Category Archives: Revival and Outpouring

Todd Bentley and an angel called Emma

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In ongoing discussions about the “outpouring” in Lakeland, Florida a number of people have mentioned as a criticism of Todd Bentley that he talks about an angel called Emma. For the first time this evening I have seen some evidence of this. Ian Matthews lists this as his number one reason for being suspicious of Todd’s ministry, and he gives a link to an article which Todd wrote in 2003. Ian says that Emma

apparently ministers in his revival meetings.

But what does Todd really have to say about Emma? I quote in full the section from the article with the only mentions of Emma:

EMMA, ANGEL OF THE PROPHETIC

Now let me talk about an angelic experience with Emma. Twice Bob Jones asked me about this angel that was in Kansas City in 1980: “Todd, have you ever seen the angel by the name of Emma?” He asked me as if he expected that this angel was appearing to me. Surprised, I said, “Bob, who is Emma?” He told me that Emma was the angel that helped birth and start the whole prophetic movement in Kansas City in the 1980s. She was a mothering-type angel that helped nurture the prophetic as it broke out. Within a few weeks of Bob asking me about Emma, I was in a service in Beulah, North Dakota. In the middle of the service I was in conversation with Ivan and another person when in walks Emma. As I stared at the angel with open eyes, the Lord said, “Here’s Emma.” I’m not kidding. She floated a couple of inches off the floor. It was almost like Kathryn Khulman in those old videos when she wore a white dress and looked like she was gliding across the platform. Emma appeared beautiful and young-about 22 years old-but she was old at the same time. She seemed to carry the wisdom, virtue and grace of Proverbs 31 on her life.

She glided into the room, emitting brilliant light and colors. Emma carried these bags and began pulling gold out of them. Then, as she walked up and down the aisles of the church, she began putting gold dust on people. “God, what is happening?” I asked. The Lord answered: “She is releasing the gold, which is both the revelation and the financial breakthrough that I am bringing into this church. I want you to prophecy that Emma showed up in this service-the same angel that appeared in Kansas city-as a sign that I am endorsing and releasing a prophetic spirit in the church.” See, when angels come, they always come for a reason; we need to actually ask God what the purpose is. Within three weeks of that visitation, the church had given me the biggest offering I had ever received to that point in my ministry. Thousands of dollars! Thousands! Even though the entire community consisted of only three thousand people, weeks after I left the church the pastor testified that the church offerings had either doubled or tripled.

During this visitation the pastor’s wife (it was an AOG church) got totally whacked by the Holy Ghost- she began running around barking like a dog or squawking like a chicken as a powerful prophetic spirit came on her. Also, as this prophetic anointing came on her, she started getting phone numbers of complete strangers and calling them up on the telephone and prophesying over them. She would tell them that God gave her their telephone number and then would give them words of knowledge. Complete strangers. Then angels started showing up in the church.

I believe Emma released a financial and prophetic anointing in that place. That was the first angel that I have ever seen in the form of a woman. Some angels I’ve seen seemed like they were neither male nor female. However, Emma appeared as a woman who was like a Deborah, like a mother in Zion. When she came, she began to mentor, nurture and opened up a prophetic well. The people in the church began having trances and visions and the pastor began getting words of knowledge and moving in healing. That congregation also saw more financial breakthrough than they had ever seen before.

What can we make of this? First, Todd, as quite a young Christian, was told about Emma by the respected leader Bob Jones. Soon after this Todd saw a vision which he understood to be this same Emma. So if this is an error, it is Bob’s error, only taken on second hand by Todd. This is the same Bob Jones who last week prophesied over Trevor Baker in the YouTube clip which I linked to before.

Second, this angel is seen to distribute gold dust. But I note that this is a vision of an angel, and presumably the gold dust is also visionary, not literal. In the vision it is clearly symbolic of the generosity which came to this congregation leading them to make a large offering. So there is no call for the mockery I have seen that people should collect the gold dust to raise money for the poor. In fact it seems that Todd’s meetings bring in plenty of money for his work for the poor quite apart from the gold dust.

Third, it is an unwarranted generalisation to write that Emma “apparently ministers in his revival meetings” on the basis of an account of just one occasion when she turned up at a meeting. There is no indication that Todd ever saw her again. I have seen no suggestion that she has been reported as ministering at Lakeland.

