Category Archives: Individuals

Bishop Broadbent to stay away from Lambeth

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A few months ago I was writing a lot about the Lambeth Conference, and about the “alternative” GAFCON conference. Well, GAFCON is already here (but I have not yet kept up to date with reports from it), and Lambeth is coming up very soon.

One of the things which I did write was about Bishop Pete Broadbent of Willesden (still the only genuine Church of England bishop to comment on this blog):

I would be surprised if Broadbent stays away from Lambeth, although he might also attend GAFCON.

But now the Telegraph reports (thanks to the Church TImes blog for the link, also for linking to this blog on another matter) that Broadbent will be absent from Lambeth, along with Bishops Nazir-Ali and Benn whose absence has long been announced. This is confirmed in this Fulcrum forum thread, in a post written “Sunday 22 June 2008 – 03:41pm”, in which Graham Kings writes that Broadbent

is not going to make a public statement about his reasons for not going to Lambeth, which are complex.

This is of course clear confirmation that Broadbent is not going. On the same thread this morning, “Monday 23 June 2008 – 09:23am”, Broadbent himself gives a public statement, not “about his reasons for not going to Lambeth” but about his reasons for not making a public statement about his reasons. I don’t think that is being inconsistent, but I’m not sure. He writes:

1. Because there isn’t a party line. There is a conference. There are invitations. You can accept an invitation or decline it. It’s not a matter for third parties.

2. Because you may feel that explaining your reasons publicly would not be helpful to the conference host, whom you may not wish to undermine.

3. Becasue non-attendance is of course saving money, rather than expending it, and allows the Anglican Communion to spend more on cheese.

No wonder “Liddon” calls Broadbent “a politician”! But I have my own interesting points to make here:

  1. Broadbent apparently does not want to undermine Archbishop Rowan Williams, who he considers “a good man”.
  2. He is avoiding both conferences, saving money for both sets of organisers!
  3. Nevertheless he has his reasons for not attending, and explaining them publicly would not be helpful to Williams – which implies that the reasons are not purely personal.

One might wonder if Broadbent is trying to keep a foot in both camps, not upsetting his evangelical friends by attending Lambeth, but also not upsetting Williams and his associates by attending GAFCON or going public with any criticism. I don’t want to suggest that Broadbent’s position is anything less than honourable, but I do see it as a political decision, a compromise. Sadly the Anglican Communion has got into its current bad state because of a series of compromises. I don’t think it is helpful to anyone to continue to compromise.

Sitting on fences is uncomfortable, and remaining on this one will surely become even more so. Some time quite soon Bishop Broadbent will have to jump down on one side or the other.

Guards down, armour on

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I just found this quote given by Eclexia, from a book called The Gift of Fear:

The great enemy of perception, and thus of accurate predictions, is judgment. People often learn just enough about something to judge it as belonging in this or that category. They observe bizarre conduct and say, “This guy is just crazy.” Judgments are the automatic pigeonholing of a person or situation simply because some characteristic is familiar to the observer (so whatever that characteristic meant before it must mean again now). Familiarity is comfortable, but such judgments drop the curtain, effectively preventing the observer from seeing the rest of the play.

Eclexia was not thinking of Todd Bentley when she quoted this. I don’t think the original writer was thinking of him either. But this quote nicely summarises the attitude of so many people to him and to the Lakeland, Florida outpouring which he is leading. They claim to discern things about his ministry, but in fact the fail to perceive what it is all about because they make snap judgments about Todd.

Mark Cahill, an American evangelist whose qualifications, according to his “About Mark” web page, are “a business degree from Auburn University, where he was an honorable mention Academic All-American in basketball” (!) has written a June 2008 Newsletter entitled Guards Up. This has been quoted more or less in full by bloggers Andy Kinman and Ricky Earle, also in an apparent case of plagiarism passed off by blogger Brian Cranford as his own work. (Brian’s appears to be a genuine blog linked to a genuine Christian ministry, but there has been no reply to my comment of nearly 24 hours ago asking for clarification of the source of this post.) In his newsletter Mark links to my post about Todd Bentley and an angel called Emma, perhaps because I still have posted what Todd originally wrote about this but has now, I am told, had removed from his website. But this post from nearly a month ago is old news, and should be re-read in the light of what Todd has just recently written on this subject, which I posted on before.

