[Originally posted at Bene Diction Blogs On, June 2, 2010]
After seeing today's Vancouver Sun, I feel a little sorry for evangelist Faytene Kryskow.
Today, Sun columnist Daphne Bramham wrote a column on Marci McDonald's book. It appears not only online, but on page A15 of the actual newspaper.
Bramham spoke to McDonald, as she writes that her own column will look at the characters of the movement "because -as McDonald told me in a frank assessment of her own work -there aren't a lot of headlines from it."
She follows McDonald's lead and gives a lot of play to Faytene Kryskow, who needs no introduction to BDBO readers, as Vancouver is where Faytene spent her earliest years in ministry. A large picture of Faytene accompanies the op-ed.
Whatever you may think of Faytene's thoughts and doings, as documented in the column, she may understandably be upset with the newspaper today.
Bramham writes:
"McDonald describes Kryskow as 'spiritual godmother to a young Abbotsford revivalist named Todd Bentley, a burly former jailbird with face piercings and tattoos from ankles to neck.'"
McDonald may also be perturbed with columnist Bramham today as that's not so. (I don't want McDonald to be blamed for this--as happened with the TorStar excerpt--when it is not her fault.)
On Page 159 of The Armageddon Factor, McDonald writes:
"When [Patricia] King won her own TV show on the Miracle Channel, Kryskow became a regular guest, introduced as a 'budding prohetess', but she was not King's only protege. The Extreme Prophetess had a also played spiritual godmother to a young Abbotsford revivalist named Todd Bentley...."
It must be disconcerting to Faytene--who has had little to do with Todd Bentley--to be associated with the controversial, if not infamous evangelist, and have Vancouver Sun readers who know of the Lakeland "revival" think that Faytene was responsible for springing Bentley on the world.
We at BDBO have differed with Faytene but we also try to get things right too. So, in fairness to her, I would like to chide the Sun for being a bit sloppy too.
I wonder if there was a Sun editor who wondered "Gosh, this lady in the picture looks to be a contemporary of Bentley's, not old enough to be a 'godmother'. This should be factchecked against the book."
Hopefully, Kryskow's letter to the editor is on its way to the Vancouver Sun.