Category Archives: Individuals

Todd Bentley has remarried, probably

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It would appear that Todd Bentley has now married Jessa Hasbrook, apparently the “woman whom he had extramarital affair with”. This is reported by Rick Hiebert at the Shotgun blog of the Western Standard, an apparently reliable source, as well as other more dubious sources which I will not link to. I do not endorse all the comments reported in this post. But I will keep an eye open for Rick Joyner’s response.

Please, no comments which simply condemn Todd and Jessa. I will expect good arguments for any positive or negative assessments of the situation.

UPDATE: A new article by Rick Joyner confirms this news, and also announces that Todd has now started his restoration process. Please read this article; I have nothing to add to it except my prayers.

Worship, cessationism, and Steve Chalke

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As I predicted in last week, I have been rather busy recently, so no time for an in depth post, just for some reflections on what I have been reading.

Today I have had some time for blogging, but have been distracted into an interesting conversation at TC Robinson’s blog New Leaven. The post that started it was on worship, and indeed ties up somewhat with my last post. But the discussion on it quickly got on to how worship might be affected by the alleged cease of spiritual gifts, or some of them, at the end of the apostolic age. The cessationists Richard and dvopilgrim seem to be arguing that the clearest biblical model for church worship, in 1 Corinthians 14, is no longer valid because prophecy and other gifts have ceased. Thus they set aside the specific commands of God through the Apostle Paul, starting in verse 1, because they conflict with a human tradition of teaching. At least, that’s my side of the discussion; read the comment thread for Richard and dvo’s responses.

Meanwhile David Matthias, who is an elder in newfrontiers, gives a positive report of a meeting with Steve Chalke. This makes a nice change from the attitude of his fellow newfrontiers elder Adrian Warnock (correction 6th March: Adrian is not an elder at his church, but he is a regular preacher there), who a couple of years ago in effect publicly cursed Chalke – and by extension myself. David doesn’t agree with Steve about the atonement, but he shows proper Christian love in his disagreement.

Well, I suppose I shouldn’t expect newfrontiers elders all to be of one mind, as I certainly wouldn’t expect that of Church of England ministers. Indeed recently I have been getting to know and working well with one of the elders of our local newfrontiers church here in Chelmsford. I have no idea of this man’s attitude to Steve’s teaching. But it is somewhat ironic that this church meets in Adrian’s old school but uses the same name as Steve’s Oasis organisation.

The Church of England upholds the uniqueness of Christ

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After last week’s outbreak of unity, more good news from the Anglican churches. Some of you will think “Of course, this is what any church would do”. Others of you, the more cynical, might be amazed. But, as The Times, in an article by Ruth Gledhill (see also her blog post about the debate), and Thinking Anglicans report, the General Synod of the Church of England has today approved (by 283 votes to 8 with 10 abstentions) a private member’s motion on the uniqueness of Christ in multi-faith Britain.

In fact technically the motion, as printed in full by Thinking Anglicans, does not quite affirm the uniqueness of Christ, but it does “warmly welcome” a long paper by Martin Davie (I haven’t read it!) which concludes, very sensibly,

The Church of England, and Anglicans more generally, have also taken the traditional doctrines of the Trinity and the incarnation as their basis for interfaith dialogue, holding that Jesus is the source of salvation for all people everywhere (whether they are yet aware of the fact or not), but also holding that Christians are called to be God’s instruments in bringing people to explicit faith in Christ and to membership of his Church.

So Ruth is justified in how she starts her article in The Times:

Anglicans were effectively mandated today by the Church of England to go out and convert Muslims and other non-Christian believers.

For decades, their fellow Christians have joked about Anglicans that it is unfair to say they believe in nothing. They believe in anything.

But in a move that led one bishop to condemn in anger the “evangelistic rants”, the Church of England yesterday put decades of liberal political correctness behind it.

(I note the confusion between “today” in the first paragraph and “yesterday” in the third, for the same event. Presumably this article is intended for Thursday’s paper, but the online version is dated Wednesday. The BBC is more careful in these matters in avoiding words like “today” and “yesterday” in its online news.)