So, what is the issue here which has made this such a stumbling block for Ian and others? Is it the idea that angels have names? But that is biblical: the angels Michael and Gabriel are named in Scripture. Is it the apparently modern form of this angel’s name? Well, Emma is a modern name I think, but it might well be an adaptation of the Hebrew word AMMA, which means “cubit”, or AMA “female servant”, both of which would be appropriate names for an angel – “cubit” being suitable for the measuring angel of Ezekiel 40-47 and Revelation 21. Or is the problem that this angel is apparently female? Well, I accept that there may be no explicitly female angels in the Bible, but arguments from silence like that are very dangerous. Or perhaps the problem is simply that Todd is seeing angels at all? But since the apostles, Philip, Cornelius, Peter and Paul did (Acts 5:19, 8:26, 10:3, 12:7, 27:23), why shouldn’t Todd?

Of course the underlying issue here may be that Todd is claiming in any way at all to hear from God and to be in touch with the spiritual realm. For Bible deists that is of course a problem, and maybe that is Ian’s real problem. I took the term “Bible deist” from Jack Deere’s book Surprised by the Voice of God, in which, as I wrote then, Deere

explains how he moved from the position that God speaks only through the Bible to an expectation that God speaks to his people today, if only they will listen to him.

So, does Ian reject (in the words of his second objection to Todd) because of

The Gnostic overtones of special knowledge and revelation

any claim to hear God, or only Todd’s claim? If only Todd’s, what makes him special? If any such claim, then is Ian declaring himself a cessationist and Bible deist? If so, this seems to sit oddly with one of the core values of his church:

We are open to the renewing, empowering and transforming work of God the Holy Spirit.

Surely anyone who is truly open in this laudable way will be open to the possibility that God is really speaking to and through Todd Bentley.

As for Ian’s last objection,

The seeking after ‘blessings’ – it seems to distract from the ‘business’ of being the body of Christ to a needy world

– I have more sympathy here. There certainly are some blessing and revival junkies making a lot of this just for themselves. Todd can’t stop them turning up, but he doesn’t encourage them. What he does encourage is people visiting Lakeland and then taking his anointing back to their home churches. This is certainly happening in some places. This anointing is intended to equip Christians to be more effective as the body of Christ to a needy world. So let’s stop carping about it and seek the equipping for ministry which God is offering.

Todd Bentley's tattoos and baldness – and the dead are raised!

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At the risk of being accused of fuelling revival on my blog by blatantly posting on a subject which brings many hits, as Lingamish (now David Ker) was accused of doing, I will mention Todd Bentley’s tattoos here. Today I was watching some recorded extracts from one of his evenings, and he was wearing a T-shirt with the slogan “JESUS Loves me & MY TATTOOS!” And his neck and forearms emerging from the T-shirt were indeed covered with tattoos, as I had seen before.

When I first saw this I thought that he must have got all these tattoos during his days as a drug dealer, before he dramatically became a Christian and started on his evangelistic and healing ministry. But apparently not. I have Todd’s 2004 book “Christ’s Healing Touch volume 1” (I don’t know if there is a volume 2), and this is illustrated with a number of pictures of him preaching and healing at various campaigns around the world, most in Third World countries. So don’t say he ignores the Third World! Several of these pictures clearly show his neck and forearms without tattoos. So he must have got all the tattoos within the last few years, when he was already a Christian in a major ministry.

As for what this means, I don’t know. I’m sure some people will see it as proof that he is of the devil. To me at least it shows that God is able to use powerfully a man with tattoos, and that getting tattoos is not an unforgivable sin!

These older pictures also show Todd with a mess of curly blond hair on the top of his head. Mike M wrote in a comment here that Todd was bald, and wondered why God hadn’t healed him of this. But surely baldness is not a sickness, but rather a glorious part of how God made some men “very good”? In a further comment I suggested that Todd was not actually bald but that he had shaved his head. But looking more closely I see that both are true. Some of the TV pictures clearly show very short hair growing at the back and sides of his head, but not on top. So Todd has done what many balding men do: he has shaved his whole head to disguise his advancing baldness. Why not? He certainly has more street cred in his appearance like that than as the boyish blond in the older pictures. Yes, I’m sure that is deliberate, becoming like the people on the street to win the people on the street.