Now “Guards Up!” may be good advice in business or basketball, but is it in the Christian life? First let’s look at some of Mark’s claims about Todd.

First, Mark accuses Todd of being a false prophet on the basis of a video, which is clearly some years old because Todd has quite a lot of hair. But I don’t see any false prophecy in this video. I see “words of knowledge”, which are not the same as prophecy, some of which are not immediately confirmed but that does not imply that they are false. But then I don’t think anyone ministering in “words of knowledge” like this claims 100% accuracy.

As for the video of Todd laughing, the style may be strange but that doesn’t make it evil. Is there really a good reason why God cannot make people laugh, shake or fall down? Of course not, because all of these are in the Bible: laughing in a positive sense in Job 8:21 (OK, this is Bildad speaking so should be taken with care), Psalm 126:2 and Luke 6:21, shaking in Job 4:14 (this time Eliphaz is speaking so again should be taken with care) and Matthew 28:4, falling to the ground also in Matthew 28:4 and in Ezekiel 1:28, Revelation 1:17 etc.

There is in fact nothing new in what Mark writes, just a rehash of the same old criticisms I have seen before. The disturbing thing is that Mark claims to know all sorts of things about occult practices but doesn’t know enough about the Bible and Christian practice to realise that there are no new manifestations happening in Lakeland. What is new is the style, the unprecedented power, and the worldwide attention.

Mark also seems to know rather well the Bible verses about false prophets and the need to discern them. But in fact he doesn’t apply these verses properly. The test of a false prophet in Deuteronomy 13 is whether the prophet leads people astray into idolatry. But there is no question that Todd is glorifying Jesus, not any other gods or idols, as he makes very clear in his recent article. So by this standard he is not a false prophet. Nor has he made any specific prophecies which have proved false, the test in Deuteronomy 18. But these Old Testament tests are only part of the picture. Why has Mark made no mention of the New Testament tests of false prophets and false Messiahs? Perhaps this is because in the NT discernment of spirits is a spiritual gift, 1 Corinthians 12:10. Mark makes no claim to this gift, but without it he has no right to make pronouncements on such a matter. Also, there is also an objective test in the NT, in 1 John 4:1-3, and by this it is quite clear that Todd is ministering in the power of the Holy Spirit and not the spirit of the antichrist.

Mark’s basic problem is that he relies on his own understanding in this matter. The guards which he tries to put up are deployed in his own strength. And such guards are powerless against an enemy who is more powerful than he is and quite able to deceive him apart from the leading of the Holy Spirit. People who walk into a spiritual battle without spiritual weapons and armour are likely to be defeated. Instead we all need to rely on the armour and weapons of attack which God provides for us, Ephesians 6:10-17. If we do this we can walk in safety into meetings like Todd’s, confident that we will not be deceived, and allow the Holy Spirit to show us what is his work.

Meanwhile Seth Barnes has offered some sensible criticism of the critics. I am not so happy to find myself listed as one of them, but at least this has brought significant traffic to this blog!

Also, Patsy of Rahab’s Place has gone on the offensive against the critics with her post Great Florida Outpouring – Lying Signs and Wonders, in which she refutes from the Bible the critics’ claims that the healing miracles at Lakeland are the work of the devil. She concludes:

There is a great deal of lying wonders going on regarding the Lakeland Outpouring. The lie is that satan has the power to heal and raise the dead. This lie has been fed to the church and the wonder is that she has accepted it in the light of scriptures.

Patsy has other posts about the “Great Florida Outpouring”, including a link to a TV interview with Todd in which he refers to documented healings, an endorsement from Bill Johnson, and a testimony of healing which is taken straight from Dr Gary Greig’s comment here at Gentle Wisdom. This is the same Dr Greig who has given his own biblical proofs, which I summarised, that what Todd is doing is valid.