Meanwhile Ruth, on her blog, notes that Facebook has penetrated further than ever before. She caught a bishop, Pete Broadbent who is well known to my readers here and has in fact been one himself, communicating with the Press apparently from the floor of the Synod during a debate. Now I wouldn’t dream of publishing comments on a Facebook friend’s status without permission from the commenter. Then I suppose if I was really concerned about the privacy of my comments I wouldn’t have any journalists as my friends. But as Dave Walker is my Facebook friend as well as Pete’s and Ruth’s I can confirm that Ruth has accurately quoted the episcopal comment:

Tee hee – surrender – resistance is futile…

Ruth asks:

Is it a scandal that a bishop is using Facebook while ostensibly listening to a serious synod debate on the place of Christ in the world today? Does anyone care?

I don’t! Perhaps the scandal is that I think this important enough even to mention in the same post as the uniqueness of Christ.

By the way, today the Synod also voted, by a clear margin well over the required 2/3 (despite Ruth’s miscalculations), to take the next step in the process towards allowing women bishops.

To conclude: I rejoice that the Church of England has taken such a clear stand on this important issue, reaffirming that salvation is found only in Jesus Christ.

Faith in Public

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The past week has been interesting for discussion of faith in the public arena. I haven’t written about them here, but have made some comments on them on other blogs.

The nurse Caroline Petrie was suspended from her job for offering to pray for a patient – and then reinstated, as reported in The Times. It seems that she wasn’t doing anything wrong – and indeed under new guidelines the colleague who reported her could be accused of religious harassment.

Government minister Hazel Blears gave a speech to the Evangelical Alliance which has provoked various reactions. Eddie Arthur sounded rather negative about this, but in my comment on his post I pointed out the positive side to what she said:

See also this report from the EA, which has a link to the full text of the speech. I note that Blears started by quoting from Isaiah “beat our swords into ploughshares, and our spears into pruning hooks.” She also quotes “faith without works is dead.”

The EA seems critical of her for saying “The charter would mean faith groups who are paid public money to provide services … promising not to use public money to proselytise.” But this seems fair enough to me. This kind of separation doesn’t require completely separate charities, just separately accounted for funds like the building funds in many churches.

Now David Keen has written a post which, as well as commenting on these two stories, gives extracts from a speech given by our former Prime Minister Tony Blair to a prayer breakfast in Washington DC. Here are some extracts from the speech:

Today, religion is under attack from without and from within. From within, it is corroded by extremists who use their faith as a means of excluding the other. I am what I am in opposition to you. If you do not believe as I believe, you are a lesser human being.

From without, religious faith is assailed by an increasingly aggressive secularism, which derides faith as contrary to reason and defines faith by conflict. Thus do the extreme believers and the aggressive non-believers come together in unholy alliance.

How sad! I have seen too much of the first kind of attack even on this blog. But Blair continues:

And yet, faith will not be so easily cast. For billions of people, faith motivates, galvanises, compels and inspires, not to exclude but to embrace; not to provoke conflict but to try to do good. This is faith in action.

Then we have the following, which is so reminiscent of the TV show Yes, Prime Minister; I can hardly imagine Tony Blair as Jim Hacker, but it seems that there are real Sir Humphreys in the civil service:

I recall giving an address to the country at a time of crisis. I wanted to end my words with “God bless the British people”. This caused complete consternation. Emergency meetings were convened. The system was aghast. Finally, as I sat trying to defend my words, a senior civil servant said, with utter distain: “Really, Prime Minister, this is not America you know.”

Rick Joyner on unity and restoration

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I have had to reject several recent comments on my posts about Todd Bentley, because they contain unsubstantiated allegations against Todd and others. My policy is to reject such comments as a matter of principle, and also because they might get me into trouble with libel lawyers. Among those who have persistently tried to breach this rule is a certain Susan. But I should thank her for giving me a link, in a comment I rejected as explained here, to a new article by Rick Joyner.

In this article Rick Joyner writes first about unity:

One reason there has been so much division in the church is because we have tried to unify around too much. The nation of Israel was only required to be in unity on two basic matters—worship and warfare. They were to worship Jehovah together in the manner and place He had prescribed, and they were to always be ready to mobilize and defend any of the other tribes that were attacked.

If the church would live by this same wisdom, her power, authority, size, wealth, and impact would multiply quickly. When we discuss being in unity about worship, we need to steer clear of the nuances that the Lord has given us liberty in, such as the style of music. However, we do need to be in unity about Who we worship and how complying with the biblical standards and teachings on morality, integrity, and other basics that should be common to all Christians. The Moravians stated the following: “In the basics there must be unity. In the other matters there must be liberty, and in all things there must be charity.”

As far as warfare is concerned, as Christians we should always be ready to mobilize with other believers to defend any of our brothers or sisters, or other churches, who are attacked. Presently, this is quite rare, but the times that I have seen it happen have resulted in a bonding together of believers in a special, powerful, and lasting way.