But I must say I wondered if I should even post about trivia like tattoos and baldness as I watched bald, tattooed Todd taking testimonies. That evening, as well as several dramatic healings testified to by nurses who had brought their sick patients for healing, there were no less than four testimonies of people being raised from the dead. These included a stillborn baby, a woman who dropped dead in a gym, and a baby who drowned in a pool; medical or paramedical staff had given up on all of these but after prayer they came back to life. Most dramatic was the story of a three year old girl who was pronounced dead on a Monday night and came back to life on the Wednesday morning, in a hospital on the way to being cut up for organ donation.

Mike M asks why the mainstream media do not report healings and raisings from the dead. Surely the answer is obvious. Their reporters and editors cannot cope with this kind of thing as they, like most people in the western world who have been “educated” into a materialist worldview, don’t believe such things are possible. Indeed, as I wrote nearly two years ago, even most evangelical Christians in the West are Bible deists, by which I mean, among other things, that while professing to be Bible-believing Christians they don’t actually believe that God does anything in the world today. So for these people, as well as for those with a materialistic and atheistic worldview, miraculous healing simply cannot happen, and therefore any reports of it must be fakes. They are simply embarrassed by any proofs of genuineness. The media are dominated by people who think like this and so avoid reporting what they simply assume, despite the best evidence to the contrary, to be fakes.

Nevertheless, whether the media report it or not,

The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.

Luke 7:22 (TNIV)

Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of what the Holy Spirit is doing through Todd Bentley and others involved in this outpouring.

A revival of Gentle Wisdom

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All this talk of revival and outpouring at Lakeland and Dudley seems to have brought revival to this blog, at least in terms of the number of readers. My daily readership has grown steadily from 218 on 4th May, the day before I posted on speaking in tongues, to 856 and still counting today.

Some other blogs linking to my series on revival and outpouring or discussing the same issues:

Dave Faulkner: Welcome to Todd World

maggi dawn: An Unequal Blessing

the red pill: An outpouring on outpourings

Leaving Münster: Bored of Outpourings!

MetaCatholic: Still a sceptic for Jesus

The Simple Pastor: Revival or Jesus?

42: More on Todd Bentley

It should be obvious that I by no means endorse all the positions taken on these posts. Nevertheless they are all worth reading. I have left comments on most of them giving my reaction.

No dream is impossible

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A few days ago Doug tagged me with the Impossible Dream meme. Since then we have had our disagreements about the Dudley outpouring. But there are no hard feelings, so now I have more or less recovered and caught up from my tiring weekend I have some time for the meme.

The meme is a simple one: name your impossible dream. But this gives me a problem, because I don’t actually accept that any of my dreams are impossible. Unlike Eddie, I don’t have any sporting dreams, so it doesn’t matter to me that I am too old to fulfil them. I am probably also too old to serve in the police or the armed forces, or to train as an astronaut, but these have not really been my dreams. Well, doing a space walk would be cool, but maybe not impossible: in a few years time I probably could be a space tourist, at least inside the spaceship, if I chose to blow most of the capital value of my house on three minutes of weightlessness.

But most of the things I might even consider dreaming of are ones which would in principle be achievable for me, if I chose to put my efforts into fulfilling them – although I accept that for some of them I had better get on with it if I am not to be considered too old, or likely to die of old age first. For I have confidence, perhaps too much confidence, in my ability to do well in any area of non-physical activity which I choose to turn my hand to. What I don’t have confidence in is my continuing desire to persevere with any activity that I am not really committed to.

So, like Doug, I could dream of writing a definitive work of theology. And I would not accept that such a dream would be impossible. It’s just that I don’t have the commitment to such a dream to put myself through the years of advanced study which would be necessary first. Mind you, I am learning a lot from reading blogs etc, which, if focused more carefully, could well form the core of a useful book, perhaps more likely to be a cult classic than a definitive work.

So what do I dream of? I think I can honestly say that the dreams I have left these days are all for the extension of God’s kingdom – with just one exception, the dream of being happily married, which I believe is something God has given me to hold on to even through years of singleness and disappointment.

