Mr. Bentley enters his rehab

[Crossposted at The Shotgun, March 14, 2009]

At last, new trophy wife in tow, Todd Bentley, the Canadian evangelist who has been having many problems over the past year (to put it lightly) has entered rehabilitation. Over seven months after the collapse of his internationally famous revival in the U.S., he has at last gotten around to going to North Carolina to come under the mentoring of charismatic leader Rick Joyner. Mr. Joyner is to help him return to ministry. Yet, already, in the annoucements and videos that are coming out with Mr. Bentley, there's more backspin than at a convention of billiards players evident, which is not a good omen for those hoping that Mr. Bentley can return to his work with integrity and a good character.    

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As videos began to be released a couple of days ago, there was a flurry of commentary and a bit of news coverage. Blogger Miriam Franklin has already weighed in with several pointed critical posts on Mr. Joyner and Mr. Bentley. I'd defintely agree with her on one point she has made, namely that people are concentrating too much on Mr. Bentley's divorce and quickie remarriage to Jessa, whose affair with the evangelist seems to be the proxinate cause of the "Lakeland revival". Not so. The affair was a symptom not a cause. That is to say, Mr. Bentley had a character problem that exhibited itself in lying from the pulpit about, for example, raising people from the dead. There were some aberrant, heretical things being said and done at Lakeland. And he was canoodling with a younger, prettier intern while his wife was either watching the kids or taking the pulpit herself to promote what her husband was doing. Marrying Jessa will likely not fix what leads to these sorts of actions.

My blogging friend Bene Diction makes an excellent point in a post that notes that many prominent charismatic groups and churches are slumping in the amount of people that are logging on to their sites. This relates to several things that I have been seeing on The Elijah List, an e-list that caters to charismatics, to the effect that people with alleged prophetic insight are commenting that God will bring Christians through the current economic woes, or bless them in amazing ways financially. There are reports of layoffs at ministries, and the tone of requests for donations has been stepped up. All this backs up Bene Diction's suspicion that there may be a lot of pressure to get Bentley out on the road prematurely so, as the "star" of the "Lakeland revival", he can start to draw the crowds again.

Mr. Joyner's first letter, announcing that Bentley and new wife had arrived, also noted that Mr. Bentley has a new ministry, Fresh Fire USA, which is organized under Mr. Joyner's own ministry for now. Those wanting to help Mr. Bentley were offered Fresh Fire USA's address. So, I had to smile when religion editor Frank Lockwood of the Arkansas Democrat, on his religious news blog, titled his note on Mr. Bentley's restoration process: "Sorry about the adultery. Please send $$$" . 

Charisma, the magazine of record for charismatic Christians in the U.S., is covering this too. Their own story has an intestesting note. At the tail end of Bentley's time in Florida, a team of charismatic leaders and ministers lead by C. Peter Wagner held a special commissioning service for Bentley which was broadcast worldwide via Internet, in which the "Revival Alliance" members predicted that Bentley would go from success to success. They welcomed Bentley as a member of their group and even gave him a special ring, but Charisma's story quotes Revival Alliance member John Arnott (known for pastoring the "Toronto Blessing" in the 1990s) as saying that Bentley is no longer considered a "member in good standing" of their group. Mr. Wagner and Mr. Arnott revealed some of Bentley's misdeeds in the aftermath of his leaving the revival, so Mr. Bentley has evidently decided to form alliances with those who are more sympathtic to him, such as Mr. Joyner.

Mr. Joyner features in another Charisma item as well. Charisma editor J. Lee Grady, in his latest column,  is disgusted with the rush to bring Bentley back too quickly, calling it a "travesty". Mr. Grady is righteously indignant, but what I find telling is Mr. Joyner's response. He writes, in part:

Lee, I love some of the things you write, but I also feel that some are straight from the mouth of the accuser.

I'll need to translate this for non-Christians. Mr. Joyner is referring to Revelation 12:10 which mentions that Satan is the "accuser of the brethren" (i.e. christians). So, what Mr. Joyner is saying here is that Mr. Grady, editor of a charismatic Christian magazine, is channeling Satan, basically.

It should go without saying that if you are a professing Christian, one of the worst possible insults that you could use would be to say that your opponent is being used by the devil as a ventriliquist dummy.

One would think that "fighting dirty" would be abhorrent for a Christian such as Mr. Joyner.

Mr. Joyner, as the conservative site  Apologetics Index notes has a history of doing other things that would raise the eyebrows of many Christians. He has a reputation of being "prophetic" and having special insight from the Lord, but non-Christian sceptics would no doubt be amused that he occasionally sees through a glass very darkly, such as his prediction of Los Angeles being levelled by an earthquake and nuclear bombs in the 1990s.

Mr. Joyner's occasiional intemperance, as exhibited in his response to Mr. Grady, may also be shown in one of his famous prohetic words, in his book The Final Quest, about the "Blues and the Grays". He predicts a coming civil war in Christianity, with the winning side (of which Mr. Joyner is a part, of course) defeats the Christians who have been misled by Satan being defeated and removed from their positions of authority in the church.  We must "remove the cancer from our midst" he writes in his book. (I wonder, given the violence waged between Christians in history, and in our own time, whether it is appropriate to share these sorts of visions in public. Certainly, Christians should "contend for the faith", but so sadly, they do not need encouragment to turn to violence in the direst of circumstances.)

I note these things and note that Mr. Bentley, when not kneeing cancer victims in the stomach, has often delighted in telling his audiences about times that he has kicked old ladies in the head with his biker boot and such. (As I write, some of these stories are preserved on YouTube.) Amongst the fruits of the Holy Spirit that should be exhibited by an evangelist such as Mr. Bentley are meekness, gentleness and self-control. I have to ask whether Mr. Bentley's mentor, Mr. Joyner, would be effective in advising him here when Mr. Joyner himself--this week--accuses his opponents of speaking on Satan's behalf, and cherishes visions of winning a "war in the church". Yes, often the flawed have to help the flawed, but this is not promising. 

On to the videos that have been released to explain Mr. Bentley's rehabilitation process. The first video from Mr. Joyner's ministry has Mr. Bentley himself as a guest. I'm posting a copy of most of the first video that has been saved on YouTube in case the videos start to disappear from Mr. Joyner's own website:

www.youtube.com/v/hCMDrAUvaPU&hl=en&fs=1

Some things that jump out at me:

1. You'll notice that Mr. Bentley is full of talk of mistakes and errors, but never mentions the word "sin". Even Jimmy Swaggart had the grace to cry "I have sinned," when he next appeared before the public after he sinned.

Not that people would demand a pound of flesh, of course. But talk of sin and sinning would indicate that Mr. Bentley is a lot more serious about making things right than his critics think that he is. The evangelist already has the problem that it took him over half a year to begin this supposedly important process, so he needs to be seen to be taking it seriously.

2. I don't really believe that in an age of fax, e-mail and videoconferencing that it was impossible for Mr. Bentley to be working on his visa appeal with the U.S. custonms officials while moving to North Carolina. I'm sure that it is done all the time for compassionate reasons, for example. I sincerely doubt that it would be impossible as Mr. Bentley implies.

3. As a Canadian, I am a little dismayed to hear Mr. Bentley say this:

"....Shonnah's doing everything she can to help with my immigration process...."

It would appear that Mr. Bentley is tring to become a landed immigrant or even a U.S. citizen. No points for guessing that his marriage to Jessa was designed to help with this.

If we grant for a moment that Mr. Bentley's faith, giftings and burden to convert non-Christians are valid, this is sad. Yes, Canadian christians have been moving to the U.S. to pursue their calling since Aimee Semple McPherson, but the United States already has so many ministers and so much resources. If Mr. Bentley is who he says he is, the church in Canada needs  people like him. Of course, his critics would say that Mr. Bentley should not let the door hit him on the behind as he leaves Canada. But the need is acute. If Mr. Bentley's style of faith-healing evangelism is what is needed, then it is particularly sad that he never devoted much effort to the nearest major city to where he lived, Vancouver. (The last time that he himself ministered in the city was at a medium sized church over five years ago.)

Of course, Mr. Benley's citics could question how committed Mr. Bentley was committed to "revival" in Canada's cities and towns in the  first place, based on his decision to move.

4. Mr. Bentley, 7:30 into the video, starts talking about how he dealt with problems as an unsaved teenager:

"....That old [sin] nature in you is when you hurt someone, you just want to give up and run away from the whole thing. That's how I dealt with pain as I grew up as a child. If I was hurt or rejected or I disappointed my mother or disappointed my father, I just packed up and moved to the next town. When I burned all the bridges there, I just packed up and moved. This time we want to deal with everything square in the face...."