Amen! But how often we see Christians attacking rather than defending one another! This is my point in joining the “Religious North”.

Rick goes on to explain how he got started on his ministry of restoring fallen Christian leaders, when he was prompted by a dream to offer help to Jim Bakker. To Rick this is an example of how “as Christians we should always be ready to mobilize with other believers to defend any of our brothers or sisters”. So he writes:

It was for this same reason that when the situation with Todd Bentley happened and I was asked to help restore him, I did not hesitate. I was warned by some that helping Jim Bakker would cost me and my ministry very dearly, and it may have with some, but the favor of God is worth much more than the favor of all men. I know Todd has asked what I expect to get out of helping him, wondering why I would want to when it seems the whole church    is mad at him, but the dream the Lord gave me over twenty years ago is still as real to me right now as when I first woke up after having it. I’m not here to build a ministry—I’m here to do God’s will, but I also know the church will never be trusted by God or men until we have His heart for restoration. When the world sinned, turned away from Him, and fell into terrible debauchery, the Lord did not condemn it—He came and gave His own life to save it. Those who have His heart will do the same for those in trouble.

Again, Amen! But sadly some people (who I won’t link to) have used this article as an excuse to attack their Christian brother Rick. Well, following Rick’s teaching, I at least am ready to defend him, and Todd, when they are attacked.

Meanwhile, while I am again on the subject of Todd, there is an interesting update from Fresh Fire, dated 23rd January and also found thanks to Susan, which announces the return to ministry of Shonnah Bentley! She and her son Elijah will be visiting Fresh Fire’s Uganda Jesus Village in the spring. There is also in this announcement the following interesting, and in part surprising, news:

The first news item that we wish to bring to your attention is that Todd Bentley has resigned from his involvement with Fresh Fire Ministries Canada and will continue a process of restoration under the capable leadership of Rick Joyner and his association. Because Todd founded Fresh Fire Ministries, we feel it appropriate and honorable to give FFM’s name to him to use as he chooses when he starts ministering again in the future. We here at FFM are in the process of changing our name to reflect our present and future focus as we continue with the God-given mandate for this ministry. Check back with us soon to see our new name, logo and image.

So FFM is clearing the way for Todd to be restored to ministry and return with a new Fresh Fire organisation. It will be interesting to see how this works out.

Obama to receive a CEV Bible

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As the Church Times blog has reported, the Evangelical Alliance here in the UK, noticing that no Bible could be found for President Barack Obama’s second swearing in, decided to send him one. And they didn’t just send him any old (or new) Bible; they sent him a copy of The Poverty and Justice Bible, of which they also write:

Recently Prime Minister Gordon Brown was presented with The Poverty and Justice Bible at Downing Street. And in July last year, hundreds of Bishops carried The Poverty and Justice Bible as they marched across Westminster in a campaign against world poverty.

As a (former, more or less) Bible translator I was interested to find out what translation is used in this Bible. The answer is at this Bible’s own website: the text is that of the Contemporary English Version (CEV):

Almost every page of the Bible speaks of God’s heart for the poor. His concern for the marginalised. His compassion for the oppressed. His call for justice.

The Poverty and Justice Bible megaphones his voice as never before.

Using the clear Contemporary English Version (CEV) text, it highlights more than 2,000 verses that spell out God’s attitude to poverty and justice.

But the blessed Barack needs to be careful with his gift. I presume that this particular text is the British edition of CEV, which actually differs quite substantially from the US and “Global Standard” editions of this version, as I documented here. So if, as I would consider appropriate, he gets copies of CEV for his daughters, and if he ever finds time to have family devotions with them and uses The Poverty and Justice Bible, there is some danger of confusion.

I can’t help thinking that there would have been more of an outcry in some quarters if Obama had been sworn in on The Poverty and Justice Bible than if no Bible was used at all!

"The Revolutionary Christ has been disguised as a moral policeman"

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These words were written by Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy in 1919, but could have been written about the church today (thanks to Phil Groom for the quote, taken out of his context):

the Christianity which should have turned the world upside down has been turned into a method of keeping it as it is and meekly accepting its wrong-side-upness as the discipline of Almighty God. The Revolutionary Christ has been disguised as a moral policeman.

Sadly too many people, when confronted with preachers of “The Revolutionary Christ”, respond as moral police officers. Let the readers of my Todd Bentley posts understand. But this is not about him, it is about what has been wrong with the church for at least a century and still is today.