So, let’s set aside the critics’ misrepresentations of the Bible, take down our human guards, put on the armour of God, and allow the Holy Spirit to lead us into the truth about Todd.

Check it out!

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Henry Neufeld has written this very sensible advice as the conclusion of a thoughtful post addressed to anyone unsure about Todd Bentley and the Lakeland outpouring, or any similar movement:

My intention here is to make it clear that caution should not become avoidance. One can miss a great deal spiritually by refusing to experience some new thing. For some reason, when people do things that appear foolish at a ball game or a concert, we think it’s funny; when people do something similar in church we regard it as dangerous. …

My suggestion is to change the motto “Danger, Will Robinson!” to “Check it out!” See what happens!

Who has the right to test interpretations of Scripture?

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James Spinti has drawn my attention to what is called in German the Sitzerrecht and in Latin the lex sedentium. In the title of Alan Knox’s post which James quotes this is translated into English as “the rights of the one seated”, but in James’ post title it aptly becomes “The What?”

The point however is a simple one. The idea comes from 1 Corinthians 14:29-31, in which Paul effectively directs that in a church meeting someone who is sitting down, if they have a prophetic revelation, can stop the person who is standing and speaking and take over from them. By the time of the Reformation this was certainly not taken as a licence to interrupt a preacher, but it was understood by the early Reformers as, in Alan’s words,

a principle that teaches that all believers have the ability to understand Scripture and to weigh what another says concerning Scripture, even if that “other” is a teacher or preacher.

However, in Alan’s words as quoted by James,

Sometime during the 1500’s the magisterial reformers abandoned the idea of Sitzerrecht – that all believers have the right and duty to test teachers and determine the meaning of Scripture together – and embraced the principle that only a “technically qualified theological expert” could properly interpret Scripture for a gathered group of believers.

Here “the magisterial reformers” is a deliberate contrast with the early Anabaptists, who in general maintained “the idea of Sitzerrecht“.

Jim West was spurred to respond by James’ suggestion that Zwingli was wrong to abandon this principle. Perhaps Jim can clarify whether Zwingli abandoned it in response to persistent questioning by his Anabaptist opponents, replacing it by an appeal to his own authority. (No, Jim, I won’t say that he persecuted the Anabaptists, as doubtless you know better on this point than Wikipedia and the Catholic Encyclopedia.) Jim writes:

The ’spiritualists’ [i.e. the Anabaptists] were in need of refutation so Zwingli and the other Reformers rightly pointed out that interpretation of Scripture REQUIRED training- and based it on the well known verse which states: ‘Study to show yourself approved…’ That one verse broke the back of the ‘enthusiasts’ then, and I must say, does now too. Individual ‘interpretation’ without valid expertise leads to nothing but the most ridiculous heresy, such as we find in the likes of Todd Bentley …

The fallacy here is the assumption that Zwingli and the other “magisterial” Reformers had training which the Anabaptists lacked. This is probably not true of early Anabaptist leaders like Conrad Grebel, who had six years of university education followed by several years of private study with Zwingli, George Blaurock who studied at the University of Leipzig, and Felix Manz who was also an educated man. Zwingli, older than these three, was also educated, but nevertheless it is written of him that

Like many of his contemporaries, Zwingli went to work for the Church having studied little theology.

So, when Zwingli fell out with Grebel and Manz, his position became the official policy in Zurich surely not because of any greater theological education, but because of his seniority and his official position as pastor of the Grossmünster, and perhaps because his views were more acceptable to the political authorities in Zurich. In other words, he prevailed because of ecclesiastical and political power, not because of academic theological arguments. And the political authorities enforced Zwingli’s victory by drowning Manz and expelling the other Anabaptists.

So how do we apply this principle today, to cases like that of Todd Bentley who Jim brings into this? As I do support “the rights of the one seated”, I accept that any believer has the right to express their opinion about Todd and to judge his teachings and practices according to Scripture. But I do also see some limits to this, as I previously wrote about here. First, if it actually comes to making accusations of wrongdoing, Paul lays down the principle

Do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses.

