Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: Todd Bentley

  • Todd Bentley’s Marriage

    I had thought about writing something on this, but I think this post says most of what I would say, only better.

    Especially considering that there has been no marital infidelity reported, and folks have been upfront in with this, it doesn’t seem to me to provide any new basis to judge Bentley’s ministry. I still object to the same set of things, hold judgment on the same set, and tentatively approve of the same things.

    Marital unfaithfulness, as I have said about politicians and ministers before, is a valid consideration in determining someone’s integrity. But a person’s sin, before or after, does not, in my view, invalidate ministry. I’ve known of pastors who have fallen into serious transgressions. It often damages the fruit of the ministry they have done, but it doesn’t invalidate it.

    In this case, it should be noted, we’re looking at a couple working through difficulties in their marriage. We have not yet seen–and should not predict–divorce or other negative outcomes. It is unfortunate that, because of the level of publicity involved in his ministry, Todd Bentley and his wife have to deal with this with extraordinary publicity. That makes things harder.

    Whatever the outcome, however, we judge the ministry, teachings, and fruit by, well, the ministry, teachings, and fruit, and not by whether the minister is a greater sinner than the rest of us. That latter one is a judgment we have no right to make.

  • Discernment and Revelation

    Yesterday I wrote a post regarding judging revelation by means of reason, and in particular pointed out that one of the problems I see with Biblical inerrancy is that it cannot be demonstrated in this fashion.

    In a failed attempt at being brief I failed to underline that this is only one of my many objections to inerrancy, or that this objection is only applicable to certain approaches. It seems to me that when one can pick up a book attempting to reconcile errors in the Bible so as to demonstrate its inerrancy, it is appropriate to object to the process on the basis that there is no adequate standard to use in the task.

    There are those who take inerrancy as a presupposition, but does it not seem odd to take “this book is without error” as an axiom in one’s thinking and build all else from there? And if one has done so is it not a bit odd to then go about comparing the scripture with historical research in order to demonstrate what has been taken as an axiom? (‘Axiom’ and ‘presupposition’ are not quite synonymous, but are close enough for my purposes here.) That is a large topic, and I’m going to leave it for later.

    At the moment my concern is that my critique of that one approach means that I think it’s the only one, and that it has failed. In other words, if I think reason is inadequate on its own to determine whether God is speaking, or whether something is divine or demonic (think Tillich’s definition of these terms, though I don’t have his Systematic Theology on hand to quote, I think I found the right passage on page 226ff of volume 1 via Google Book Search.)

    This is especially important because Peter Kirk has broadened the discussion to discernment in the wider sense, such as testing Todd Bentley’s ministry, and I would hate to be understood as saying that such discernment is impossible. I do think that the fact that I disagree to a significant extent with Peter about Todd Bentley, though not as much as some others, indicates that discernment is not an easy subject to pin down.

    I’d like to point back to this post, which deals with discernment, as well as the Biblical Inspiration tag on my Participatory Bible Study Blog.

    For those who will go so far as to buy books (stop reading now to avoid gentle commercial announcement), I discuss these issues in my books When People Speak for God and Identifying Your Gifts and Service: Small Group Edition dealing with spiritual gifts in general but with substantial discussion of testing and authority. (End commercial, you can start reading again!)

    The key point I would like to make in this hopefully short post is that discernment, inspiration, revelation, and related issues are not simple, and we must approach them carefully and with–dare I say it?–discernment!

  • Todd Bentley Obedient to the Lord?

    Dave Warnock links to this disturbing video of Todd Bentley. He discusses it further in his post Reflecting on cancer healing – Todd Bentley style. Peter Kirk writes on a related topic at Gentle Wisdom.

    Before I comment further, let me simply say that both of these are men whom I have to respect. I appreciate their ministries as best as I can follow them on the internet. Nothing here is intended to get personal.

    Frankly, the video is gut-wrenching in more ways than one. My 17 year old son died after a five year battle with cancer. At a revival meeting a pastor told him that God had told him (the pastor) that anyone on whom he laid hands and prayed for healing would be healed of cancer. James was 12 years old at the time. He wasn’t healed. That pastor said something false in the name of the Lord.

    Now I didn’t decide that everything that happened at those revival meetings was not of God based on that one incident. Yet at the same time, it illustrates a problem of extremely active revival meetings. What exactly guides or limits what one says or does? People who label themselves “Spirit led” often look down on the people who are totally focused on the written Word as dry and powerless. Yet one would hope that there would be some limit, some control on what was said and done.

    My question here is just what standard would limit what Todd Bentley could say God had told him to do? My personal standard would be this: “Kicking someone in the stomach is bad. God isn’t telling me to do that.” I apply an ethical standard to my behavior. If I think God is telling me to do something that is wrong, I’m going to let my behavior be guided ethically.