Let's follow his logic. Mr. Bentley says that it is sinful, or at least immature, to deal with problems by running away from them. This is after he has divorced his wife and not only "packed up and moved to the next town" but moved to the next country. He has "burned all his bridges" with his ex-wife, turning in for a new model, instead of "dealing with everything square in the face" of Shonnah Bentley, his first wife.

How can you teach someone to stand and deal with their problems when they have just run away from most of them? What is preventing Todd Bentley from packing up and giving up on Mr. Joyner's restoration process when by implication, spending the past few months running from everything that is painful to deal with is quite all right?

Did Mr. Joyner even try to persuade Mr. Bentley to stay with his wife and kids and stay in Canada? 

5. An offhand remark of Mr. Bentley's at the 8:55 mark will raise some eyebrows:   

"There's so much that I've learned on all this. There's triumph. There's tragedy. And, you know, there'll be a message. Ther'll be a whole series of messages...."

Tragedy I can understand. Triumph? The only triumph that there would be is Christ somehow cleaning up the pig's breakfast that the evangelist has made, but the "restoration process" has only just started. Rather, are we seeing a "triumph of the will" specifically Todd Bentley's will? He got the wife he wanted. He got the parenting situation that worked best for him. He got a very sympathetic mentor to counsel him. He has a lot that he wants, and that might not be good for him.

Watching this video may bring a sense that Mr. Bentley is not being asked to be serious about his mistakes. This is an unease that is shared, according to Cary McMullen of the Lakeland Ledger newspaper, who has done a lot of great reporting on Mr. Bentley's revival and its aftermath. In a post on the reaction to the plans to restore Mr. Bentley in "Pentecostal circles", McMullen notes that many  seem to fear that "this is just further evidence that Bentley and his supporters are frauds".

Mr. Bentley and Mr. Joyner have their work cut out for them. If they are truly wanting to do the right thing, there is a lot of scepticism to deal with. Well-founded scepticism, I am afraid. 

Todd Bentley marries woman whom he had an extramarital affair with

[Crossposted at The Shotgun, March 7, 2009)

Those who have been following the misadventures of Canadian evangelist Todd Bentley may be interested to know that he remarried a few days ago.

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Mr. Bentley has married the former Jessa Hasbrook, a former intern for his ministry. Last summer, his internationally famous revival campaign in Lakeland, Florida collapsed when it was revelead that he and Jessa had begun an "emotional affair". Charismatic leaders C. Peter Wagner and Robert Ricciardelli, however, have reported that the affair was apparently sexual. Mr. Ricciardelli, furthermore, has indicated that this affair, whatever type it was, began in January of last year, which would place it well before Mr. Bentley announced that he was separating from his wife Shonnah. This is also well before Mr. Bentley brought Shonnah Bentley and his kids to Lakeland to show them to an international T.V. audience. Shonnah Bentley even preached in a local church to promote her husband's revival.

(Even non-contested  divorces in British Columbia take at least two to five months to process. If we work backwards, it appears that Todd and Jessa Bentley could have wound up marrying as quickly as the day after Todd Bentley's divorce paperwork arrived in the mail from Canada. A five month delay until now would place the start of everything back around last November, which, interestingly, was around the same time that Shonnah Bentley and her mom Val Andres, in control of the remnant of the Fresh Fire board, issued the statement on behalf of the board that Todd was committing "adultery", and castigated the evangelist at some length.)  

Readers may recall that I reported on The Shotgun last fall that Shonnah Bentley has a lifelong disability after suffering cancer as a teen:

I wrote: 

Mr. Bentley must realize that if, he divorces his current wife in favor of a trophy wife, there will be speculation in the minds of some of his Internet and Christian media critics that one of the reasons that he is getting rid of Shonnah is because her disability embarrasses him—and moreover, that his  theology does not work with a wife hobbling along at his side. 

There are several pictures and videos of Jessa on the Internet now. With all due respect to Shonnah Bentley (as I do not like to make such comparisons in print), the new Jessa Bentley is certainly a "trophy wife" for the evangelist. She is significantly younger than Todd Bentley, pretty, and by all indications, completely able bodied. I do not think that Mr. Bentley was thinking of Jessa's spiritual gifts, skills, training or knowledge, when he asked for her hand. To my knowledge, Jessa has never preached, ministered in faith-healing as Mr. Bentley has, or done anything to indicate that she can significantly help her new husband in his work. (Shonnah Bentley has. Not that it matters to Mr. Bentley now, though.)

Watch for the Christian press, if they are on the ball, to point this out. Hopefully, with side-by-side photos of both Mrs. Bentleys.

This is a fait accompli presented to Rick Joyner, the U.S. Christian evangelist who has yet to begin "restoring" Mr. Bentley to ministry. Mr. Bentley is saying to Mr. Joyner. "Look, buddy, I'm marrying this woman, and whatever advice you may have to the contrary based on the Bible or your educated wisdom, is beside the point." Very conservative Christians (which include some charismatics) believe that remarriage while one's first spouse in alive is proscribed by the Bible, so it will be interesting to see what kind of arguments that Joyner and Mr. Bentley can advance here. I don't think that arguing something like "I no longer love my first wife, but I love this prettier, able-bodied and younger woman who doesn't have the maturity (spiritually or emotionally) to hold me accountable to God's standards (as a husband and evangelist) in the same way that Shonnah can. So, that's why I married Jessa." will work well for Mr. Bentley. Nevertheless he will try.

Readers of Mr. Bentley's autobiography, Journey Into the Miraculous, will also recall a vision that Mr. Bentley had before his marriage that I've discussed in the Shotgun before. You may recall that he claims in his autobiography that he received a special message from the Lord that he was to marry Shonnah Andres...which he did. He wrote:

“…the Lord had actually shown me an open vision of Shonnah. It was my first open-eyed vision. I was in my living room and my fireplace opened up, kind of like a TV screen, and I saw us embracing in a wheat field that was ready for harvest. We were both weeping and I was wearing a tux and she was wearing a wedding dress. As the vision unfolded, her friend Roswetta (who was now my friend) was talking with me in the living room about Shonnah. I described the open vision to her as it happened. The presence of the Lord fell and we both wept. Roswetta said, ‘I can’t see it but I can feel goose bumps.’ During this vision, I also received an anointing of creativity, poetry and writing. In fact, I even received a three-page prophetic poem that I read at our wedding. I still write prophetic poems for my wife to this day.” 

Todd Bentley lied. He lied to get Shonnah Bentley to marry him. Otherwise, if he believed that heard from God, in the same way that he "hears from God" on behalf of people wanting a healing touch or a message from the Lord, he would have moved heaven and earth to stay with his first wife. Sadly, that is the point of view on this that makes the most sense now.

Jessa Bentley--if Todd told you anything about a vision that he had where Jesus told him to marry you, please save yourself some heartbreak and take it with the biggest grain of salt that you can find.  

This poses an interesting question for Mr. Bentley's U.S. publisher Destiny Image Publishers. Are there any whoppers in Mr. Bentley's three books? What will happen to Todd's account of his vision about marrying Shonnah in future editions of his autobiography? Will it disappear in the same way that officials who displeased Stalin started disappearing from pictures and photos as they were taken to the Gulag?

Sad, very sad. I wonder what Mr. Bentley can say when he fields inquiries from the press again. 

Read Your Bible, Todd

(Crossposted at The Shotgun Jan. 10, 2009)

<p>Canadian evangelist Todd Bentley once told an audience a few years ago that even before he became a born-again Christian he had the gift of gab—that he was “always good at speaking”. He put on a display last week, trying to explain away the collapse of his world-famous revival this past summer and his affair with a former intern. Those who understand Mr. Bentley’s history and theology, however, will likely find his explanations wanting.</p><form class="at-page-break"></form><p>Mr. Bentley fielded questions from Paul Steven Ghiringhelli, a writer for Charisma magazine. The reporter wanted some comments on a statement issued by the governing board of Fresh Fire Ministries, Mr. Bentley’s ministry, criticizing his affair as “adultery” and condemning his planned divorce from his wife Shonnah. Mr. Ghiringhelli deserves praise for getting Mr. Bentley to comment to the press for the first time in months, but his editors, posting the story on their website. were definitely trying to downplay Mr. Bentley’s remarks by implying that they were only reporting on the FFM statement (“Leaders of Todd Bentley’s Ministry Break Silence”) and by dropping his quotes to the second half of the story.</p>

<p>If we parse what Mr. Bentley has to say, it’s pretty scary. I’ll reproduce it here, and then offer what I hope is some useful background.</p>

<p>The relevant section of the article runs as follows:

<p>On Tuesday, Bentley said there had been no sexual immorality between him and the former nanny. He claimed that for two years no “spark or interest” in the former staff member existed, and that the two developed only an emotional relationship several weeks after July 1, when Bentley filed for divorce.</p>