1 Timothy 5:19 (TNIV)

So proper evidence is needed to support any accusation. Paul also gives this instruction:

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

Ephesians 4:29 (TNIV)

These principles of course apply equally to those with theological education and to those without it, and should perhaps rule out condemnations based on ignorance like this one.

Now I accept the importance of a properly nuanced theological study and discussion of the teachings and practices of a new Christian movement like Todd’s. The only one I have seen of this particular movement is the one by Dr Gary Greig which I discussed yesterday, which James Spinti has endorsed. So, Jim West, should I accept this at face value because it was written by someone with a PhD in theology? Somehow I don’t think you would say that I should. Well, I will give Jim the benefit of the doubt by assuming that his condemnation of “Lakeland-ianity” was based not on prejudice and third hand reports as it might appear but on his own proper theological study which he has chosen not to publish. Now I, as a mere MA in theology, am no doubt quite unqualified to evaluate the studies which the learned Dr West and Dr Greig have produced. But their conclusions are apparently diametrically opposite: one concludes

I wholeheartedly encourage you to support what God is obviously doing through the Lakeland outpouring.

and the other

Now it’s up to the adherents of Lakeland-ism to abandon the heresy and return to the truth.

They can’t both be right. So it is clear that possession of a doctorate in theology is no guarantee of knowing the truth in such matters.

So how do I decide which position to follow? I could of course look to those in ecclesiastical authority over me – in my case a vicar who has been to Lakeland and supports it with some reservations, as summarised by his friend Dave Faulkner. And indeed I do greatly respect my vicar’s views and would not go against them in public. But I don’t follow his authority uncritically, and reserve the option to confront him privately if I ever think he goes seriously wrong, and in an extreme case to leave his congregation.

For when it comes down to it I believe that this is an issue between me and God. As I wrote in a comment on Jim’s blog,

it is not the human brain but the divine Holy Spirit who leads us into all truth.

Jim is of course right that this does not solve the problem in any objective way, for

the One Spirit can’t lead to Two Truths. So being ‘led by the spirit’ isn’t determinative either, since anyone can make that claim.

Indeed. In the end I can only say that subjectively, as a matter between myself and God if I have allowed him to guide me, I believe that I can be sure of my own position. I cannot prove it to others, I can only leave it in their hands as a matter between them and God.

And on this particular issue I have to say that I am sure that, in general terms if not necessarily in every detail, Dr West is wrong and Dr Greig is right.

A theological defence of Todd Bentley's ministry

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In my previous post I mentioned a paper Biblical Reasons to Receive God’s Glory and Give it Away in Power Evangelism by Dr Gary S. Greig, PhD., a former Associate Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Regent University School of Divinity, and Senior Editor, Theology and Acquisitions for the Regal Publishing Group (free PDF download but donations requested). I have now skim read this paper. In it Dr Greig offers a defence from a generally careful theological standpoint of Todd Bentley‘s ministry and the outpouring in Lakeland, Florida.

Dr Greig deals with ten objections to Todd’s ministry. I will summarise them here:

Objection 1: “The healings aren’t really real” and “People are only working themselves into altered states of consciousness.”

On this point Dr Greig points objectors to the clear evidence that real healings are taking place. He also demonstrates that biblical evangelism included healing ministry. It is unfortunate that he likens the objectors to holocaust deniers, and emotional argument which does not fit well with the scholarly tone of the rest of the paper.

Some people have particular objections to reports of resurrections. Dr Greig mentions that three news channels reported on “an older woman being resurrected after rigor-mortis had set in”, but it is unfortunate that one of the three links is broken, and the other two are both to this news report which indeed reports a remarkable event but makes no mention of Todd or Lakeland.

This is perhaps the weakest part of the paper because it fails to provide any verifiable evidence that genuine lasting healings are taking place clearly linked to Todd and Lakeland. Perhaps Dr Greig is not the person to look for for such evidence. But it would help to answer this objection if someone close to Todd could provide this kind of evidence.