    Update (7/4/08): Peter Kirk has objected to the term kicking, and Dave Warnock adjusted the wording. I noticed the knee thing, but didn’t regard it as significant. Perhaps that makes me worse than others who didn’t notice it. I would say precisely the same thing about kneeing him in in the gut as about kicking him. Further, I have viewed this video, in which Todd Bentley talks about kicking people. Unfortunately I don’t have the clip without someone else’s commentary.

    Now I admit that I don’t know the full context of this action. I’m not going to proclaim myself an expert based on a YouTube video. Nonetheless I am having a hard time imagining the context that would make me think this was ethically right. If someone could suggest something that went before and after that would make it look good, I’d be interested in hearing about it.

    The only thing I can imagine would be a complete healing of the man in question, but even then I’m likely to apply something I say very frequently: God knows how to answer prayers better than we know how to pray them. In other words, even if the man was healed, I would be inclined to believe that God was showing him grace and mercy (perhaps because he was kicked in God’s name?), rather than that he was confirming a kick as the proper action.

    At the same time, the question I run into is one that Dave Warnock has to deal with, as do some of my friends over in the Lakeland area of Florida. How do you respond?

    Here is where I remain convinced that the wheat and the tares is the better option. If you become a blanket critic of anything, you will be very limited in your ability to respond to those who are involved or considering involvement.

    The problem at the center of this is hurting people, people who are looking for something. In fact, I believe what sends many people off the rails is that overwhelming determination that something has got to happen, that somehow there must be a physical demonstration of God’s power. If it isn’t happening in the normal course of events, let’s force it.

    Now it’s not bad to try to get life into our Christian lives. At the same time, once you get desperate, the controls are off, and it becomes very hard to discern good from bad. You think, “Maybe a kick in the stomach wouldn’t be so bad if it would just bring healing.” If you’re at that point, beware.

    As I’ve said before, while I try not to do blanket approvals or condemnations–I often don’t do a blanket approval of myself; never, in fact!–particular things can be labeled properly. Prosperity teaching-bad. Kicking in the stomach-bad. I’m pretty certain of those two!

  • Dave Faulkner on Lakeland

    Dave Faulkner has commented here on posts about the Lakeland Revival, and he has a new article looking at some of the healing and even resurrection claims. He hasn’t come to sweeping conclusions, but is certainly asking the right questions. It’s worth a read, if you’re interested in the topic.

  • Bentley and Lakeland on MSNBC

    There’s an article here. Looks pretty neutral.

  • Revival, Faith Healing, and Healing Prayer

    Update (5/27/08): Before you conclude that I’m a deist and that I don’t believe in any miracles at all, please read the discussion in the comments, where, to put it briefly I affirm both healing miracles and the bodily resurrection of Jesus. These are things I accept by faith, however, whilst doubting one’s ability to prove them. Now on to the post as originally written . . .

    The whole discussion about Todd Bentley and the Lakeland Revival has led me to think back a great deal about the Brownsville Revival. There were and are a number of concerns while at the same time I don’t want to be a blanket critic. But I have personally seen people seriously hurt by the excesses that tend to accompany a mass revival movement.

    Activity involves risk, so when I give cautions about risks one should not assume that I am saying to avoid the whole movement and everyone in it because there are risks. But there are more and less risky ways of going about spiritual business.

    Let me outline my starting point first. I will likely say more about these things later. I have been called a liberal charismatic, initially by an enemy. Though I personally prefer “passionate moderate” the label does have some truth. In fact, when I presented it to my wife and a number of our friends as part of the subtitle to my book (Not Ashamed of the Gospel: Confessions of a Liberal Charismatic), they thought it fit me perfectly. So if your friends (and your wife) think the label bestowed by an enemy fits, perhaps there’s something to it. I am charismatic in the sense that I believe any gift of the Holy Spirit can be present at any time. I do not hold that God spoke more in the time of the Hebrew prophets or the apostles than he does today. I don’t believe God was more willing to heal back in those times than he is now.

    I have personally experienced some of the “manifestations” that accompany revivals–speaking in tongues (or more accurately some form of prayer language), being slain in the spirit, and so forth. I have found occasions of each experience to be very spiritually helpful. Nonetheless I started using the term “side effects” rather than “manifestations” for these things, because I think the manifestation of the Spirit is focused on ministry that is characterized by the fruit of the Spirit. Those who teach that the side effects demonstrate that the Spirit is present can lead to a great deal of hurt. I encountered people who attended Brownsville and were not slain in the Spirit who felt that they must be spiritually inferior for that reason. Many charismatic and Pentecostal churches hold that a prayer language or speaking in tongues is a necessary demonstration of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and some that it is necessary evidence for salvation.