<p><em>He admitted, however, that the budding relationship was “absolutely” bad timing.</em></p>

<p><em>“I would call it an inappropriate relationship, in the sense that it was too soon, too quick, and should’ve never happened the way that it happened,” Bentley said. “Emotionally, she had stepped in to comfort me as a friend would.</em></p>

<p><em>“But I never left my wife to be with another woman,” he said. “There was nothing premeditated or inappropriate in my heart. I had never even entertained the idea that I liked this girl. It never went there.”</em></p>

<p><em>Claiming to have gone through years of counseling with his wife, Bentley said he is divorcing her over “irreconcilable differences.”</em></p>

<p><em>He denied disconnecting from his children and told Charisma he is in constant phone contact with them and plans to see them as soon as he sorts out issues with his visa.</em></p>

<p><em>Bentley said FFM let him review the letter before they made it public and that he was unhappy with portions of it. He said he felt the letter implied that the breakup of his marriage could be blamed on his relationship with his former nanny and the pressures of leading daily nonstop revival meetings in Lakeland.</em></p>

<p><em>“I have the utmost respect for my team in Canada and we have had a lot of years together,” he said. “[But] I’m not in agreement with my board on this. The point is, [the former nanny] wasn’t the cause. And I don’t want to blame Lakeland. I want to blame a bad marriage.”</em></p>

<p><em>Bentley said he is willing to take 100 percent responsibility for his actions and that he readily admits he’s guilty of doing a lot of things wrong over the years. “In a lot of ways, the ministry has been my mistress,” he said. “That did destroy my marriage. That I have to take responsibility for.”</em></p>

<p><em>….Bentley said he is still involved at an emotional level with his former nanny and soon plans to move to Joyner’s headquarters in Fort Mill, S.C., to “fully embrace a healing and restoration process.”</em></p>

<p>To begin, not only the board, but also Mr. Bentley’s friend, Ignited Church pastor<em>&nbsp;</em>Stephen Strader has said that the Mr. Bentley’s affair is apparently sexual. Before Mr. Bentley spoke to Charisma, he spoke to Strader. Pastor Strader, based on what Bentley told him, told his local paper that he agreed with the FFM board that what Bentley was doing was basically adultery.</p>

<p>People who have been following the evangelist will recall that three years ago he pulled himself off the road on the grounds that he had suffered a breakdown due to nervous exhaustion. He went into this in a full sermon-length message, which he sent to his contributors, describing his “dark night of the soul”. Left unmentioned in his message, however, was this was directly after a sexual affair with another staffer than the one we are mentioning now. Mr. Bentley was no doubt coming off the road in an attempt to save his marriage.</p>

<p>This has been remarked on twice. Once by Stephen Strader, immediately after Bentley left the revival, in the local newspaper.</p>

<p>Perhaps Pastor Strader was a source of information for C. Peter Wagner, a charismatic leader in the United States who wants Mr. Bentley to become one of his disciples. Mr. Wagner noted in a report on the revival in August that this first affair, during Mr, Bentley’s emotional “breakdown”, was sexual: “<em>Their marriage has been torn for years by his emotional attachment with at least one other female whose physical contact went beyond hugging and kissing and holding hands. Enough said-maybe more details will be revealed later-but it was clearly immoral. All of this was skillfully concealed by lying and by swearing close associates who had observed his behavior to secrecy</em>.”</p>

<p>It’s interesting that Bentley says that there was no “spark or interest” on his part for the intern. Really? Did he put safeguards in place, as many do, to ensure that nothing could come up that could threaten his marriage? If not, why not?</p>

<p>(One hopes that the lady in question does not take offense at the implication that Mr. Bentley was basically seduced, It takes two to tango.)</p>

<p>He couldn’t talk to the intern and another lady friend of his at the same time, so that they could both comfort him in a purely sisterly way ? (Someone who had fallen into an affair in the past would particularly want to be careful here.)</p>

<p>As I have noted, there is nothing preventing Mr. Bentley, a Canadian citizen, born in Canada, from being in Canada right now to be near his kids. The visa “issues” relate to re-entry into the United States, a big source of revenue for the evangelist. Does he have personal assets in the United States that he must access in person, such as, perhaps, safety deposit boxes in a bank stuffed with cash (that his wife may not know about)?</p>

<p>Mr. Bentley’s remarks, however, are troubling to someone who is a charismatic Christian, as he professes to be. Citing years of counseling, and a bad marriage as a reason to divorce, does not jibe with the account of the marriage in Mr. Bentley’s autobiography, Journey Into The Miraculous.</p>

<p>Mr. Bentley writes that his wife-to-be, Shonnah Andres, initially saw him as just a friend. Furthermore, she was interested in another fellow, and thought, after prayer, that she would marry this other man.</p>

<p>Then, Todd had a “vision from God”:</p>

<blockquote><p>“…the Lord had actually shown me an open vision of Shonnah. It was my first open-eyed vision. I was in my living room and my fireplace opened up, kind of like a TV screen, and I saw us embracing in a wheat field that was ready for harvest. We were both weeping and I was wearing a tux and she was wearing a wedding dress. As the vision unfolded, her friend Roswetta (who was now my friend) was talking with me in the living room about Shonnah. I described the open vision to her as it happened. The presence of the Lord fell and we both wept. Roswetta said, ‘I can’t see it but I can feel goose bumps.’ During this vision, I also received an anointing of creativity, poetry and writing. In fact, I even received a three-page prophetic poem that I read at our wedding. I still write prophetic poems for my wife to this day.”</p></blockquote>

<p>Shonnah’s friend then went off to tell her about the vision. Shonnah gradually fell in love with Bentley and they married.</p>

<p>Charismatics sometimes make decisions partly based on what they think the Lord is telling them. Ladies in charismatic churches sometimes need to tell ardent suitors who say, “The Lord has shown me that you are to be my wife!” something like “Well, I’m sure that he will ‘tell’ me too and he hasn’t said anything yet!”</p>

<p>What disturbs me about the account in the book is this. Mr. Bentley is alleging that he received special direction from the Lord to marry his wife, moreover, that he received special help from God to enable him to show love to her. If I were Bentley, I would be frightened to fly in the face of this alleged vision by pursuing a divorce. Would he not be going against the revealed will of God in what he is said to have seen…if we assume this vision actually took place?</p>

<p>Mr. Bentley is acting like this vision never took place, or is wrong. This poses a serious logical problem for the evangelist.</p>

<p>If the vision never took place, what other visions has he made up? He's had some doozies, which I won't get into here.</p>

<p>If the vision never took place, did he use his fib to prevent Shonnah from having God’s best for her life? What kind of selfish person would you have to be to do something like that?</p>

<p>This poses a problem for how he does his ministry as well. Many times, Mr. Bentley has explained how he often does ministry. Supposedly, he prays and tries to foresee what God will do at his upcoming meeting. In a vision, God will show him the faces of people, or tell him their names, or show him where they will be sitting in the meeting and then reveal extra information such as what their sickness is, or a special message from God for them.</p>

<p>If Mr. Bentley misread what he thought God was saying, this implies that in a “big question” that he can be horribly misled in hearing from God. Someone with terminal cancer, wanting healing prayer from Mr. Bentley, would certainly want to be able to put confidence in him being able to hear from God, especially if they were going to make medical decisions partly based on what he said.</p>

<p>If Mr. Bentley makes up what he says that God shows him, or uses the technique of “cold reading” to give those who come forward for prayer what they want to hear, that would certainly reflect on his character in a bad way.</p>

<p>If Mr. Bentley is to return to ministry, those counseling him will need to make sure that he has the character to be honest, and not to spin tales out of whole cloth. Alas, he has developed a demonstrated tendency of playing fast and loose with the truth and this must be addressed if he is to do good works.</p>

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What has bothered me about the Internet discussions of Mr. Bentley and his affair with his intern is that people seem to be confusing the cause and the effect. As I have mentioned, I first learned that the evangelist was not all that he seemed to be over seven years ago. My editors at The Report magazine allowed me to catch the evangelist in a grave lie, which he then repeated the following year. The sequence was clear. A character failing on Mr. Bentley's part led to lying. So, I was dismayed, but not surprised, to see Mr. Bentley lie and lie again. (Several of my posts here go into his most recent fibs.) What I hope that Mr. Joyner sees is that there is a basic issue of character that needs to be fixed when he counsels Mr. Bentley, lest a lack of honour or integrity threatens what he does in the future. You don't want to just fix the "affair" and then have the evangelist do other woeful public sins or expound faulty theology or use the wrong methods in his evangelism. You want a change of heart and mind, so that these things don't happen again.

