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.
Thank you for your post.
Peter,
Thank you for responding thoughtfully to my post. A couple of quick responses from me while in the middle of sermon preparation:
1. I’m not convinced by your idea of a symbolic or sacramental push. That becomes close to auto-suggestion. Again, it’s something I never witnessed at Toronto.
2. Finances: yes, it’s good that Bentley isn’t taking anything from Florida, because Fresh Fire is comfortably off. However, you may have seen since that Bene Diction has provided on my blog instructions to look up FF’s annual charity statements in Canada. I am still a little concerned. They seem to have just five employees, all earning between 40 and 80,000 Canadian dollars a year (certainly not excessive). Yet the total wage bill comes to 1.1 million. There may well be an honest and innocent explanation, of course. I just feel there’s something we don’t know.
Here’s hoping we meet at some time in Chelmsford! Will you be at re:fresh08?
Nice post, Good one.
I’ve never witnessed any Toronto people pushing anyone, at least those that have ever visited Finland. In fact, my experience of a PIH church in Finland is that there was clear direction of putting off pressure on physical manifestations and emphasis on the inner work of the Holy Spirit, and certainly no one ever pushed to fall down though that was also welcome as well as any physical manifestations, but they were not the main point.
Greetings from Mimosa
Peter,
Quick footwork 🙂 The sceptic in me sees quite a big difference between those biblical references and chasing all over the world looking for the latest experience.
I have just started “After McDonaldization” by John Drane. A quote from p53 seems relevant:
“… a rediscovery of what it means for the Church to be like Jesus by being truly incarnational. It has enabled Christians to reaffirm that this is God’s world, and therefore there can be no no-go areas for God, so even the most inhospitable reaches of the culture God may be found at work.”
I celebrate the work of the Spirit, I lament how frequently we distort and fail that work. If the Spirit is at work in Todd Bentley then that is worthy of rejoicing. But I am very cautious and concerned that in focusing on this powerful but flawed exhibition we miss where God is at work near us.
Actually I should have continued that quote from “After McDonaldization” a bit further:
“Alongside this is a fresh consciousness that some aspects of the culture may need to be challenged in the name of the Gospel, which is creating a new sense of the importance of spiritual discernment so as to see things from the divine perspective, rather than through the prism of our own personal preferences and prejudices.”
Seems to me that this advice applies to every side and every involvement in this situation. I would like to see people applying Spiritual discernment to :-
a) the financing and accountability of the groups involved
b) the style of ministry (revelations without scripture, pushing, careful selection)
c) many reactions (from rushing from all over the world to take the “magic” home to calling everyone in sight a heretic)
d) the denial of the work of the spirit
e) the denial of our own sinfulness and a lack of willingness to accept and celebrate forgiveness and calling forward into ministry of people with a past (like Saul/Paul for example)
f) lack of love & grace shown to others with different gifts, understandings, experiences, cultures to our own.
peter–
thanks for thinking about sacramentality, change, and mysticism with me. i’ll bow out now, as i see from other comments you have bigger fist to fry.
an excellent post, by the way. or as you undemonstrative brits say, not too bad.
peace–
scott
Dave F, I wonder if the explanation for the Fresh Fire wage bill is that they employ a considerable number of interns, who may not be listed as employees. Or perhaps there is a cutoff salary level below which employees don’t have to be listed. Anyway I’m sure Revenue Canada would soon spot anything wrong in this area.
I expect to be at some re:fresh events but don’t know any details yet.
As for pushing over, I have some more to say which will be in a new post.
Dave W, I of course agree with Drane that we need
I am also concerned at the possibility that
– but also at the opposite danger that in focusing on the local we miss what God may or may not be doing at the national and international level.
I think and hope that the people who are flocking to places like Lakeland are doing so in the hope of catching something to bring back to their own churches. I know this is true of my own vicar and his wife who are off to Lakeland on Tuesday for about a week. And I hope and pray that they do catch something, something good while avoiding the bad or merely cultural, and that by means of it they are able to bring a real outpouring of the Spirit to revive “where God is at work near us”, in our own church and in the other churches in the town which Dave F mentions.
Scott, I’m not sure any of the other fish in my frying pan are bigger than you. Just being “Reverend” doesn’t make them so in my sight. I have equal time for anyone who contributes helpfully to discussions on this blog. But don’t feel obliged to continue the conversation.
Thanks Peter for your continuing commentary on this phenomenon in Lakeland. Tonight I attended a prayer-meeting in Edinburgh where the the leaders had attended Lakeland for 5 days and were praying for an impartation for those who wanted one. So what is happening in Lakeland is directly affecting the church in Edinburgh, and indirectly my life.
On the “pushing over” thing, recently I was prayed for during a meeting by a visiting ministry team from somewhere in England. They very clearly tried to push me over, which had made me very angry. Do people really think they can give God a helping hand? There is a fine line for me between someone blessing me with the laying on of hands, and abusing me by trying to push me over. I wish I wasn’t so upset about this but I get so mad by this faking when God is quite capable of shaking me from foot to toe by Spirit with no more than a light touch of a hand from someone praying.
The charismatic church that my wife’s parents attend in Canada announced a note of caution concerning the Lakeland revival, and I remain convinced that there seems to be much “heat” as well as Light.
At the end of the day, I do long for a genuine indwelling and filling of God’s spirit, and the more miracles Jesus/the Spirit performs the better.
I am concerned at continued talk of “the annointing” as if this mysterious force is doing the healing, rather than Jesus and his Spirit. Perhaps I just can’t handle charismatic lingo. 🙂
I hope you will be able to post the thoughts of your vicar and his wife upon their return. I don’t seem to know anyone who has been to Lakeland or plans to. I also don’t feel that I’m getting enough perspective from a few YouTube videos and the website. Thanks for covering this.
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Nathan, you’re welcome. I certainly will write something about my vicar and his wife’s trip when they return, but it will be second hand unless I can persuade him to be interviewed or something. But you and Alastair will I am sure be interested in my latest post (see the pingback above) on my visit to Dudley yesterday.
Alastair, I agree that pushing people over is not good. But I don’t think we should let it offend us to the extent that we might miss what God is really trying to do even through imperfect, in this case probably simply over-excited, instruments.
I see your point about the over-use of the term “anointing”, which I’m afraid I am also guilty of in my latest post. It is long-standing Pentecostal jargon; other denominations have their own jargon, and it all needs some explanation. But the word is used in a rather similar sense in 1 John 2:27, so we should not be over-critical here. The anointing is of course the presence of the Holy Spirit working in power in and through a person.
Hi,,,interesting to listen to the comments. Has anyone checked out Todd Bentleys influences?? Like Brannagh who did not beleive in the trinity..Rob Jones/Bob Cain..huge moral failure while in Ministry….we have to look for the fruit but it helps first to look at thr root..
Todd Bentleys influences are rotten which produces rotten fruit..How many false prophetic words can be bleated out in one night….
Folks, this man is all over the place when it comes to Gods word as a standard..I do not want to seem harsh, but I am amazed at how this Hollywood Christianity is affecting so many…..but then this appeals to thousands who do not know God by the word..but only by Emotion…
I could use scripture….but Todd can talk for an hour about himself and HIS worldwide minsitry without using scripture…we need to Watch and Pray and tests the spirits.