When covering the Trump prophets, listen up: 'Heavenly inauguration' is in the wings

Well, today is Jan. 20 and, contrary to the assertions of many Pentecostal prophets, President Donald Trump is on his way out of the White House and did not win the 2020 election.

Last week’s post on the “civil war” between Pentecostals and charismatics over failed prophecies by leaders in their movement created lots of buzz, with good cause. We’re not just talking about the failed “Trump prophecies,” as they are now termed, but also the fact that none of these prophets predicted the historic January 6th assault on the U.S. Capitol.

For those of you who’ve been unplugged from the news in recent days, here’s a bit of a review: There are still millions of these folks who believed that God was somehow going to replace Biden with Trump before the inauguration — or sometime in the coming months — simply because a coterie of prophets said so. See Kat Kerr’s Jan. 19 video saying this.

Now that this prophetic Hail Mary pass has failed, the recriminations are going to start. One leader in the movement, Michael Brown of 1990s Brownsville revival fame, has been calling out his fellow prophets to stand down for several weeks now and has established a ministry for disappointed charismatics. More on that in a moment. That’s a news story.

The prophets (and I won’t put that word in quotes like some say I should) range from Kat Kerr of Jacksonville, Fla. — who’s known for her flaming pink hair and tales of multiple trips to heaven –- to oldsters like Texas prosperity preacher Kenneth Copeland.

There’s also the Rev. Paula White, hailed as Trump’s pastor, who was holding out for a last-minute supernatural reprieve during December, but who’s been pretty silent of late. (News flash: See this video of her Jan. 17 Sunday sermon blaming other Christians for attacking her). Others, like Nebraska pastor Hank Kunneman, say that January 20th thing isn’t a factor now; when God wants to replace Biden with Trump, it will happen.

While researching a follow-up feature that ran the next day in ReligionUnplugged, I got to talk with a few scholars who follow this phenomenon –- and there aren’t many. One was Gordon Melton, now 78, who has helped religion reporters for decades with his encyclopedic knowledge of American religious history.

Now at Baylor University, he was telling me of how many –- of the top 40 people in the apostolic/prophetic movement that he’s tracking — are based close by. Not sure why the Lone Star state brings in all these folks, but Texas has always been an outlier, right?

One of the most intriguing churches in the country is Bethel Church in northern California. If there is a Jesus movement among today’s millennials, Bethel is its epicenter.

Despite the thousands of visitors this place receives from around the world, its influence has gone almost unnoticed by the media, which tends to be clueless about current trends among Pentecostals and charismatics.

Fortunately, reporters are beginning to discover Bethel via a book by two scholars affiliated with the University of Southern California’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture. The authors of "The Rise of Network Christianity" have been planting guest editorials in several places warning readers of the evils of this movement, plus why people need to educate themselves about it -- and read their book, of course.

There’s also been articles about the movement associated with Bethel, such Bob Smietana’s recent piece in Christianity Today and a piece yours truly wrote for Religion News Service last year.

But there hasn’t been a whole lot else. It’s a tough movement to pin down, much less write about. The latest effort at explaining Bethel -- in the form of a first-person feature story -- comes from Buzzfeed. It begins:

It’s the first day of Prophecy Week at the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry. Or, as students here like to call the place, Christian Hogwarts.

The auditorium of the civic center in Redding, California, where first-year students have class, is so full of eager, neatly dressed young people that it’s initially impossible to find a seat. The roomful of some 1,200 students hums with expectant energy…

The piece goes on to describe Bethel Church and Kris Vallotton, one of its main preachers.

The Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry is at the forefront of a burgeoning -- and decidedly youthful -- evangelical Christian revival. Some have called its movement the fastest-growing religious group in America -- a loose network of churches, led by so-called apostles, who see supernatural gifts like prophecy and faith healing as the key to global conversion. While other religious movements struggle to retain members and draw in young people, Bethel attracts millennials in droves.