You may recall that I noted that Todd Bentley claims in his autobiography that he received a special message from the Lord that he was to marry Shonnah Andres...which he did. He wrote:

“…the Lord had actually shown me an open vision of Shonnah. It was my first open-eyed vision. I was in my living room and my fireplace opened up, kind of like a TV screen, and I saw us embracing in a wheat field that was ready for harvest. We were both weeping and I was wearing a tux and she was wearing a wedding dress. As the vision unfolded, her friend Roswetta (who was now my friend) was talking with me in the living room about Shonnah. I described the open vision to her as it happened. The presence of the Lord fell and we both wept. Roswetta said, ‘I can’t see it but I can feel goose bumps.’ During this vision, I also received an anointing of creativity, poetry and writing. In fact, I even received a three-page prophetic poem that I read at our wedding. I still write prophetic poems for my wife to this day.” 

If I had received such a direction from the Lord, I would be very apprehensive about going against His will. But if you listen to Mr. Bentley now, he will tell you that his marriage has been troubled for many years and that his wife Shonnah Bentley is a shrew. Shonnah, in particular in her remarks at Ignited Church last spring, has often said that she felt most comfortable being a stay-at-home mom with a husband and family. Perhaps, if this was a valid vision, what God intended was that Todd Bentley hold back somewhat on his desire to be another Billy Graham who also happened to knee cancer victims in the stomach and boot old ladies in the head. Rather, instead he would be well grounded emotionally and have a travelling ministry closer to home, good friends that he could depend on to give him good counsel and a home church. With this sort of partnership, Mr. Bentley could have avoided his well publicized burnout of a few years ago, and lapsing into excessive drinking and an extra-marital affair. Two halves of a team.

Then again, he could have made the vision up to fool Shonnah Bentley into marrying him. He's acting like he never saw anything, at any rate. 

Which brings me to the Open Heavens Bible. It's not unusual for evangelists to commission a special edition of the Bible. In 2006, that's what Todd Bentley's ministry did, working with Thomas Nelson to bring out a very limited special edition of the New King James Version, with special study notes by Todd Bentley based on his very charismatic theology. It never made the bookstores and I would be very surprised if more than two or three thousand copies were printed. It is now out of print.

It is Todd Bentley's Bible, in a very personal sense.

Mr. Bentley in his Bible, is eager that his readers avoid spiritual pitfalls, such as the 'Curses" that believers can bring on themselves. "Often when I speak of curses, people become afraid that they're going to get one or that they already have one. You can't pick up a curse at the supermarket or Wal-Mart," Mr. Bentley writes. "Curses don't have an effect without a cause (Prov. 26: 2)....The widest open door for curses in our life is disobedience."

The evangelist has a full page (page 778) on curses due to sexual sins. I quote it in full:

Curses: Open Doors of Lust and Adultery

Different kinds of sickness are sometimes rooted in lust. "But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart." (Matt 5:28). Looking at a woman's beauty isn't necessarily lust; lust is more than an appreciative glance--it is accompanied with the thought: I want her, or involves fantasy. Soon lust takes root and we become bound by it.

While men struggle most with lust of the eyes, women struggle more with the emotional aspects of lust. Romance novels or soap operas captuire the imagination and create unrealistic expectations. Some woman long for romance and satisfy their emotional need for it by feeding on the fairy-tale love lives of others.

In such instances, the doors of resentment, bitterness, and disappinment with her own life and partner grows. She begins to vet what she doesn't have. Single women also develop unrealistic expectatiosn for their "Prince Charming". Every fairy-tale idea about love, marriage, life and relationships that's allowed to settle in the mind--Hollywood glamour, movies, romance, sex and beauty--takes root in the imagination and becomes a form of lust.

Proverbs 2: 16-19 describes the dire consequences of falling into lust. It says that those who are ensnared by lust do not regain the paths of life.

The spirit of lust and adultery saps strength and life. It pulls its victims down paths that lead to the place of death. "Remove your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house, lest you give your honor to others, and your years to the cruel one" (Prov. 5:8,9). Our honour is our strength and vigor, but when we fall into lust and adultery, we give our years to the cruel one.

Lust can actually cut life short, or cause sickness. 'Now therefore lisetn to me, my children; pay attention to the words of my mouth: Do not let your heart turn aside to her ways, do not stray into her paths; for she has cast down many wounded, and all who were slain by her were strong men. Her house is the way to hell, descending to the chambers of death." (Prov 7:24-27)

The Proverbs writer continued to warn his reader abut the dangers of lust: "But he does not know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of hell." (Prov. 9:18). It's amazing what kind of demonic powers and demonic spirits work with the spirit of lust--adultery, sexual sin, perversion, and pornography. Don't give your strength, your years, and your vigour over to the crual one or to the spirits of death that are released in the midst of sexual sin. Flee from lust and the curse of sexual sin--choose to live a life of purity, as a vessel of honor, fully consecrated to God. 

Can you imagine what Todd Bentley, the author of these words, would have to say to the Todd Bentley, who fell into an affair with a younger woman--an employee--because he didn't fell like being married to his wife any longer?

Readers who appreciate irony would also note that the first two full verses on the facing page to the above note are Matthew 6, verses 31 and 32. The headline given these verses: "Marriage Is Sacred and Binding".

What is sad about all this is that there are some useful insights in these notes, but will anyone pay attention to them now if Mr. Bentley doesn't apply them to his own life? "Do as I wrote, not as I did," is hardly the advice that any religious leader should be offering.

This is why Mr. Bentley must be forced to have a change in his character before resuming any public ministry. "Preach the gospel always; if necessary use words", Francis of Assisi once said. Without a life to back up what he writes in his Bible, or speaks from the pulpit, Mr. Bentley risks letting his words fall to the ground, empty of purpose and devoid of any real value to anyone.

 

 

Read your Bible, Todd

Todd Bentley, Inc.

[Crossposted at The Shotgun Jan 2, 2009]

Canadian evangelist Todd Bentley once told an audience a few years ago that even before he became a born-again Christian he had the gift of gab—that he was “always good at speaking”. He put on a display last week, trying to explain away the collapse of his world-famous revival this past summer and his affair with a former intern. Those who understand Mr. Bentley’s history and theology, however, will likely find his explanations wanting.

Mr. Bentley fielded questions from Paul Steven Ghiringhelli, a writer for Charisma magazine. The reporter wanted some comments on a statement issued by the governing board of Fresh Fire Ministries, Mr. Bentley’s ministry, criticizing his affair as “adultery” and condemning his planned divorce from his wife Shonnah. Mr. Ghiringhelli deserves praise for getting Mr. Bentley to comment to the press for the first time in months, but his editors, posting the story on their website. were definitely trying to downplay Mr. Bentley’s remarks by implying that they were only reporting on the FFM statement (“Leaders of Todd Bentley’s Ministry Break Silence”) and by dropping his quotes to the second half of the story.

If we parse what Mr. Bentley has to say, it’s pretty scary. I’ll reproduce it here, and then offer what I hope is some useful background.

The relevant section of the article runs as follows:

On Tuesday, Bentley said there had been no sexual immorality between him and the former nanny. He claimed that for two years no “spark or interest” in the former staff member existed, and that the two developed only an emotional relationship several weeks after July 1, when Bentley filed for divorce.

He admitted, however, that the budding relationship was “absolutely” bad timing.

“I would call it an inappropriate relationship, in the sense that it was too soon, too quick, and should’ve never happened the way that it happened,” Bentley said. “Emotionally, she had stepped in to comfort me as a friend would.

“But I never left my wife to be with another woman,” he said. “There was nothing premeditated or inappropriate in my heart. I had never even entertained the idea that I liked this girl. It never went there.”

Claiming to have gone through years of counseling with his wife, Bentley said he is divorcing her over “irreconcilable differences.”

He denied disconnecting from his children and told Charisma he is in constant phone contact with them and plans to see them as soon as he sorts out issues with his visa.

Bentley said FFM let him review the letter before they made it public and that he was unhappy with portions of it. He said he felt the letter implied that the breakup of his marriage could be blamed on his relationship with his former nanny and the pressures of leading daily nonstop revival meetings in Lakeland.

“I have the utmost respect for my team in Canada and we have had a lot of years together,” he said. “[But] I’m not in agreement with my board on this. The point is, [the former nanny] wasn’t the cause. And I don’t want to blame Lakeland. I want to blame a bad marriage.”

Bentley said he is willing to take 100 percent responsibility for his actions and that he readily admits he’s guilty of doing a lot of things wrong over the years. “In a lot of ways, the ministry has been my mistress,” he said. “That did destroy my marriage. That I have to take responsibility for.”

….Bentley said he is still involved at an emotional level with his former nanny and soon plans to move to Joyner’s headquarters in Fort Mill, S.C., to “fully embrace a healing and restoration process.”