Objection 2: “Many healings are partial or gradual, and some people lose their healing after they claim to have been healed.” “Healings in the New Testament always happened immediately and could not be ‘lost’.”

Dr Greig answers this one by showing that biblical healings were sometimes gradual and arguing that healing could be lost.

Objection 3: “The manifestations, shaking, vibrating, laughing, talk of electricity, and weird behavior didn’t happen in the Bible and cannot be from God. Todd Bentley has an obsession with the paranormal.”

Dr Greig writes:

While I agree—and I have heard Todd Bentley and other leaders of the Lakeland revival agree—that our focus should not be on the miracles and the manifestations, but on Jesus alone, it is simply not true that Todd Bentley has “an obsession with the paranormal” or that the “weird” manifestations are not from God …

He also shows that many biblical miracles are just as “weird” as anything seen at Lakeland. In fact he finds biblical parallels for all the kinds of things which Todd does. He rightly insists that what matters, as a test of genuineness, is not the form of the manifestation but the fruit of it.

Objection 4: “There is no emphasis on repentance and holiness in the Lakeland meetings, as there always has been in classic revivals and awakenings …”

This charge against Todd Bentley and the leaders of the Lakeland outpouring is not true either. Anyone who is attentive and who has watched or visited the meetings in Lakeland can attest to the fact that purity of heart, holiness, and keeping our focus on Jesus, are themes that Todd Bentley and the other leaders have repeatedly emphasized.

Objection 5: “We should not be teaching people to interact with angels. Satan masquerades as an angel of light and people can be deceived by demonic angels…”

On this point Dr Greig makes a clear distinction between worship of and prayer to angels and interaction with them. The former is clearly forbidden, and Todd agrees. But the latter is normal in the Bible and should not be rejected, although any message received apparently from angels should be carefully tested.

Objection 6: “It’s wrong and misguided for us to describe angels in detail or to mention their names. This will get our focus off of Jesus.”

Dr Greig’s simple answer to this is that the biblical authors described angels and mentioned their names. Again he asks the question “What is the fruit of such descriptions?”, and shows that in Todd’s case it has been “to focus people on the Lord Jesus and His plans and power for His people.”

Objection 7: “There is no such thing as angels manifesting themselves as female angels in Scripture. Jesus taught that angels are genderless. So talk of female angels with female names is New Age deception.”

In response to this Dr Greig gives a long argument (which Todd accepts in his recent article) that although angels are genderless in their essential nature they can and do manifest themselves in both male and female forms, as well as in various inanimate ways.

Objection 8: “No Scripture supports the idea that the Holy Spirit bestows healing mantles through His angels. Only the Holy Spirit heals, not angels.”

Dr Greig starts his response with the following, which he proceeds to justify in detail:

These assertions are simply not true on several counts, when examined in the light of Scripture. There are three points that need to be made below: 1) The Holy Spirit manifesting God’s presence and glory is attended by angels throughout the Bible; 2) Healing mantles do exist, and they are just another name for healing and miraculous gifts of the Spirit; and 3) Angels are indeed associated with healing in Scripture.

Objection 9: “Todd Bentley teaching that believers can go up frequently in the Spirit to God’s throne in heaven, is unbiblical and borders on New Age visualization.”

“Once again,” Dr Greig writes, “nothing could be further from the truth in Scripture!”:

the New Testament couldn’t be clearer about a principle than this one that through Christ and His blood we have access now to God’s throne in heaven … We are already there seated in Christ in the heavenly realms

He also shows how this kind of experience is an established part of Christian spirituality.

Objection 10: “Todd Bentley is a false prophet, because he teaches things I cannot find in Scripture.”