    I may blog about some of those experiences in a later post. Right now I want to say some words on faith healing. I blogged recently about a healing service, and then yesterday healing prayer was included in a regular service of worship. Both of these services were a blessing to me just being present. That experience is detached from any physical healing that may have taken place.

    You see, I have no experience that will say that prayer, apart from the application of medical science will heal. I have seen people prayed for who went on to get better. I have observed this happen outside the predicted parameters. My own father’s recovery in 1971 was contrary to the predictions of the doctor, but in any scientific sense one must take into account the possibility that the doctor’s predictions were simply wrong.

    Further, I don’t expect to get such evidence, unless it’s accidental and comes from someone else. Why? I will never test healing prayer, laying on of hands, or any similar activity in that way. I have strong theological reason to suggest that prayer is not a substitute for medical science. One could always have a test group prayed over by faith healers, and another group offered the best medical science has to offer. My suspicion is that the first group will do much worse than the second. But I would regard it as unethical to try.

    My concern with faith healing is that the expressed expectation of the healer is going to lead the person who receives prayer to believe they are healed, or to believe that their healing will come apart from medical care. I have every reason to believe that they will probably be wrong about that. I previously related the case in which a pastor, who should have known better, told my 12 year old son who was in chemotherapy that God had told him that everyone he laid hands on and prayed for would be healed from cancer. For a 12 year old that logically meant he no longer needed to continue chemotherapy–but he did need to continue.

    I can testify that there are many things about having a child sick, for example, that go well beyond the obvious. In our case, my wife was forced to go to half-time on family medical leave. Despite having good health insurance, we piled up medical bills with the copays and deductibles. Our time was strained. Our mental energy was strained. Then someone would come along and say, “If you will just go to _____, they will pray for your son and I believe he will be healed.” If we made the decision not to go the obvious question was why we would neglect to do something that might possibly save our son’s life.

    The problem was that we had dozens of such suggestions, some from regular medicine though different from the course of treatment we had chosen with our oncologist’s advice, some from alternative medicine, and many from a spiritual perspective. We had suggestions on how to decorate his room, how to handle the water in our house, and how to organize his diet. At some point, you simply wear out from suggestions. You simply cannot do all of it, even if you want to.

    A major problem is desperation, which leads you to do anything that might help, without any concern about whether it is very likely to do so. Friends are desperate as well, and they want to help. Under these circumstances the faith healer looks pretty good. Just go get anointed with oil and hands laid on you and it’s taken care of. Well, the bottom line for many people is that it isn’t, and after that the recriminations start. I know of a family, for example, who were told by a Methodist minister that if they had had enough faith, their loved one would have been healed. If your business is spiritual, can you admit simply that God doesn’t always heal, or even do so all that frequently, or do you have to find a reason why the activity failed?

    Revival, American style, shares characteristics with American fast food. We want it to be exciting and fast. We would prefer to go to the faith healer, be declared healed, and go on our way. It certainly beats months of chemotherapy.

    But I don’t think healing prayer is primarily about that, which is why I would not test it in that way. Healing prayer is primarily about spiritual, and by extension emotional, health. The healing services I attended fed into that spiritual health by combining the prayer with worship, explicitly discussing the expectations, and doing this all in the context of a supportive praying community, the church congregation. This can be done in a mass revival service, but it is easy to miss it. Further, in the revival service there is most commonly no follow-up to help a person with their expectations. If the revival preacher or faith healer lays hands on you and you remain ill, who is going to help you deal with your expectations? I recall one young man in trouble with the Brownsville revival who talked to me about his situation. He was happy that I would listen, he said, but what he really wanted was a half hour with his own pastor, something he was unlikely to get.

    I believe that any time we put our primary focus on the physical–material wealth, physical healing, visible effects of the Spirit’s presence–we will produce many negative results. Pastors in the area of a revival need to be aware of this and be prepared to support their members. One key issue here which might need more comment: Being a blanket critic of the revival is likely to turn away the very people you could help. If you affirm a person’s desire for a touch from God, and then help them work through their expectations, you will have opportunities to provide balance for them that they are unlikely to get at a revival service. Implying that they were stupid for seeking prayer is unlikely to be helpful.

    I would describe this as the primary failing of churches in the Pensacola area during the Brownsville revival. People showed up in churches after they had accepted Christ at the revival, or church members returned to their home church after the revival service, only to hear condemnation. Discerning comment on weaknesses is necessary. Affirmation of people’s needs and of the blessings that many receive helps establish the ground. Then you can fill in the blanks and balance the imbalances where they occur.

    I have been rambling a bit, but I hope these thoughts will be of help to people in relating to revival. I’m in no way telling people not to go and experience whatever they believe God has called them to do. But the more people there are and the more excitement, the more discernment is necessary.