To say that all my dreams are for God’s kingdom may sound impossibly holy to some, but I mean it. The background for this is that I went through a period of depression during which basically I had no dreams at all, everything was shattered. I have come through this depression largely as a result of what God has been doing in my life. He did this in part by giving me new hope and new aims which are entirely for him. I was reminded today, by TC’s strange post with a reinterpretation which I don’t accept, of this verse which expresses where I am:

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Galatians 2:20 (TNIV)

While I don’t claim to be as advanced in this matter as the apostle Paul, there is a real sense in which I can say this with him. My old selfish life with its dreams has been “crucified”, put to death through years of depression, and the life that I now live is the life of Christ in me. Not perfectly so, of course, but to the extent that I can honestly say that, apart from marriage, the only dreams I have left are of playing a significant part in the work of God’s kingdom.

Now I don’t want to be another Billy Graham or Todd Bentley. I don’t really want to be an up front person, even though I sometimes dream of it. There is something of the frustrated leader in me, but that frustration would be satisfied by playing a significant part in the behind the scenes activities of a real revival or renewal of the church – as indeed seems to be beginning to happen. So I see in Lakeland and Dudley what may be the start of the fulfilment of my dream. Now this dream would be impossible to achieve by my own strength, by confidence in my own mental abilities, but with God nothing is impossible.

Well, what started as a not too serious answer to a meme has turned into a devotional self-examination. Not quite what Eddie and Doug had in mind. But I make no apologies for writing what I believe I need to write. However, I don’t want to pressurise anyone else into doing the same, so I won’t tag anyone else this time.

A visit to the Dudley outpouring

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In the most recent of my series of posts on the revival in Lakeland, Florida led by Todd Bentley, I referred to similar things happening in Dudley, England. My vicar and his wife, and a couple of others from my church, are planning to visit Lakeland on Tuesday for a week or so. As I am unable to join them but didn’t want to miss out on anything God is doing in the area of revival, I decided to check out what was happening in Dudley. At first, on Friday, I was thinking of going next weekend, but I felt God saying to me “Why not tomorrow?” I asked my vicar, and he said “Go, get as much blessing as you can, and bring it back!” So yesterday, Saturday, I went. And it proved to be a good day to go.

What is happening in Dudley, just west of Birmingham, is being called the Dudley Outpouring. It is being organised by Revival Fires, which is a ministry hosting renewal and revival conferences and also a local church. Trevor Baker is their main leader. They have been holding daily meetings for more than 20 days, since Trevor came home from his first visit to Lakeland. They have their own blog about the outpouring, mostly of testimonies, although this has not been updated for several days. Last week Trevor visited Lakeland again, and, as can be seen in this YouTube clip, was commissioned by Todd Bentley to bring the Lakeland revival to Britain, to be our very own British TB. And he arrived back in England yesterday morning, so the meeting I went to was the first after his return.

Dudley is nearly 200 miles from my home in Chelmsford, and the journey can be a nightmare. But as usual the roads were very clear on a Saturday and the journey took me only 2½ hours each way. The meetings were being held, just for the weekend, in a converted cinema, in fact a rather run down venue in a run down area, but at a strategic location at the very summit of this hilltop town – even slightly higher than the parish church opposite. The venue seats about 800 in the main hall and 600 in the overflow, and both were full last night. I joined the queue nearly two hours before the meeting was due to begin at 7.30, and got into the main hall about half way back.

I must say that I was not entirely impressed by the meeting, which was long, hot and noisy. The first hour and a half was worship, sometimes rather repetitive although not weird, a lot of it of the kind which encourages clapping. 800 people clapping for over an hour in a low ceilinged room left me rather dazed, and it was also rather hot and cramped. I was much more comfortable when they moved on to quieter, more meditative songs, and I was able to worship the Lord in a meaningful way through them.

Then at last Trevor Baker took the stage, and started by giving “words of knowledge” about healing of some quite specific serious infirmities. Those who believed they were being healed were called forward, and quite a lot were invited to give testimonies. This was good, but not what I had gone for. It was probably after 10.00 when Trevor at last got us to take our seats for his main talk. It was also good, but I’m afraid not very memorable, at least for someone as tired as I was by this time, so I won’t try to summarise it.

