[Posted at Bene Diction Blogs On Sept. 25, 2010]
Evangelist Todd Bentley is saying some, well, shall we say interesting things on a short video released two days ago..
In the run-up to releasing his video documentary on the Lakeland “revival”, filmmaker Roy Petersen is releasing various clips on YouTube.I would say that this was filmed sometime in 2009, because the interviewer makes a reference early to hearing something Bentley said “last year”. Also Bentley says at 4;08 “…I talked about it at Lakeland” (note the past tense) so 2009 it probably is.
[This raises an interesting possibility. During the lengthy restoration process, Rick Joyner referred to a “journalist” who was asking “the tough questions”. Could he have been thinking of Melinda Wilson, the interviewer in this clip?]
Did you know that Todd Bentley sent a team into a nearby hospital and “all” 65 terminally people therein were miraculously healed over the next few days?
And I kind of wonder whether Todd Bentley has the Incarnation of Christ exactly right….
Fortunately for us, the video is on YouTube:
Here’s some things in the video that I think are of interest…
Wilson begins by asking Todd Bentley how he handles when people don’t get healed.
“I’ve learned to disengage”, Bentley says. He then goes on to say that often what happens is that people are healed after they leave up to two days later.
“When I pray for you and I don’t see anything happen, my box—I just compartmentalize, I just go back to the “two days later” box, and somehow that just blots you out of my mind and I forget that I even prayed for you. I just go on….”
Is this the compassion that Jesus was often moved with when he healed? It’s one thing to persevere and to not let failure deter you from trying, but Bentley, as you can see, is matter of fact about this. He’ll have an order of Indifference with “Meh” on the side.
At 1:10, Bentley launches into a story that I want to make sure that you don’t miss.
“….we went to this one hospital and prayed for 65 terminally ill patients. My teams went into this hospital and they prayed for 65, and and and a few days later, we got the report the whole hospital was healed….It never pops back in my mind.”
Just over 12 seconds. My reporter skills might be a bit rusty, but fire sirens are going off in my head. I would have interrupted and asked “Hang on. Where was this? What’s the name of the hospital, and where is it? Who can I call to get more information? Exactly when was this?”
If this had happened at or before Lakeland, it would have been great to bring up when he was interviewed by ABC’s Nightline reporter. Remember their exchange? I can paraphrase it as Todd saying there were scads of healings that ABC could report on, while ABC reporter Jeffrey Kofman kept patiently saying that all he wanted was one.
Why didn’t questioner Melinda Wilson jump on that?
I’m also reminded of the most recent “restoration” video of Rick Joyner’s , which I blogged about here. Joyner made a great effort to say that as the restoration process has been progressing, Bentley has been more and more honest and forthright.
Mmm Hmm. I wonder how that is coming along.
They then turn to the question of of how someone wanting “the anointing” can get it
Bentley is talking about how the Lord gives the amount of gifts and graces that a person needs to do the tasks that the Lord wants them to do at that particular moment or season in their life when at 4:42 he says this:
“You don’t need the measure [of anointing] that I have if you ain’t gonna be, you know, leading world revivals, you know. Not that my gift or your gift or his gift or anybody’s is better than anybody’s, but it all comes down to calling too, and season. Jesus didn’t get his great anointing until he was thirty and he was gone by 33, you know, in one sense.”
A perhaps non-orthodox sense, Todd?
I’m not a theologian, but for me, this raises the question whether Bentley believes that as God incarnate in man, Jesus would already have any “great anointing” that He would need, but had chosen, in obedience to the Father, not to use it until he was 30—which I suspect is a more orthodox argument.
That’s the view that I have, anyways. I suspect that I may have it pretty correct, but I want to repesct your views if they differ from mine.
But what I can argue more surely is this. As this 2009 interview shows, during Bentley’s “restoration process”, there was no sign that if God had said to Bentley that His will for him was that he have only a quiet low profile ministry—or that he take a secular job-- that Todd would have listened to the Lord at all. He’s called to “world revivals”. Period.
I can only note that in his most recent video about Todd Bentley, Rick Joyner also emphasized the great humility that Todd was developing.
Mmm Hmm.