are still prominent today. I am talking about Bill Johnson, senior pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, Calif., Che Ahn, founder of Harvest International Ministry, Rick Joyner of Morningstar Ministries, John Arnott who was the founding pastor of the famous Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship that birthed a controversial “holy laughter” revival in 1994 and the late Peter Wagner, a Fuller Seminary professor who got deep into spiritual warfare and prophetic movements.
Anyway, all these supposedly discerning folks were praying over Bentley, praising him for having “walked in a manner worthy of the Lord” (while at that time he was drinking heavily, sleeping with his kids’ nanny and preparing to divorce his wife) and bestowing a “kingly anointing” on him.
This commissioning ceremony is shown in the grainy video atop this post and the man being prayed over is the same guy featured in the RNS piece. And here is more YouTube video on the ceremony, featuring Stacey Campbell’s bizarre shake-and-bake style of prophecy. All of it was false. Lee Grady, then editor of Charisma , who wrote this piece in late 2008, is the only person I’ve found who publicly blasted those prophetic leaders at the time for making such a massive mistake about Bentley. As far as I know, none of these men have publicly apologized for their participation in that joke of a commissioning service. In fact, here is an update from Johnson, (dated 2011 I think), about Bentley’s alleged restoration.
The whole idea of restoration of pastors has been discussed a zillion times since the televangelist scandals of 1987 and 1988 and a rule of thumb that’s been developed over the years is that restoration is very difficult; it should take place over the course of many years and more often than not, sexual sins permanently disqualify someone from ministry. Look up some of the debates in the 1980s over whether televangelist Jimmy Swaggart could returned to ministry after he refused to leave his pulpit for the two years mandated by his denomination, the Assemblies of God.
There’s a new generation of charismatic leaders out there that don’t believe in lengthy restorations. The YouTube channel Fighting for the Faith shows Bill Johnson defending Bentley as recently as mid-2018.
This past August, more accusations spilled out against Bentley, as described by the Christian Post and Grady took to the pages of Charisma again plead with his fellow charismatics to stop acting like complete wackos and quit defending Bentley. So this latest announcement described in the RNS piece is (hopefully) the end of the story.
What’s disturbing is that a lot of these “prophets” and “apostles” (sorry to put those words in quotes but the Bentley mess was enough to disqualify those charismatic leaders from owning any of those titles) who misread Bentley are still pastors of larger churches or leaders of substantial ministries today.
I’m glad RNS got on this, because there’s very few journalists out there who know these Christian subcultures or have been on the beat more than 10 years and can recall what happened back in 2008. Now, it’s time for news reporting as well as commentary.
For those of you just getting on this bandwagon, the information is out there if you look for it. This latest about Bentley is so crazy, even the atheist blogs are pouncing on it. As for putting any stock in would-be prophets about the 2020s, I’ll paraphrase what Ronald Reagan said.
Be slow to trust. Definitely verify.