To begin, not only the board, but also Mr. Bentley’s friend, Ignited Church pastor Stephen Strader has said that the Mr. Bentley’s affair is apparently sexual. Before Mr. Bentley spoke to Charisma, he spoke to Strader. Pastor Strader, based on what Bentley told him, told his local paper that he agreed with the FFM board that what Bentley was doing was basically adultery.

People who have been following the evangelist will recall that three years ago he pulled himself off the road on the grounds that he had suffered a breakdown due to nervous exhaustion. He went into this in a full sermon-length message, which he sent to his contributors, describing his “dark night of the soul”. Left unmentioned in his message, however, was this was directly after a sexual affair with another staffer than the one we are mentioning now. Mr. Bentley was no doubt coming off the road in an attempt to save his marriage.

This has been remarked on twice. Once by Stephen Strader, immediately after Bentley left the revival, in the local newspaper.

Perhaps Pastor Strader was a source of information for C. Peter Wagner, a charismatic leader in the United States who wants Mr. Bentley to become one of his disciples. Mr. Wagner noted in a report on the revival in August that this first affair, during Mr, Bentley’s emotional “breakdown”, was sexual: “Their marriage has been torn for years by his emotional attachment with at least one other female whose physical contact went beyond hugging and kissing and holding hands. Enough said-maybe more details will be revealed later-but it was clearly immoral. All of this was skillfully concealed by lying and by swearing close associates who had observed his behavior to secrecy.”

It’s interesting that Bentley says that there was no “spark or interest” on his part for the intern. Really? Did he put safeguards in place, as many do, to ensure that nothing could come up that could threaten his marriage? If not, why not?

(One hopes that the lady in question does not take offense at the implication that Mr. Bentley was basically seduced, It takes two to tango.)

He couldn’t talk to the intern and another lady friend of his at the same time, so that they could both comfort him in a purely sisterly way ? (Someone who had fallen into an affair in the past would particularly want to be careful here.)

As I have noted, there is nothing preventing Mr. Bentley, a Canadian citizen, born in Canada, from being in Canada right now to be near his kids. The visa “issues” relate to re-entry into the United States, a big source of revenue for the evangelist. Does he have personal assets in the United States that he must access in person, such as, perhaps, safety deposit boxes in a bank stuffed with cash (that his wife may not know about)?

Mr. Bentley’s remarks, however, are troubling to someone who is a charismatic Christian, as he professes to be. Citing years of counseling, and a bad marriage as a reason to divorce, does not jibe with the account of the marriage in Mr. Bentley’s autobiography, Journey Into The Miraculous.

Mr. Bentley writes that his wife-to-be, Shonnah Andres, initially saw him as just a friend. Furthermore, she was interested in another fellow, and thought, after prayer, that she would marry this other man.

Then, Todd had a “vision from God”:

“…the Lord had actually shown me an open vision of Shonnah. It was my first open-eyed vision. I was in my living room and my fireplace opened up, kind of like a TV screen, and I saw us embracing in a wheat field that was ready for harvest. We were both weeping and I was wearing a tux and she was wearing a wedding dress. As the vision unfolded, her friend Roswetta (who was now my friend) was talking with me in the living room about Shonnah. I described the open vision to her as it happened. The presence of the Lord fell and we both wept. Roswetta said, ‘I can’t see it but I can feel goose bumps.’ During this vision, I also received an anointing of creativity, poetry and writing. In fact, I even received a three-page prophetic poem that I read at our wedding. I still write prophetic poems for my wife to this day.”

Shonnah’s friend then went off to tell her about the vision. Shonnah gradually fell in love with Bentley and they married.

Charismatics sometimes make decisions partly based on what they think the Lord is telling them. Ladies in charismatic churches sometimes need to tell ardent suitors who say, “The Lord has shown me that you are to be my wife!” something like “Well, I’m sure that he will ‘tell’ me too and he hasn’t said anything yet!”

What disturbs me about the account in the book is this. Mr. Bentley is alleging that he received special direction from the Lord to marry his wife, moreover, that he received special help from God to enable him to show love to her. If I were Bentley, I would be frightened to fly in the face of this alleged vision by pursuing a divorce. Would he not be going against the revealed will of God in what he is said to have seen…if we assume this vision actually took place?

Mr. Bentley is acting like this vision never took place, or is wrong. This poses a serious logical problem for the evangelist.

If the vision never took place, what other visions has he made up? He's had some doozies, which I won't get into here.

If the vision never took place, did he use his fib to prevent Shonnah from having God’s best for her life? What kind of selfish person would you have to be to do something like that?

This poses a problem for how he does his ministry as well. Many times, Mr. Bentley has explained how he often does ministry. Supposedly, he prays and tries to foresee what God will do at his upcoming meeting. In a vision, God will show him the faces of people, or tell him their names, or show him where they will be sitting in the meeting and then reveal extra information such as what their sickness is, or a special message from God for them.

If Mr. Bentley misread what he thought God was saying, this implies that in a “big question” that he can be horribly misled in hearing from God. Someone with terminal cancer, wanting healing prayer from Mr. Bentley, would certainly want to be able to put confidence in him being able to hear from God, especially if they were going to make medical decisions partly based on what he said.

If Mr. Bentley makes up what he says that God shows him, or uses the technique of “cold reading” to give those who come forward for prayer what they want to hear, that would certainly reflect on his character in a bad way.

If Mr. Bentley is to return to ministry, those counseling him will need to make sure that he has the character to be honest, and not to spin tales out of whole cloth. Alas, he has developed a demonstrated tendency of playing fast and loose with the truth and this must be addressed if he is to do good works.

Todd Bentley speaks!

{Crossposted at The Shotgun Dec. 10, 2008)

Canadian evangelist Todd Bentley once told an audience a few years ago that even before he became a born-again Christian he had the gift of gab—that he was “always good at speaking”. He put on a display last week, trying to explain away the collapse of his world-famous revival this past summer and his affair with a former intern. Those who understand Mr. Bentley’s history and theology, however, will likely find his explanations wanting.

Mr. Bentley fielded questions from Paul Steven Ghiringhelli, a writer for Charisma magazine. The reporter wanted some comments on a statement issued by the governing board of Fresh Fire Ministries, Mr. Bentley’s ministry, criticizing his affair as “adultery” and condemning his planned divorce from his wife Shonnah. Mr. Ghiringhelli deserves praise for getting Mr. Bentley to comment to the press for the first time in months, but his editors, posting the story on their website. were definitely trying to downplay Mr. Bentley’s remarks by implying that they were only reporting on the FFM statement (“Leaders of Todd Bentley’s Ministry Break Silence”) and by dropping his quotes to the second half of the story.

If we parse what Mr. Bentley has to say, it’s pretty scary. I’ll reproduce it here, and then offer what I hope is some useful background.

The relevant section of the article runs as follows:

On Tuesday, Bentley said there had been no sexual immorality between him and the former nanny. He claimed that for two years no “spark or interest” in the former staff member existed, and that the two developed only an emotional relationship several weeks after July 1, when Bentley filed for divorce.

He admitted, however, that the budding relationship was “absolutely” bad timing.

“I would call it an inappropriate relationship, in the sense that it was too soon, too quick, and should’ve never happened the way that it happened,” Bentley said. “Emotionally, she had stepped in to comfort me as a friend would.

“But I never left my wife to be with another woman,” he said. “There was nothing premeditated or inappropriate in my heart. I had never even entertained the idea that I liked this girl. It never went there.”

Claiming to have gone through years of counseling with his wife, Bentley said he is divorcing her over “irreconcilable differences.”

He denied disconnecting from his children and told Charisma he is in constant phone contact with them and plans to see them as soon as he sorts out issues with his visa.

Bentley said FFM let him review the letter before they made it public and that he was unhappy with portions of it. He said he felt the letter implied that the breakup of his marriage could be blamed on his relationship with his former nanny and the pressures of leading daily nonstop revival meetings in Lakeland.

“I have the utmost respect for my team in Canada and we have had a lot of years together,” he said. “[But] I’m not in agreement with my board on this. The point is, [the former nanny] wasn’t the cause. And I don’t want to blame Lakeland. I want to blame a bad marriage.”

Bentley said he is willing to take 100 percent responsibility for his actions and that he readily admits he’s guilty of doing a lot of things wrong over the years. “In a lot of ways, the ministry has been my mistress,” he said. “That did destroy my marriage. That I have to take responsibility for.”

….Bentley said he is still involved at an emotional level with his former nanny and soon plans to move to Joyner’s headquarters in Fort Mill, S.C., to “fully embrace a healing and restoration process.”

To begin, not only the board, but also Mr. Bentley’s friend, Ignited Church pastor Stephen Strader has said that the Mr. Bentley’s affair is apparently sexual. Before Mr. Bentley spoke to Charisma, he spoke to Strader. Pastor Strader, based on what Bentley told him, told his local paper that he agreed with the FFM board that what Bentley was doing was basically adultery.