At the end of this they took up an offering, which was rather protracted but mercifully carefully avoided any prosperity gospel type teaching that people should give so that they get a greater benefit for themselves. Instead the point of the offering was clearly stated as to benefit others, to build up a “war chest” for future outpouring events. Specifically, they are hoping to hire the NEC in Birmingham for Todd Bentley who has announced his intention to visit Britain in the summer. The NEC (National Exhibition Centre) is the biggest such venue in the country, with 12,300 seats in the main arena, and of course is expensive!

So it was getting on for midnight when Trevor got on to what for me was the high point of the evening, the “impartation”. In Florida Trevor had been given a cloth soaked in anointing oil which Todd Bentley had used to anoint people at one of his meetings in Lakeland. Trevor then offered to impart this anointing to everyone present. This is of course a biblical procedure – see for example Acts 19:12 and 2 Timothy 1:6. This anointing was what I had gone to Dudley to get, so I was quick to go forward to get it – as was almost everyone else!

Of course it was bound to take a long time to anoint over a thousand people. How they handled it was to line people up across the front of the hall facing the stage, with space behind them. Trevor walked across the line touching each forehead briefly with the cloth; I reckon he was taking less than two seconds per person. At the touch most people fell over, and were caught by “catchers” and lay on the floor- but only briefly. For, as Trevor had warned would happen, after only about five seconds each person was encouraged by the catcher to stand up immediately and move away, so that a new line could be ready as soon as Trevor finished the old one. It was a bit like serving communion at my church, but faster.

Eventually, just before midnight, I got my place in a line. Despite this conveyor belt approach, necessary simply because of the numbers, this was a profound experience. The cloth touched my forehead with a slight pressure but nothing like enough to push me over. But as it did I felt the power of the Holy Spirit come on me and nudge me over. This is not the first time this has happened to me, and sometimes I have fallen over, although at other times for various reasons I have chosen to stay on my feet. Last night I let myself fall over, and was caught gently and laid on the floor. I felt God’s anointing on me, the anointing which had arrived from Lakeland only that morning. I could gladly have lain there and soaked in God’s presence. I wasn’t allowed to, but getting up and going back to my seat didn’t take away the anointing.

I think this was probably more or less the end of the meeting. It was for me, as just after midnight I joined the stream of people leaving to take the anointing back to their homes around the country, and the world. Some people I met had come for the day from as far away as County Durham, perhaps twice as far as I had come. By the time they got home it must have been morning. I made it home on empty motorways just before 3 am, tired but rejoicing and praising the Lord.

Was it worth going all that way for a touch and a few seconds on the floor? By the standards of the world it might seem not. But things work differently in God’s economy. There were special reasons why I had to be there that night, some I know (I haven’t said everything here) and probably some I don’t. I wouldn’t have gone if it had just been for me, or even just so that I could blog about it. I went, and deliberately asked for my vicar’s blessing first, so that I could bring something back which would bless and transform my church and my community. Already today in my church I was able to pray with many people, especially those I felt were key people for God’s work in this community, to receive the same anointing. Some said they felt the power; one fell over. Others seemed unmoved, but that doesn’t mean nothing happened. As for what will come of it, we will see! Great things are beginning to happen in my church, and we are expecting even greater when my vicar and the others return from Lakeland.

Looking at some Lakeland revival issues

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There is a lot of interest on the Internet in the continuing revival in Lakeland, Florida, under Todd Bentley. There are also reports of a similar, although smaller scale, revival in Dudley, England.

In a comment on my blog, Dave Warnock quotes me then asks a question:

Peter,

“I did wonder why the need to actually go there, why this revival can’t be caught from a distance, but on further reflection I believe they are right.”

Please would you unpack this more. I do not understand how this fits theologically.

Can you express that “rightness” theologically?

A good question indeed, and an issue I had only touched on earlier. Although of course God is not constrained by space and completely capable of working from a distance, there does seem to be some special power associated with being in the presence of his holiness or a holy or Spirit-filled person, and especially of being touched by such a person. This is what a number of people have experienced and it is also biblical. See for example, for presence 1 Samuel 10:10 and 1 Kings 8:11, and for touch Acts 19:6 and 19:12, as well as 13:3 and 2 Timothy 1:6 for the practice of laying on of hands for imparting spiritual gifts. This is of course just a quick summary. So I think it is right for people to seek the presence of the Lord in the places where he is working and the physical touch of those who he is using in special ways.