Here Dr Greig looks back to his previous responses:

as has been demonstrated above, the fact that the so-called “Bible experts,” critics, and concerned leaders, cannot find in Scripture what Todd Bentley and the leaders of the Lakeland outpouring have been teaching and modeling, is more a testimony to the fact that the critics (as well as the rest of us) need to revisit the Scriptures and study the relevant passages more carefully, bind the enemy from interfering with our thinking (James 4:7-8; compare Peter’s thoughts being influenced by the enemy in Matt. 16:22-23), and consciously ask the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth according to Jesus’ promise in John 16:13-15. …

We, the Body of Christ, need to repent of our being functional atheists—acting as if the supernatural realm, that Scripture clearly portrays, is really not functionally real for us.

Dr Greig then brings his readers back to “Jesus’ criterion for discerning false prophets and false teachers”, which is simply “By their fruit you will recognize them”. He discusses this issue in greater depth, without explicitly applying it to Todd Bentley, and concludes as follows:

The end of the matter: Receive all God wants to give you, and give it away

My prayer is that you will not make the same mistakes I made. I wholeheartedly encourage you to support what God is obviously doing through the Lakeland outpouring. My prayer is that you will be used by the Holy Spirit to empower and equip as many leaders in the next generation as possible to receive the glory and Presence of the Lord and take it to the nations. We need to give ourselves to the Lord and His cause of preaching the gospel with power to all remaining unreached nations and people-groups, to hasten the Day of the Lord, when Jesus will return for His Bride, the worldwide Body of Christ!

Amen!

Todd Bentley lifts Jesus high

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Todd Bentley has written a new article (dated 8th June) called Lifting Jesus High! (Thanks to commenter Rick for drawing this to my attention.) This article is a response to the critics of his ministry and of the Lakeland outpouring. In it he responds to concerns about his visions, unusual miracles, angels, his encounter with the Apostle Paul etc.

Todd also mentions, in his PS, a message he received from Dr. Gary S. Greig, PhD., a former Associate Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Regent University School of Divinity. Dr Greig testified to how he had been healed through Todd’s ministry and offered a 55 page booklet Biblical Reasons to Receive God’s Glory and Give it Away in Power Evangelism, “written at a high level of scholarship for pastors, church leaders, and theologians yet is understandable to the layperson”, available as a PDF download (free but donations requested). I have not yet read this. UPDATE: Now I have read it, and have summarised and reviewed it in a new post.

I recommend you, my readers, to read Todd’s article in full. But for those of you who are too busy here are some extracts:

Someone once said that limiting revelation is like trying to fit an ocean into a cup. God is continually restoring truth and light to His Church. Therefore, we should place no limit on further revelation. To have a view that everything that happens in someone’s life because of God’s loving response to us as His children should be listed in the Bible or else it’s wrong or evil, is like saying that Jesus, who is the Word represents a list of do’s and don’ts. Jesus is a Person who, through intimacy and relationship, we perceive and understand by the Holy Spirit what is good and what is evil. If Jesus listed for us everything that we needed to know, then knowing Him would have become an option. It’s in knowing Him, who is The Word that we enter into what He has prepared for us.

The Bible is full of visions, encounters, signs, wonders, miracles, and manifestations that people have experienced, some of which may be downright hard for many to wrap their minds around, let alone believe it could happen today. Again, it’s all relative to each individual, their experiences, and backgrounds, and with what they have learned through intimacy with Christ Jesus, and what they have received as a love response from God.

Here is part of what he now writes about the angel called Emma:

In the case of the angel called “Emma,” who I described as having mother-like nurturing qualities, some have automatically assumed that my doctrine is that I believe in female angels. This has never been the case! For whatever reason God chose to show me this angel in a female persona, He did. This isn’t to say that the angel was female. Angels are spirit and appear in many forms. Perhaps that’s the form God chose this angel to take for the purpose of the revelation He gave me. They are spirit beings of light, created out of God’s glory, without gender, and appear in whatever form God chooses to send them to us.

More from the article:

In visions and encounters that I share, I emphasize that it boils down to Jesus Christ who is the essence of everything and is the All in All. It’s all about Him, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. An encounter with heaven is an encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Many people don’t see what’s happening in the spirit realm, viewing things only from the physical realm. This is one reason why there’s so much division right now. I have found that many are judging things by what they see or hear in the natural, by their natural senses, to feelings, or without having relevant supernatural experiences themselves.