People who have been following the evangelist will recall that three years ago he pulled himself off the road on the grounds that he had suffered a breakdown due to nervous exhaustion. He went into this in a full sermon-length message, which he sent to his contributors, describing his “dark night of the soul”. Left unmentioned in his message, however, was this was directly after a sexual affair with another staffer than the one we are mentioning now. Mr. Bentley was no doubt coming off the road in an attempt to save his marriage.

This has been remarked on twice. Once by Stephen Strader, immediately after Bentley left the revival, in the local newspaper.

Perhaps Pastor Strader was a source of information for C. Peter Wagner, a charismatic leader in the United States who wants Mr. Bentley to become one of his disciples. Mr. Wagner noted in a report on the revival in August that this first affair, during Mr, Bentley’s emotional “breakdown”, was sexual: “Their marriage has been torn for years by his emotional attachment with at least one other female whose physical contact went beyond hugging and kissing and holding hands. Enough said-maybe more details will be revealed later-but it was clearly immoral. All of this was skillfully concealed by lying and by swearing close associates who had observed his behavior to secrecy.”

It’s interesting that Bentley says that there was no “spark or interest” on his part for the intern. Really? Did he put safeguards in place, as many do, to ensure that nothing could come up that could threaten his marriage? If not, why not?

(One hopes that the lady in question does not take offense at the implication that Mr. Bentley was basically seduced, It takes two to tango.)

He couldn’t talk to the intern and another lady friend of his at the same time, so that they could both comfort him in a purely sisterly way ? (Someone who had fallen into an affair in the past would particularly want to be careful here.)

As I have noted, there is nothing preventing Mr. Bentley, a Canadian citizen, born in Canada, from being in Canada right now to be near his kids. The visa “issues” relate to re-entry into the United States, a big source of revenue for the evangelist. Does he have personal assets in the United States that he must access in person, such as, perhaps, safety deposit boxes in a bank stuffed with cash (that his wife may not know about)?

Mr. Bentley’s remarks, however, are troubling to someone who is a charismatic Christian, as he professes to be. Citing years of counseling, and a bad marriage as a reason to divorce, does not jibe with the account of the marriage in Mr. Bentley’s autobiography, Journey Into The Miraculous.

Mr. Bentley writes that his wife-to-be, Shonnah Andres, initially saw him as just a friend. Furthermore, she was interested in another fellow, and thought, after prayer, that she would marry this other man.

Then, Todd had a “vision from God”:

“…the Lord had actually shown me an open vision of Shonnah. It was my first open-eyed vision. I was in my living room and my fireplace opened up, kind of like a TV screen, and I saw us embracing in a wheat field that was ready for harvest. We were both weeping and I was wearing a tux and she was wearing a wedding dress. As the vision unfolded, her friend Roswetta (who was now my friend) was talking with me in the living room about Shonnah. I described the open vision to her as it happened. The presence of the Lord fell and we both wept. Roswetta said, ‘I can’t see it but I can feel goose bumps.’ During this vision, I also received an anointing of creativity, poetry and writing. In fact, I even received a three-page prophetic poem that I read at our wedding. I still write prophetic poems for my wife to this day.”

Shonnah’s friend then went off to tell her about the vision. Shonnah gradually fell in love with Bentley and they married.

Charismatics sometimes make decisions partly based on what they think the Lord is telling them. Ladies in charismatic churches sometimes need to tell ardent suitors who say, “The Lord has shown me that you are to be my wife!” something like “Well, I’m sure that he will ‘tell’ me too and he hasn’t said anything yet!”

What disturbs me about the account in the book is this. Mr. Bentley is alleging that he received special direction from the Lord to marry his wife, moreover, that he received special help from God to enable him to show love to her. If I were Bentley, I would be frightened to fly in the face of this alleged vision by pursuing a divorce. Would he not be going against the revealed will of God in what he is said to have seen…if we assume this vision actually took place?

Mr. Bentley is acting like this vision never took place, or is wrong. This poses a serious logical problem for the evangelist.

If the vision never took place, what other visions has he made up? He's had some doozies, which I won't get into here.

If the vision never took place, did he use his fib to prevent Shonnah from having God’s best for her life? What kind of selfish person would you have to be to do something like that?

This poses a problem for how he does his ministry as well. Many times, Mr. Bentley has explained how he often does ministry. Supposedly, he prays and tries to foresee what God will do at his upcoming meeting. In a vision, God will show him the faces of people, or tell him their names, or show him where they will be sitting in the meeting and then reveal extra information such as what their sickness is, or a special message from God for them.

If Mr. Bentley misread what he thought God was saying, this implies that in a “big question” that he can be horribly misled in hearing from God. Someone with terminal cancer, wanting healing prayer from Mr. Bentley, would certainly want to be able to put confidence in him being able to hear from God, especially if they were going to make medical decisions partly based on what he said.

If Mr. Bentley makes up what he says that God shows him, or uses the technique of “cold reading” to give those who come forward for prayer what they want to hear, that would certainly reflect on his character in a bad way.

If Mr. Bentley is to return to ministry, those counseling him will need to make sure that he has the character to be honest, and not to spin tales out of whole cloth. Alas, he has developed a demonstrated tendency of playing fast and loose with the truth and this must be addressed if he is to do good works.

Todd Bentley's sock-puppet will now field questions from the press?

(Crossposted at The Shotgun, Dec. 2, 2008)

Readers who remember my post last Friday on beleaguered Canadian evangelist Todd Bentley may be interested to know that, in a surreal turn of events, he has responded  to the criticism levied by the governing board of his ministry last week. In a second-hand way.

The details come in a story in today's Lakeland Ledger, the newspaper in the city where Mr. Bentley held his revival earlier this year. Reporter Cary McMullen, who has done a lot of great coverage on Mr. Bentley's recent work in Florida, decided to report on the board's public complaints about Mr. Bentley's conduct.

Pastor Stephen Strader (of Ignited Church, host of the revival meetings) was asked for comment and  passed on some alleged comments from Mr. Bentley about the statement by the ministry. Mr. Bentley, vacationing in California, reportedly made some specific denials of items in the statement, but did, allegedly, confirm that he is shacked up with his former intern while still being married to his wife.

What is odd about all this is that there is nothing preventing Mr. Bentley from telling Pastor Strader that he would be happy to answer questions himself--just pass on his number. Certainly, being honest and upfront would be part of a process of adopting the appropriate moral character to resume ministry, but Mr. Bentley sees no need for that yet. He could have even issued his own statement, or found a reporter willing to lob softball questions at him. If it is so urgent to reply to the criticism, I am sure he could find a sympathetic reporter.

Mr. Bentley has reportedly said that he is not able to return home to Canada to see his wife and kids due to visa issues. Actually, the issue is access to the United States. American charismatic Christians like to stay close to home to attend meetings and conferences--complete with collection plates and groaning book tables full of things to buy--and Americans have most of the money in this wing of Christianity. So, in order to make a better living, you move to where the money is. It appears that Mr. Bentley, who bought residential property in Florida this summer and rented an office for his ministry, might have been thinking along these lines when his revival imploded.

It looks like a donnybrook may be in store if Mr. Bentley and his board start to snipe at each other. But Mr. Bentley may have an ace up his sleeve. Fresh Fire Ministries needs him more than Mr. Bentley needs them. The evangelist (his books, his DVDs and tapes) is the ministry's main source of revenue. Mr. Bentley, however, may have a alternative ready to go. 

When Mr. Bentley first published his autobiography, it was self-published under the imprint of Sound of Fire Productions, a private company on Vancouver Island, where his father and stepmother live. Mr. Bentley has always been careful to keep Sound Of Fire viable and separate from Fresh Fire. At meetings and conferences featuring Mr. Bentley, Sound of Fire materials and Fresh Fire materials were kept strictly separate, with separate sales staff and separate cash registers. If you have a look at the Sound of Fire website, linked above, you will note that it includes video teachings, an online bookstore and such. It could easily be turned quickly into a new charity for Mr. Bentley, if it comes to that.

A new chaity could force the parents of Mr. Bentley's wife, Valerie and Earl Andres (who both currently work for Fresh Fire) to find new work. Mrs. Andres, who no doubt remembers "doing Timmy runs (trips to Tim Horton's)" and working in a room of Todd Bentley's house as his first employee hoping that he would be able to pay her, would, I am sure, be chagrined to see this happen.

UPDATE: Mr. Bentley has now spoken to a reporter to the U.S. charismatic magazine Charisma, but Charisma has "buried the lede" in the story by not highlighting the fact that their reporter is the first to speak to Bentley in months. An obvious question would be "Have you filed for divorce, since you are now in a relationship with another woman?", but I don't know if it was put to him.