Dave Faulkner, a Methodist minister from the other side of my own town (but we have never met), gives a fascinating analysis of several aspects of Todd Bentley’s ministry. Thanks to Dave Warnock for the link. I would like to look at just a couple of these matters.

First, Dave F suggests that when people on the Lakeland stage apparently fall under the power of the Holy Spirit, in fact Todd may be pushing them – something which, Dave says, in different from what happened in Toronto. Well, I was watching some of the meetings on God TV projected on to a large screen (so much more clear than the YouTube videos Dave was watching). Yes, Todd may have been applying a little pressure to the head of the people being prayed for (but usually more downwards than backwards), but there is no way he was pushing hard enough to push over anyone who didn’t want to fall. I would suggest that the push was more symbolic, almost sacramental, an indication that this is the right time to fall over rather than a serious attempt to push anyone down.

Now I have been in ministries which encourage people being prayed for to fall over, and others which encourage them to stay on their feet so that prayer can continue. I have been in situations where I have been being prayed for, have felt weak at the knees, and have had to decide whether to fall over or stay on my feet. I would suggest that in most cases this is just a matter of choice. When the Holy Spirit comes on someone, he does so gently, leading them but not forcing them in any way, and that includes not forcing them to the floor. Of course in a situation where falling is clearly expected, especially if that expectation is encouraged by a gentle push on the forehead, most people will fall over, while a few will resist. The Holy Spirit respects their decisions.

But we should not focus too much on such matters, which are not the real issue here. Dave is spot on when he writes:

But if you asked all the responsible church leaders who were heavily involved in the ‘Toronto Blessing’ at least in this country, they would have said that the outward manifestation was not itself the proof of the Spirit’s work. … The evidence of the Spirit’s work is the fruit. Outward signs at the time may be commentary on the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit, or they may be ‘fleshly’ human responses.

Well, I would have put the last sentence the other way round, to put the emphasis on the fact that, even among some fleshly excesses, the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit is at work in Lakeland.

Dave also questions the financial accountability of Todd Bentley’s Fresh Fire Ministries. Well, here we can be grateful that it is based in Canada (just across the US border near Vancouver) and so there is no option for it to invoke the separation of church and state to avoid the moral if not always legal requirement of financial accountability. In fact I heard Todd confirm what Bene D comments on Dave’s post, that Fresh Fire is not short of funds. And so, Todd said, he is not taking any money from Lakeland to finance his own ministry. I’m sure that in due course that decision will be confirmed in published accounts.

In another comment on my blog with a follow-up, Scott Gray asks some interesting questions, but ones I find hard to answer because he is approaching this with a different theological viewpoint from mine. He asks if the Lakeland experience is “mystical”, and if so “how is it different than the experience of god in sacrament– eucharist, for example?” Well, the first question depends partly what is meant by “mystical”; if this word refers to an experience which is not readily explained by normal scientific laws, then yes, this revival is “mystical”. As for it being like a sacrament, apparently Scott understands a sacrament as about meeting Jesus, and as something to be avoided if one is not ready to meet him. Well, I think in a lot of the evangelical tradition I come from people are far too ready to worship God and perform sacraments with no real expectation of meeting Jesus or openness to being changed. Their attitude is well summed up in this cartoon. What Scott writes is much more appropriate:

if we expect to meet jesus anywhere … we have to be ready to be changed.

And I am sure that is true also of revival meetings in Lakeland or elsewhere. We need to go there prepared to meet God and be changed. If we don’t, God is patient and kind and so doesn’t actually squash us with his big sandal, but we are likely to leave the meetings offended and critical, as in some of the comments on Lakeland which I have seen. But if we go to meetings like this with a positive attitude and an openness to change, even if we continue to watch out for possible ways in which the experience is less than ideal, then we can expect to truly meet God and know his presence with us, not just in a mystical moment but as a lifelong relationship.

Lakeland revival with Todd Bentley continues

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UPDATE 3rd June: I know a lot of people are finding this page from Google searches on “Todd Bentley” and similar. Welcome! Note please that this is only one of a series of posts I have made about Todd and the events in Lakeland. For the rest of the series follow this link to my Todd Bentley category.

