Because we could use some healing of our own...

These are strange times we’re living in, my friends. Those of you who’ve been tracking news of the Lakeland Outpouring have probably already heard about Todd Bentley’s fall from grace. The notice of Bentley’s separation from his wife wasn’t exactly shocking to me, but it was very sad. Now, though, we have a bunch of self-proclaimed apostles and prophets running around decrying Bentley and throwing him under the glory bus, and I find that very sad as well. For years Bentley has been spouting off about angelic visitation, astral projection, chatting with dead people in heaven and receiving direct revelation from Jesus in human form. And the breakup of his marriage is what gets these charismatic leaders riled up? Color me bewildered.

Others in Bentley’s circle, like Patricia King and Bill Johnson, have taken to blaming Bentley’s critics for his marital problems. They claim we’re gleeful over Bentley’s embarrassment because we’re haters or whatever. While there may be some of that going on, to paint all the critics in such broad strokes is a gross mischaracterization. Speaking for myself, Bentley’s character was never the issue—his doctrine was. Even if no scandals had ever been attached to his name, many of the things he preached would still have been wrong, wrong, wrong. Let me be clear: There is no sense of triumph in the breakup of the Bentleys' marriage. I feel terribly for Todd and his wife as well as for their children. I pray that God will bring reconciliation. But I really hope this admission of Bentley’s affair will not sidetrack the church from the real issue. Bentley shouldn’t have been endorsed as a preacher, not because his marriage was bad, but because his theology was unbiblical. As it is, I’m worried that all we’ll take away from this is to make sure that the next boy-wonder-preacher-of-the-moment who decides to mislead the sheep presents a cleaner image. If that’s all we’ve learned, then that’s the biggest tragedy of all.

Now I want to take a minute (okay, more than a minute) to focus on Bill Johnson’s statements concerning Todd Bentley and the church. Why pick on Bill? Because it’s in his footsteps that my church is following. Johnson’s influence has radically reshaped my pastors’ theology, and I don’t think for the better. I’ve been looking into Johnson’s beliefs for a while now, but the guy’s a pretty skilled equivocator. It’s been tough to pin him down on some of the crazier beliefs espoused by his apostolic colleagues. Even Johnson’s version of dominion theology seemed watered down enough so that it avoids the creepy world domination fixation of other dominion theologians. Guys like Jack Deere, Bob Jones and C. Peter Wagner, on the other hand, come off very much like the Brain from Animaniacs (oh for the days of Wacko, Yakko and Dot!) only without all the subtlety. (Pinky: What are we going to do tonight, Brain? Brain: The same thing we do every night, Pinky. TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!) But after listening to Johnson’s message on Bentley, I find myself disquieted. Maybe I’m overreacting. Here’s the video if you care to watch. Now let us reason together.

1. I don’t appreciate Johnson’s argument that Bentley’s critics somehow contributed to his “mental breakdown.” I know Johnson says that he will not blame Bentley’s critics, but clearly that’s exactly what he’s doing. Fine. All those who had the temerity to point out Bentley’s twisting of scripture and doctrine owe Bentley an apology for his messed up marriage. However, by Johnson’s own admission, this is not the first time Bentley’s been in this kind of trouble. So… I guess we all retroactively caused that indiscretion as well? Whoa, we are some kind of talented.

2. I don’t appreciate Johnson’s horrible exegesis. He postulates that we, as the church, shouldn’t call Bentley out for his misbehavior because…David mourned for Saul when Saul died. Huh. That’s a stretch. First of all, David had tremendous respect for Saul’s position as king. He was pretty fanatical about respecting Saul’s authority because he was God’s anointed. The only authority Todd Bentley ever had over the church was the authority he claimed for himself and the authority other self-proclaimed specially anointed ones claimed for him. Neither Bentley nor his apostle friends were my kings nor my spiritual leaders. Bentley was just another guy who preached crazy, heretical things. David’s honoring of the man who had been placed as king over him by God Himself is not quite analogous to the manner in which the church should reverence Todd Bentley. Secondly, even if David did not want word to get out that Saul died a miserable failure, the Bible takes no pains to hide it. The Israel David and Saul ruled was a nation set apart. Badmouthing their king to foreign peoples would have achieved no good for the Israelites, but the Scriptures are very upfront about Saul’s weaknesses so that God’s people could learn from them. Unlike ancient Israel, however, the church’s goal is not to merely remain separate from and survive the chaos of the outside world. The church is to take God’s message into the world. It’s important for us to be upfront about our own moral failings for the sake of those who don’t yet believe. Anyone who looks at the church should see us dealing with our sin honestly. When we mess up we should admit it and proclaim that our behavior is unacceptable before God. Bill Johnson seems to be advocating a sweep it all under the rug policy. So if a popular Christian spokesperson commits a grave sin, we should keep it to ourselves and refuse to discuss it with outsiders? That’s the way of the Chinese government, not the church. Oy vey.