I may have more to add after a careful read of what he has to say.

Todd Bentley, adulterer

(Crossposted at The Shotgun Nov. 28, 2008)

Readers who recall my series of posts on Todd Bentley, earlier this fall, may be dismayed to learn that things are going from bad to worse for the faith-healing B.C. evangelist.

The current leadership of Mr. Bentley's ministry, Fresh Fire Ministries, issued a statement by e-mail this afternoon which is now posted on their website. Evidently they are somewhat exasperated with their "star", but, in journalistic parlance, the author has "buried the lede."

A salient point is this:

"....further silence on our part would be misrepresenting the truth by allowing you to believe that what we said in our first two statements (which were true to the best of our knowledge at the time of their writing) is still the case. Unfortunately that is not so....

....It also needs to be clarified that Shonnah has in no way initiated this divorce and has no present intention to do so at any time in the future. She is understandably hurt by Todd’s infidelity, but is not asking or pressing for a divorce. The legal separation from Shonnah was initiated completely by Todd and he has not seen her or the children since the last week in July. To our knowledge, Todd’s relationship with the female staff-member, who was a former intern and also, at his initiative, a live-in nanny in his house for over a year, is still ongoing. We believe that there are currently no biblical grounds for Todd to leave his wife and children. While it has been maintained that no physical contact happened between Todd and the former female intern until after he filed for legal separation from Shonnah, in the Boards’ eyes, the nature of the present relationship between Todd and his former staff member is that of adultery....."

One hopes that we will be spared footage of Todd Bentley on television saying "I... did... not... have... sexual... relations... with..."

Also, YouTube watchers may have spotted that internationally famous evangelist Benny Hinn -- whose critics (and reporters from CBC's The Fifth Estate for one) suggest may have his own issues with infamy or aberrant theology--has criticized Todd Bentley's Lakeland Florida revival as theologically unsound. This was in late October, well after Mr. Bentley had gone into seclusion, making it almost impossible for him to respond to what Mr. Hinn has to say.

The Hinn citique, which was broadcast internationally on Hinn's television program, has begun to appear on YouTube in sections over the past few days. A partial transcipt of Mr. Hinn's observations and remarks about Mr. Bentley has been made by Hinn critic Bud Press.

UPDATE: I note that blogger Miriam Franklin, who has provided a thorough critique of Mr. Bentley's theology and activities for many months now (and who also, I suspect, is not on Mr. Bentley's Christmas card list!) has issued a sentence-by-sentence dissection of the Fresh Fire board's statement for those who may be interested in it. Her opinions are hers, but her observations may be useful for those wanting to "read between the lines" here.

SECOND UPDATE : The St. Petersburg Times is reporting on the ministry's letter in their newspaper today. The Tampa Tribune has a similar story. The newspapers were unable to track down Mr. Bentley, so no quotes from him.

Good old spell check proves useful in more ways than one

{Crossposted at The Shotgun Oct. 18, 2008}

One of the main supports of B.C. evangelist Todd Bentley’s “Lakeland revival this summer was the live coverage provided by God TV, a London-based charismatic TV channel, which broadcast his daily services to the world via satellite TV and the Internet.

Following the collapse of Mr. Bentley’s campaign, God TV owners Rory and Wendy Alec felt that they had to issue a statement about their friend and former feature performer. The statement was saved here on their website. It was also saved several places on blogs shortly after release.

It’s been critiqued on religious grounds but Mr. Bentley’s internet critics have missed small, but perhaps important details. I fear that Mr. Bentley may rue the day that “spell check” was invented….

Being Canadian, I use British spellings for some words, so I spotted something very interesting. In the paragraph in the God TV statement starting "Todd ministered each....", criticized is spelled with a z. Isn't the British spelling "criticised"? Also, in the paragraph starting "At the same time....", "honoring" is spelled without a "u". The British/Canadian spelling would be "honouring".

I am sure that Rory and Wendy Alec would not buy a computer program at a computer software store in England that defaulted to American spellings. Wouldn’t it be odd for a British TV channel website to spell words incorrectly in this way?

I'll bet that this seemingly independent statement was sent back and forth across the Atlantic for editing and rewriting before release. If so, Mr. Bentley certainly saw it. That would be significant because Mr. Bentley has begged off making a reply to his religious and media critics on the grounds that he is burned out, needs to consult with friends and such.

If my guess is correct, and Mr. Bentley had time to edit and rewrite the God TV statement, he has time to answer his media and Internet critics. It would be not that he “can’t” answer in these matters…rather that he “won’t”.

Mr. Bentley's credulity is e-x-p-o-s-e-d

{Crossposted from The Shotgun, Oct. 18th 2008)

During Canadian faith healer Todd Bentley’s revival campaign this summer, 31 alleged resurrections from the dead were reportedly connected to the revival in some way. Alas, none happened to be confirmed by doctors or medical staff, which led charismatic Christian leaders  such as Robert Ricciardelli to urge the revival’s leaders to stop falsely claiming that people were coming back from the grave.

One enterprising YouTube user, suspecting that Mr. Bentley would say anything from the pulpit to hype his revival without checking out the truth of his statements first, decided to conduct an amusing test that Mr. Bentley fell for, being reeled in like a fish. It’s funny, and the YouTuber was never credited for his work by internet Bentley watchers, so I would like to share it with you. It’s in two parts. Part one is here.  Part two is here.

The faith healer, his disabled wife, and a possible divorce

[Crossposted from The Shotgun, Oct. 18, 2008]

It’s very unusual that someone that I wrote about in my Report magazine days (not once, not twice, but three times) would have since become an international celebrity. This past summer, faith healing Christian evangelist Todd Bentley of Abbotsford B.C. held  a series of “revival” meetings in Lakeland, Florida, broadcast worldwide on satellite, cable TV and the Internet by the British charismatic Christian television network God TV, which made him a “nine-day wonder” in the religious and secular press.

But then, the wheels fell off the wagon. First, an indepth report by the reporters of ABC News’ Nightline news program in July learned that Mr. Bentley—who had claimed not only healings but that 31 resurrections from the dead were connected with his revival in some way—could not provide the name of one person that Nightline could prove had been healed. The day after the story aired, Mr. Bentley decided that he needed an immediate break from conducting the meetings. Then in August, following revelations of some serious moral lapses on Mr. Bentley’s part, he left the revival and temporarily withdrew from public ministry for a time.

I can pass on some news. Ignited Church in Lakeland, the revival’s “host”, which had been keeping the meetings going, quietly held the last special meeting for the revival—the crowds have dwindled since the “star” left—on Sunday October 12. This must be embarrassing to the various charismatics who had predicted that “Lakeland” would begin to be a world-wide revival.

Is Bentley done? Hardly. Plans are already afoot to bring him back to full-time itinerant evangelism as early as late this year.  And Mr. Bentley, who announced on leaving the revival that he has separated from his wife Shonnah, after reports in the press of two “emotional affairs” with other women may be divorced by the time he ministers again.

I can also reveal one of the reasons, virtually kept secret by the evangelist, that may be tempting Mr. Bentley to consider a divorce.

It seems that, contrary to the impression that the faith healing preacher has given for the past ten years that he has been married to Shonnah Bentley, she has been crippled by a lingering disability caused by bone cancer….

Mr. Bentley, as I found to my dismay when writing about him, has a way of wording things when talking about his past and ministry that leads people to believe things that are not strictly true. I found that I could only get him to be entirely truthful in some matters when I knew what the answers to his questions *should* be before I put the questions to him.

It would be naturally embarrassing to a faith healer that his wife has a life-long disability. Alas, Mr. Bentley has artfully avoided an embarrassing series of questions from the press, such as “Has your wife Shonnah had any lasting health problems due to her cancer? She has? Have you tried praying for her? How do you explain that your wife continues to have this health issue when your revival allegedly raises people from the dead…?”

How could reporters seeking honesty and accountability from this minister know that they could ask such questions of Mr. Bentley  when he misleads his readers?  Anyone reading either edition of his autobiography, “Journey Into the Miraculous” would get the idea that his wife is completely healed—suffering from no lasting disabilities as a result of her bout with bone cancer at 16.

Mr. Bentley writes:

“Shonnah had grown up Catholic. She got saved   at 16 when the Lord healed her of cancer and a spot on her lungs. Several Christians, including some ministers, prayed for her over a period of several weeks and God blessed her with a miracle The nurturing of the church impacted her immediate family and they all got saved too….”

However, one would see that something is amiss with this description when seeing video footage of Shonnah Bentley on YouTube. She is the heavyset woman that falls after being prayed for Watch her walking and pay particular attention to her left leg in this video:

The above video may be pulled from YouTube once this blog post is circulated. Fortunately the same footage is also used in a YouTube video here posted by one of Mr. Bentley’s critics

Why Is Shonnah Bentley hobbling? She has no left knee.