He admits that not everything that happens is entirely of God, but that should not be used as a reason to reject everything:

People may see me or others sprawled out on the floor, or in heavenly laughter, or shaking because of the glory and presence of God, but try to look beyond and understand that something’s happening in the spirit, trusting that there’s that other realm that you may not see.

Revival is often messy because there’s a lot happening and sometimes it’s hard for people to take in everything they see in the natural. Many come and some do manifest fleshly things, but for the most part, everyone is sincere and of good intention at a revival. Trust it’s better to be full of life with a little untidiness than to be dead. Also, trust that God is big. He can handle it and can separate the tares from the wheat. …

If you cannot understand the supernatural things of God, or even if you disagree or choose to discount or discredit me in any way, then I urge you to look at the fruit. Every day we’re seeing salvations. Every day people are being healed, not only physically, but emotionally too! Every day, people who thought they knew Christ are discovering Him in a fresh and powerful new way. Every day, we’re teaching people how to use their gifts to evangelize. We’re equipping and sending hundreds into the streets and marketplaces to talk about Jesus.

This is surely the key to Todd’s exceptional ministry:

I understand that lofty places in this visible kingdom are no proof of anyone’s acceptance with God, and neither are the mighty works, even done in Jesus’ name. However, the condition of the heart is what truly allies us with Him. This I’ve stressed repeatedly in my ministry. The heart changes when someone spends much time with the Lord. This is the foundation of my ministry and my walk with Jesus. From the outset of my salvation, my ministry, and even today, I spend hours in the secret place of His presence. I seek Him and His will for every meeting. My team here at Lakeland knows that several hours of every afternoon; before every meeting, I’m not to be disturbed as I spend time with Jesus. Signs, wonders, miracles, dreams, and visions I believe are His loving response – the fruit of fellowship.

Spend time in His presence and you won’t be as resistant to change. You won’t be afraid to be a new wineskin, God’s present wineskin. You won’t even be the same wineskin as tomorrow, because with God wineskins are new and newer. New wineskins won’t limit God or what He can do.

And then from his final section:

God uses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. For some reason, He’s chosen a bald-headed, red-bearded, tattooed, pierced, imperfect man as an agent for revival. I understand why I would come as a shock to the religious camp. Nevertheless, trust that if what I’m doing is of the flesh or of the devil, I will fail, but if what’s happening is from God, nothing and no one can quench this blazing revival fire unless God wills it. …

I’m thankful that people are being watchful in these last days, just as I am watchful. Questions are good when we’re uncertain of things. Trust too what a respected Pharisee advised in Acts 5:38, 39: “And now I say to you, keep away from these men and let them alone; for if this plan or this work is of men, it will come to nothing; but if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it – lest you even be found to fight against God.”

I understand that people have questions, and God understands too! I invite you to come to Lakeland to see what God has for you, and to see for yourself the mighty and wondrous things that God is doing here. Thanks again for hearing my heart. It is my heart that we can bring unity to the Body of Christ to see a great harvest.

I hope this article helps those of you who are still unsure about Todd’s ministry and the genuineness of the Lakeland outpouring.

Deadly sins and blog boredom

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I admit to committing, at various times on this blog, almost all of Lingamish’s seven deadly blog sins. But I don’t think I have ever posted a cute photo. Somehow I don’t do cute. When I am tempted to admire pictures of babies and kittens, I think of what the baby would be like to look after and what the kitten will grow into.

Today I could commit another deadly sin by boasting to you that my blog has just passed the 100,000 visitors milestone. Well, of course I am guilty by writing this even in a hypothetical sentence. As this figure is from WordPress blog stats it probably means counting only since last August. In fact visits have been averaging around 1,000 per day (more during the week, less at weekends) for the last three weeks, because of the revival that Todd Bentley, or discussion of him, has brought to Gentle Wisdom. Several hundred people each day have been finding this blog from searches for “Todd Bentley” and similar. I am glad that they are finding what I hope is some sense about him, and not just the ranting condemnations which are so widespread.