Oh, I almost forgot. (I kinda wish I had.) Johnson also compares the church’s treatment of Bentley to David’s murdering of Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband. So ummm…that makes the kinda sense that doesn’t. Perhaps I need some apostolic enlightening.

I do agree with Johnson that certain things should remain private. There’s no reason anybody not directly involved in the situation needs to know all the details. The last thing we want is to get drawn into sensationalism. But why do we need to guilt people into silence? Johnson references the Christian leaders who went to the media in the wake of the Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker scandals as an example of what we shouldn’t be doing, but you know what? Better, I think, that the world hears it from us than from some Nightline reporter. I’m not advocating throwing anyone to the wolves, but the church should definitely make it clear where we stand when our golden boys take a plunge into infamy. It compromises our witness when we give the impression that we’re hiding something. So while I give Johnson’s attempted guilt trip points for creativity, I remain unmoved by his appeal.

3. I don’t appreciate Johnson’s skirting of the pertinent issues. Johnson doesn’t once attempt to confront Todd Bentley’s botched theology. Am I to understand that Johnson doesn’t see anything the matter with Bentley’s rantings? Really? Neither did Johnson apologize for wrongly endorsing Bentley nor did he admit his lack of discernment. In fact, he made sure to let his audience know that C. Peter Wagner, the head apostle who commissioned Bentley, is an awesomely terrific fellow (an awesomely terrific fellow, by the way, who is running away from the Bentley mess as quickly as possible) in much the same way Johnson told Bentley’s critics to hush up because Bentley was a similarly great guy. Does Johnson completely lack self-awareness? If his discernment was so completely off the mark in Todd’s case, what else is he wrong about? Maybe I’m being harsh, but I think some self-reflection might be in order here.

4. I don’t appreciate and am absolutely creeped out by Johnson’s vision of church government. Johnson argues against denominationalism and in favor of a more familial structure for the church. He wants churches to come together under “spiritual fathers.” Johnson doesn’t expand on this point, but I take this to mean he wants churches in submission to the apostles. That right there is dominion theology, folks. I fail to see how that is not super scary. Johnson and his ilk seem to want my church to bow to the leadership of some dude who thinks he hears special, secret things from God. This is exactly what the Protestant Reformation was fighting against. I don’t need some spiritual megalomaniac directing me and proclaiming the stuff in his head like it’s the word of God. I have the word of God. It’s called the Bible, and it is sufficient, thank you very much.

This apostolic movement I see rising up is not God “doing a new thing.” It’s man doing what man has always done—grabbing for power and influence and using God to do it. The Roman Catholic Church tried to cement its power by keeping Bibles out of the hands of the common people so that only the priests could know the scriptures. However, now that we all have the Bible to read, and we understand it by the power of the Holy Spirit who resides in all Christians, we now are being told that some men have an extra dose of the anointing and can reveal more things of God that us run-of-the-mill Christians are not special enough to know. This approach isn’t even innovative. It’s called Gnosticism, and the early church battled against it thousands of years ago. It’s the methodology of cults and secret societies, and the church should have no part of it. Jesus even warned us about this kind of thing in Matthew 24: “At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look here is the Christ!’ [lit. “anointed one”] or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect—if that were possible. See, I have told you ahead of time.” He told us ahead of time, and we still don’t get it. If these are the end times, which many Christians, including dominion theologians seem to believe, then why aren’t we being more watchful, more careful? This is why it fries me when pastors say they can’t possibly be deceived because God would never let that happen. Dudes, Jesus told you this was gonna happen. He said there would be deception, and the Bible even says that God Himself will send “a powerful delusion so that they [the perishing] will believe the lie” (2 Thes 2:11). If we’re so smitten with prophecy, why don’t we chew on that one for a while? As WSH likes to say, if it was supposed to be easy to divide the lie from the truth, we wouldn’t need discernment.

So I am deeply troubled, boys and girls. It isn’t that I think Bentley or Wagner or Johnson are bad guys at all. I’m sure they are very nice people who would be a riot to hang out with at parties. I want to believe they are sincerely misguided, genuine men who desire to know God. But. They are spewing poison into the church, and that shouldn’t be tolerated. It’s one thing to embrace lunacy in your own theology, which really is bad enough, but that’s between you and God. It’s quite another to evangelize with heretical kool-aid. Keep the crazy to yourself, you know? What should be a cultish theology confined to a fringe group of wacky mystics is spreading like a metastasizing cancer into more mainstream charismatic churches. The church is sick. My church is sick. And more and more I’m realizing that you can’t fight this kind of sickness with well-reasoned logic or sound doctrine. It will take prayer and a move of God to take back what the enemy has stolen and what we, like Esau, have foolishly thrown away. I need to spend less time on my soapbox and more time on my knees contending for my pastors and my church family. I’m at the end of me, and that’s probably a good thing. It’s time to wait upon the Lord.