Lessons for the church from the Todd Bentley affair

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In a comment in response to my question “Why does Todd Bentley inspire such hatred?”, Tim Chesterton has asked

why Todd Bentley inspires so much interest – especially in you.

Along the same lines, in a private comment I received by e-mail a suggestion was made that I am being neither gentle nor wise in focusing so much on Todd.

The second commenter certainly has a good point: it is probably not helping Todd’s restoration to discuss the matter too much or to treat him as a celebrity. And in answer to Tim I wrote:

Tim, I don’t blame you, if you are not interested in Todd. But a lot of people are, as I can tell from my statistics. And many of them are writing a lot of nonsense about him. By contrast, most of my other posts, even on controversial subjects, attract few readers or commenters. I don’t blog to get attention, but I don’t want to bore people by writing posts which no one reads.

I stand by that, but I must also admit that this is only part of the story. Another aspect is that recently I have not been inspired to blog much about anything else.

But there is more than that to it. Some people may think of the Lakeland revival as something inconsequential, last summer’s fad which can and should be forgotten quickly in a new year with its new challenges. But to me Lakeland, and Todd Bentley’s part in it, was something of real significance for God’s purposes for the world, or at least for the western part of it.

So, with apologies to Tim and the other commenter, I will write one more post about Todd, bringing out some lessons for the church from this affair. I won’t promise to write no more about Todd after that, but I will try to keep it to a minimum.

I believe that at Lakeland God was testing his church, at least in the West, to see if it is ready for the next step in his purposes. Here are some things that he wanted to find out:

  • Is the church forgiving, of sins committed by people before they become believers?
  • Is the church accepting, of people who don’t wear the expected clothes, etc?
  • Is the church characterised by grace, or does it legalistically apply Old Testament rules out of context for example about tattoos?
  • Is the church listening to everyone, or only to those of a certain background and age?
  • Is the church teachable, or does it only accept teaching from those who confirm the doctrinal prejudices it already holds?
  • Is the church non-judgmental, or does it reject people quickly because of unsubstantiated allegations against them?
  • And perhaps most importantly, is the church open to the work of God the Holy Spirit, or is it quick to claim that certain manifestations and ministry styles cannot be from him?

Of course God knew what his church was like. But did the church? Did it know that on each of these issues, when brought to its attention in the person and ministry of Todd Bentley, it would to a large extent be found wanting? Yet it was found wanting: Todd’s childhood sins, unconventional clothing, tattoos and youth (but he is as old as Jesus ever was on earth) were presented as disqualifying him from ministry; his teaching was rejected as novel without being given a proper hearing; his recent sins have been exaggerated and considered unforgivable; and his ministry style has been lampooned and rejected as not genuinely from God.

In the story of the woman taken in adultery (John 8:1-11), although she was actually guilty, in response to Jesus’ words the scribes and the Pharisees dropped their stones of accusation against her. In the case of Todd Bentley, although there is in fact no evidence of physical adultery but only an admission of an “inappropriate relationship” and a divorce action, Todd’s accusers in the church are not prepared to listen to the one they call “Lord” and drop their accusations. I think the scribes and Pharisees get the better of this comparison.

God grieves over the state of the world, lost in sin and shame. He is looking for a church, a people, who he can use to reach it with the message of the gospel. But mostly he finds professing Christians who are self-righteous, legalistic and unwilling to accept anything or anyone not meeting their own expectations. He longs to revive his church and use it to bring in multitudes of the lost. But he cannot do so while it is led by such people, people who would not accept the lost if they did come in. This is a time for the church to repent, before God brings his judgment on it, discarding the old wineskins and creating new ones to contain his new people.

Todd Bentley on lust and adultery

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Rick Hiebert of the Western Standard, a Canadian newspaper, posts an extract from the Open Heavens Bible, study notes on lust and adultery. Here is part of it:

Curses: Open Doors of Lust and Adultery

…

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. …

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.

Who wrote this? According to the product page (still at the Fresh Fire website), these are part of

Todd Bentley’s teachings and personal notes.

Now I have tried to keep this site free from criticism of Todd Bentley. But even his friends and supporters can’t help noticing the glaring inconsistency between what he writes here (or has been written in his name) and his behaviour – even if we consider only what he has admitted.