Today I watched quite a lot more of Todd Bentley and his team from the revival in Lakeland, Florida, which friends had recorded from God TV. I am convinced that this is a real move of God’s power, although through imperfect human agents and so not entirely perfect. My previous post on the subject generated some discussion, but I will not try to engage with criticisms of what is happening.

Henry Neufeld offers an interesting perspective on these revival meetings from his friend and former pastor, rounded off with some of his own thoughts, cautious but not negative. The former pastor, who was involved in the Brownsville revival in their home town of Pensacola (also in Florida but several hundred miles from Lakeland), writes as follows:

My experience at Lakeland was awesome. It is nothing like Brownsville. Everything about this move of God will drive everyone’s religious spirits crazy. Nothing fits the normal church theology. God just shows up and melts people. …

I recommend that everyone who wants to make a commitment of more of themselves to the Lord, to go! If you go as a spectator you will come away only with disappointment and criticisms, which only hurts the critic. The healings are awesome. Are some fake? Probably. Are some real? Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! …

As long as God gets the glory, I believe this will continue to grow around the world.

Some people from my church are flying all the way to Lakeland next week to catch the revival fire and bring it back to England and this town. In some ways I wish I could go with them. I did wonder why the need to actually go there, why this revival can’t be caught from a distance, but on further reflection I believe they are right. I have already heard stories of church leaders who have returned to the UK from Lakeland and seen revival start to break out in their churches. I long to see that happen in my own church, and in all the churches in my town. In fact we have already seen some small signs of it, just enough for us to realise that we need and can hope to receive far, far more.

Pentecost and Tongues of Fire

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Singing in the Reign, despite being by Roman Catholics, has become one of my favourite blogs. Michael Barber has marked Pentecost there not by quoting Aquinas, as he did for Easter and Ascension Day, but with a fascinating post on the significance of the tongues of fire which appeared at the first Pentecost.

Now, despite what some translations make of them (and my humorous misunderstanding of one of them!), “tongues as of fire” in Acts 2:3 cannot mean “tongues that looked like fire”, at least in any sense that these were the physical body parts tongues. Rather, surely, they were tongue-shaped pieces of fire, or what looked like fire. That is, they were what we would now call flames. It is good to keep the word “tongue” in a translation to preserve the link in the original text with the “tongues”, languages, in which the first Christians began to speak in verse 4, but the word can be misleading in a language like English which doesn’t usually call flames “tongues”.

What did these tongues mean? Michael Barber considers some possibilities, and I am sure that the meaning is not exhausted by any one or two of them. One idea which he does not mention is that the tongues which rested on people without burning them are reminiscent of the flame which did not burn up the burning bush, Exodus 3:2. That fire was of course the presence and glory of God, and surely the tongues of fire at Pentecost symbolise the presence and glory of God the Holy Spirit resting on the believers.

But there is more to it than that. Michael points out the description in the Jewish book 1 Enoch of the heavenly temple as “built with tongues of fire“. Since this book would probably have been familiar to Luke and the readers of Acts, the suggestion is that the tongues of fire at Pentecost symbolised the believers as a new temple, whose stones were the first Christians as in Ephesians 2:21 (and more clearly, I would add, in 1 Peter 2:5).

Todd Bentley, like many revivalist preachers, makes a big thing of praying for the fire of the Holy Spirit to fall on his congregations. This is clearly a re-use of the imagery of tongues of fire at Pentecost, although I haven’t heard of visible flames of fire at modern revival meetings. This fire is understood as the power of the Holy Spirit inside someone, to burn up what is wrong in their life, to ignite within them a passion for God, and to continue to burn as a symbolic light of God’s presence. Michael’s post suggests another sense in which believers today need this fire, to be built together all the more firmly as God’s church. For it is by the Holy Spirit that

you also, like living stones, are being built into a temple of the Spirit to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. … 9 … you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

1 Peter 2:5,9 (TNIV, following the marginal reading in verse 5)

Could this one be the Wright letter?

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About a month ago, as I reported, Bishop NT Wright referred to a letter which Archbishop Rowan Williams was supposed to have already sent to Anglican bishops, supposedly in an attempt to dissuade from attending the Lambeth Conference those who were not committed to the Windsor Process and the Anglican Covenant. But, it seems, no such letters arrived. What was sent out at about this time was a video message. Ruth Gledhill suggested that this video was in fact what Bishop Wright was referring to. But, as I wrote at the time, the content of the video was nothing like the message which Wright described.