Doctors at a Vancouver hospital took out her left knee when she was 16. Now, her left leg is held together by a straight metal rod to just above her ankle.

I do not blame Shonnah Bentley. She seems to be a honest lady.  Whether she has been deliberately kept in the background until recent weeks I cannot say. Yet, have another look at what Mr. Bentley wrote as quoted above and then hear these excerpts from when she spoke at Lakeland’s Ignited Church on June 11, 2008…

[While her evangelist husband was speaking to large crowds at televised services at night, the church had morning services for those who had come to the revival and wanted extra prayer. These morning services were low key and although this particular service was apparently broadcast over Ignited Church’s own video feed, these video services were not saved on their extensive Ustream.tv feed page archive. I’ve obtained an audio CD of her remarks, which Ignited Church seems not to sell through their online bookstore.]

The service that morning was an informal interview of Shonnah Bentley conducted by Kira Mitchell, one of Todd Bentley’s “associate ministers”. Ms. Mitchell, in the process of asking Mrs. Bentley questions to coax out her life story, asks about her bout with bone cancer:

[The quotes, as you will see, are verbatim]

Mitchell: “And so, Shonnah went through over a ten hour operation and—do you want to share what they did with your leg?—as you can see Shonnah’s leg is physically unable to bend and maybe you’ve always thought like, ‘Why does she walk so funny across the stage?” or whatever, and so can you explain what they did? 

Shonnah Bentley: “So what they did is during the 10 hour operation they removed my knee completely in the left leg. I have no knee. And what they did is they put a metal rod from the top of my leg to just above my ankle and—just to fuse the whole leg together. So, I will never be able to bend my leg unless God does a creative miracle, but, you know, the doctors [say] I’ll be like this until the day I die kind of thing. They just basically fused everything together and the cancer was in the upper part of my leg so what they did is they removed the bone and they removed the muscle and they put the rod through just to fuse everything together and then I was in the hospital for a month after that recovering.”

Mitchell; “And Shonnah also had to have part of her lung removed as the cancer also spread to her lung and so she had part of that removed.”

It would have been very interesting, given that people were allegedly being spectacularly healed, to see Mr. Bentley bring his wife up for prayer in front of an evening audience. She was there one evening for sure, when several famed charismatic Christian teachers and evangelists came to Lakeland to “commission” Mr. Bentley into ministry. Did they lack faith, or lack consideration of Mrs. Bentley’s needs?

Bringing Mrs. Bentley up on stage would have posed a problem for the evangelist. Praying for a miracle for Shonnah, and not having it happen, would have implied that prayers at the revival were only partly successful. Not the best advertisement when you are trying to attract a crowd, I know, but perhaps more honest.

A spectacular healing of Mrs. Bentley, I note, would have been the “just one” person that the ABC News reporter was asking  Mr. Bentley to provide as evidence that his “healing” revival was truly, well, healing people. How unfortunate that he lacked the courage to try. [I’ll bet that Mr. Bentley steered the ABC crew away from his wife, as I know that their reporter and producer were on the ball and would have asked, “Say, why is your wife hobbling? Don’t you pray for her?”]

You see, Mr. Bentley’s theology has difficulties with people not being miraculously healed. Christians of all stripes can attest to times when prayer to God has helped people to recover from illness and times when it has not. Certainly, given the loving and merciful nature of God as reflected in Christian theology, and the several Biblical references to prayer for the sick, it can be an expression of kindness and mercy by the Christian to either  pray for the sick or offer them medical care or comfort.

Mr. Bentley, however, has moved from a balanced and mature approach to the subject to one that, while boosting Mr. Bentley’s alleged expertise in these matters, implies to the sick and needy that there is something wrong with you or your faith if you are not healed. 

In 2004 he issued a self-published book, Christ’s Healing Touch, Volume 1-- which I suspect will be reworked a little and published with a new title, Kingdom Rising, by Destiny Image in the U.S. later this month. In this 2004 book, Mr. Bentley relates several stories of alleged “creative miracles”—instances where something brand new and whole such as a new eye was created from nothing—and then adds:

“I believe God wants to raise our faith to the level where creative miracles like these are normal events in our lives and ministries. He wants us to have a revelation of God as Creator so we can have faith to believe for, and to bring about, creative miracles…we will realize how easy creative miracles are…I believe a time is coming when our thinking will be so transformed that when someone says ‘I was in a meeting last night and people’s blind eyes were being opened’, we won’t be very surprised.”

“I have definitely grown in levels on healing in my ministry,”’ he adds (and remember that this was written four years ago). “I remember when [healing] a headache or back pain was intimidating. Today, we see people coming out of wheelchairs or being healed of incurable diseases. I am growing in my spirit to a kingdom place of authority in the area of creative miracles.”

Imagine the pressure this sort of mindset places on those wanting to be healed.

You may remember that Mr. Bentley stated flatly in his autobiography that “God” healed his wife. The whole truth, as his wife related in her remarks at Ignited Church, is that doctors may have had a great deal to do with it.

She relates that several pastors prayed for her to recover from her bone cancer. The added emphasis is mine:

Shonnah Bentley “….My grandmother called me up and said ‘Why don’t you come over to my house?’ This was before I had the surgery…She says ‘Why don’t you come to the house and I’ll get a couple of my pastors to pray?’ And so my family said ‘Okay’ because we were desperate, we wanted, we were willing to do anything…So, basically we went and my grandmother had these two pastors pray and I remember when we had the pastors pray that we went there and—and remember that we were still from a Catholic background—[that] they were praying in tongues so we were like ‘What the heck is going on? What are these people doing?’ We didn’t understand, but at the time we weren’t concerned about that. I believe that was the first time we really felt God’s presence.”

This is sometimes how Christians see prayer at work. In Mrs. Bentley’s account, prayer here, practically, is at least a comfort—if not more—to help the sick person. Yet, doctors are seen as working in partnership with whatever God may be doing behind the scenes. It’s not “either or” But “both and”. Balanced and wise.

Mr. Bentley’s own approach, however, has evolved over the years. In 2001 he told me, for a Report magazine story, that he never told people that they were healed and advised them to work with their doctors. Even a cursory glance at what was happening in Lakeland this summer, however, showed Bentley impulsively implying that people were “healed” again and again.

Todd Bentley’s wife Shonnah’s lasting disability is an opportunity for Mr. Bentley to learn and mature in his faith, one that he would throw away by divorcing her. There are many people who would like to be healed by God, but whom are not. Many Christian theologians and ministers have explored the issue of how God can and does work in and through a sick person’s life and witness even if they are not instantly healed at a revival crusade. As someone who likes to specialize in this particular form of faith healing   evangelism, Mr. Bentley really owes it to the rest of his audience to flesh out his theology.

If we presume that God would want to show compassion to everyone in Bentley’s audience, he needs to think of people like the man featured in the ABC News Nightline feature on him. The man, with a gravely ill son, had brought his son to Lakeland to be healed.  Due to the size of the crowd, it would admittedly have been unrealistic to expect Todd Bentley to pray for his son, or declare from the pulpit that God had “healed” someone with the exact description of his son’s illness. But, the man and his son left the revival meeting with no one having prayed for them at all.

When criticized, Mr. Bentley often cites the alleged woes of his pre-Christian past as a reason for people to sympathize with him. Ironically, his wife’s disability offers him a valid reason to get sympathy, as people would realize that God does not have to heal someone to do good things through them. (The audiences that Shonnah Bentley has begun to speak to as part of Fresh Fire’s work may attest to that.)  Mr. Bentley’s actions this summer show that he is “only human” in a bad way.  It would be much better for Mr. Bentley to be humble, acknowledge his wife’s disability, and thereby show his humanity in a good way.

Mr. Bentley must realize that if, he divorces his current wife in favor of a trophy wife, there will be speculation in the minds of some of his Internet and Christian media critics that one of the reasons that he is getting rid of Shonnah is because her disability embarrasses him—and moreover, that his  theology does not work with a wife hobbling along at his side. 

One hopes that he will do the right thing and stay with his wife. One can pray that he will--and that everyone disappointed by Mr. Bentley’s flawed revival will be ministered to…some day…

Singin' In The Rain

Gene Kelly wouldn't be this happy if he didn't live in sunny California, that's all I'm sayin' :)

Baby, You Knock Me Out!

Featuring Cyd Charisse, from the film It's Always Fair Weather...

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Where Are You, by Johnny Kidd and the Pirates

(Singing) "I'm on Twitter..."

Web Site Story, from College Humour

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Hi-larious. :)

I love this cartoon

I've had days like this and I am sure you have too... :)