In a previous post I referred to demonic influences behind those who express such hatred for Todd, and anyone offering him a measure of support. But we must also realise that, as Todd himself has taught, there are “demonic powers and demonic spirits [who] work with the spirit of lust–adultery, sexual sin, perversion, and pornography”, and it seems that Todd has given place to these in his life. He needs to continue to follow his own advice:

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.

Why does Todd Bentley inspire such hatred?

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Why does every mention of Todd Bentley, on this and other blogs, inspire such hatred? Why are there always some professing Christians who respond with such vituperative language? For example, early today I received here the following comment, which I did not approve:

Peter Kirk – You can rot in hell where you belong for being exactly what you are a self righteous hypocrite who supports liars, adulterers, thieves, deceivers such as Todd Bentley and friends

And that was all because I had asked that commenter to provide evidence to back up allegations made in a previous comment which I did not approve. While I accept that Todd has done wrong, I am not endorsing listing him among “liars, adulterers, thieves, deceivers”.

And then I found this from another commenter on another blog:

Todd Bentley is a FRAUD
Todd Bentley has committed FRAUD

What will you try to convince people of next Mr. Kirk?
That the holocaust never happened?

Again this was prompted by a request for evidence in my previous comment:

I “question the fact [your word] that Todd Bentley has committed fraud” because I have seen not one jot of evidence to suggest this. I would remind you of the biblical commands not to make accusations without two or three witnesses, and not to spread malicious gossip.

The commenter still did not provide a jot of evidence of the alleged financial fraud. Neither he nor I may appreciate Todd’s fundraising techniques, but that does not make them fraudulent. There doesn’t seem to be anything illegal in the arrangements reported by Rick Hiebert, suggested elsewhere as indicating fraud. So in the absence of any evidence to the contrary we must assume Todd’s financial affairs to be legal. But presumably in this absence of evidence the commenter thought he could prove his point by SHOUTING and associating me with holocaust deniers (see Godwin’s Law).

And these two are just a small selection of what has been directed at me personally, not to mention what has been directed at Todd, his friend, and anyone who has been seen as lukewarm in condemning his sins – not just the admitted ones but the ones alleged with no evidence.

Perhaps the explanation is in this comment from Will:

Ok.
Things are getting a but demonic here,
first off we are not to attack one another this is not lifting Jesus,

Secondly you shall not receive a rebuke against an elder unless it be in the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses.this is not in an email form but personally. …

Indeed, Will, and thanks for supporting me. I’m sure the demons are having a field day with discussions like this, laughing aloud as they watch Christians tearing one another down and apart. These are the same ones who rejoiced in their victory of ending God’s work in the Lakeland revival, by the ancient means of sexual temptation. Now they want to destroy the fruit which came from it (people are still publishing testimonies of healing at Lakeland, such as this one from a rock star who was healed: “oddly enough, ever since I went to the dude Todd Bentley that everyone is saying is a healer; my back has been feeling better”). And they want to destroy any possibility of Todd repenting and being restored to ministry. So these demons stir up hatred within Christians, or within those who call themselves Christians but are actually in their control, and incite them to, among other things, write hate-filled blog posts and comments.

The biblical authors Peter and James tell us to resist the devil who seeks to devour us, and he will flee from us (James 4:7, 1 Peter 5:8-9). On this basis I have been responding to many of the negative comments about Todd with positive truth. But Paul teaches us not to give the devil a foothold in our lives (Ephesians 4:27). So I will not allow on this blog comments filled with hate, or with unsubstantiated allegations, against Todd or against anyone else including myself. Please don’t waste your time trying to post them. I will also no longer respond to such posts and comments on other blogs, unless I decide that it is important to do so in a particular case.

I pray that those who are commenting negatively about Todd will be filled anew with God’s love and compassion even for those who have fallen into sin, and will start to write and speak only positively and in accordance with God’s love.

And I pray that Todd will turn away from his inappropriate relationship, repent of all his sins, and seek reconciliation with his wife and children – and that Shonnah will be filled with love and forgiveness as they try to work this out together. I look forward to the day when Todd will be restored to a ministry which will be even more powerful than we have seen at Lakeland.

PS The Official Todd Bentley Facebook Fan Page, which I linked to here and here, seems to have disappeared from Facebook. I wonder if this is a temporary glitch, or if the administrators decided that it was too much work keeping this free of the same kinds of negative comments which I am discussing in this post. There is still an unofficial fan page, which is attracting some negative comments but is probably not being read by Todd, and his Myspace page is still available. There is no sign yet of the promised new joint statement by Todd and Rick Joyner.