Now, a month later and only just over two months before the Lambeth Conference begins, another message from Archbishop Rowan has arrived in bishops’ letter boxes. Ruth Gledhill gives the full text and again speculates that this is the message that Wright was talking about. And indeed the content seems to fit what Wright had to say. Well, given the current state of the British postal service it is believable that these letters have been in the post for a month. But as the message is explicitly linked to the feast of Pentecost, yesterday, surely Wright was misinformed about it being in the post, even if it was already being drafted a month ago.

Actually it is a really good letter. I am impressed with the seasonal appeals to the Holy Spirit:

The Feast of Pentecost … is a good moment to look forward prayerfully to the Lambeth Conference, asking God to pour out the Spirit on all of us as we make ready for this time together, so that we shall indeed be given grace to speak boldly in his Name. …

We are asking for the fire of the Spirit to come upon us and deepen our sense that we are answerable to and for each other and answerable to God for the faithful proclamation of his grace uniquely offered in Jesus. That deepening may be painful in all kinds of ways. The Spirit does not show us a way to by-pass the Cross. But only in this way shall we truly appear in the world as Christ’s Body as a sign of God’s Kingdom which challenges a world scarred by poverty, violence and injustice. …

And our ambition is nothing less than renewal and revival for us all in the Name of Jesus and the power of his Spirit.

Todd Bentley would give an “Amen!” to that, even though his style is entirely different.

The “indaba” discussion groups Archbishop Rowan describes seem a helpful model for this kind of conference. But as for Wright’s suggestion that Williams was trying to persuade certain bishops not to attend, Williams writes that something (I’m not quite sure what)

makes it all the more essential that those who come to Lambeth will arrive genuinely willing to engage fully in that growth towards closer unity that the Windsor Report and the Covenant Process envisage. We hope that people will not come so wedded to their own agenda and their local priorities that they cannot listen to those from other cultural backgrounds. As you may have gathered, in circumstances where there has been divisive or controversial action, I have been discussing privately with some bishops the need to be wholeheartedly part of a shared vision and process in our time together.

Will this actually stop any bishops coming? I doubt it, unless “discussing privately … the need” is a euphemism for “ordering”.

Will the letter persuade any to come who were not planning to? Well, it might win over some who were wavering, and increase the number attending both the Lambeth Conference and Gafcon. The latter, the alternative conference in late June in Jordan and Israel, arranged by conservatives, is currently expecting 280 bishops, compared with the total of about 800 invited to Lambeth.

But a letter like this will not go far towards healing the deep divisions in the Anglican Communion. A month ago I wrote, actually quoting Wright’s words, that the letter he was referring to

is far too little, far too late.

The letter which has now arrived is still far too little, and it is even later.

Meanwhile Dave Walker suggests to me, with a cartoon to illustrate it, another way in which Archbishop Rowan might be discouraging Lambeth attendance. He will not be flying anywhere this summer. But of course he is the only bishop who can reasonably walk from his cathedral to the Lambeth Conference. The next nearest diocesan bishop, Nazir-Ali of Rochester, could just about walk the 30 miles or so to Canterbury, but is not expected to attend. So, by giving up flying, is Rowan giving an example which he doesn’t expect any other bishops to follow, or is he giving a subtle message to those from outside Europe not to bother to travel to Lambeth?

Moses, Charles Wesley and Todd Bentley

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Maybe some of you, my readers, have been offended by my recent posts about charismatic phenomena and the Todd Bentley revival in Florida. Or maybe you know others who have.

I was a little surprised to read a post by Jim West which, I hope, puts any doubts about these matters into proper perspective. Jim presents a poem by Charles Wesley based on the rather obscure Bible story of Eldad and Medad, Numbers 11:26-30. Here is one stanza:

Moses, the minister of God,
Rebukes our partial love,
Who envy at the gifts bestow’d
On those we disapprove.
We do not our own spirit know,
Who wish to see suppress’d
The men that Jesu’s spirit show,
The men whom God hath bless’d.

Let us indeed have the attitude that Moses had when he said

I wish that all the LORD’s people were prophets and that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!

Numbers 11:29 (TNIV)