But somehow I have lost the heart to boast or even to post about anything significant. Am I getting bored with blogging? Perhaps. Am I getting bored with discussing and defending Todd Bentley? Certainly. While the Lakeland outpouring seems to be continuing, I haven’t heard anything new from there recently. And I haven’t even heard anything new from the critics of Todd, just more mindless rants that I have mostly stopped responding to. And since I don’t have anything new or interesting to say just at the moment, I will not try to dredge something up just to keep my regular readers happy.

But I will report one piece of good news, even though doing so is I’m sure committing another deadly sin: I’ve won a competition! I correctly guessed which was Matthew’s lie, and am expecting a small prize in recognition of it.

Impartation and Ordination

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Henry Neufeld asked the question, in this post at Threads from Henry’s Web, whether there is some kind of impartation, analogous to what Todd Bentley offers, in ordination to the priesthood or pastorate. The following is adapted and expanded from a comment I made on that post.

First I want to look at some biblical material which links impartation and what might be considered the biblical prototype of ordination.

We do have at least one mass impartation meeting in the Bible, in Acts 8:15-17, where Peter and John placed their hands on large numbers of people in Samaria and they each received the Holy Spirit. In verse 18 we read specifically that “the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands” (TNIV). These people were already baptised believers but had not experienced the Holy Spirit in their own lives. This sounds all very like Lakeland to me, although I am sure many of the people receiving an impartation from Todd Bentley have been filled with the Spirit before and are seeking a refilling (cf Acts 4:31, Ephesians 5:18) or greater power.

Within church tradition (at least Anglican and I think Roman Catholic) this event in Samaria is seen as the prototype of confirmation, rather than of ordination – a blessing imparted by the apostles and so now to be imparted only by bishops, but offered to all believers and not just those chosen for office in the church; also it is not transferable in that those confirmed do not acquire the power to confirm others. In fact not even Philip who evangelised Samaria seems to have the power to impart this blessing; he had been commissioned by the apostles with the laying on of hands (Acts 6:6) but for a different role as a prototype deacon, in what is understood in the tradition as the first ordination to the diaconate – not to the episcopate, so he could not confirm people. Note, however, that Philip had received the power to perform signs and wonders (Acts 8:6-7), something which is in principle available to all Spirit-filled believers, not just ordained clergy.

Now it is interesting to see what Simon the sorcerer made of this, in Acts 8:18-19. Presumably he received along with all the others the impartation which was not transferable, analogous to confirmation. But he wanted more, and made the serious mistake of offering money for it. What he wanted was the transferred power to impart the Holy Spirit to others, or in the terms of church tradition he wanted to be ordained or consecrated to the episcopate so that he could confirm others. Peter and John, as apostles, could presumably have performed this impartation, but for very good reasons refused to do so. So, whereas the non-transferable impartation was offered to freely to all who believed, the transferable impartation was carefully guarded.

It is not entirely clear how, if by any human means, the power to impart the Holy Spirit was passed outside the immediate circle of the apostles. We can surmise that when the apostles sent Barnabas to Antioch (Acts 11:22) he was given this power of transferable impartation; or, in traditional terms, he was consecrated bishop. When later (Acts 13:2-3) he and Saul/Paul were commissioned with laying on of hands for their missionary journeys, it may be that Saul was also given this power; certainly by the time he gets to Ephesus (Acts 19:6) Paul is able to pray for people to be filled with the Holy Spirit. However, Paul insists that he received his apostleship direct from the risen Christ, and not from the original apostles (Galatians 1:1). Paul seems to have passed his commissioning on to Timothy in some kind of ceremony of impartation (2 Timothy 1:6), and he and Titus (Titus 1:5) seem to have had the right to appoint elders and “bishops”.

This is, I suppose, the biblical basis for the (Roman and Anglo-) Catholic concept of the apostolic succession, that true bishops and priests must be ordained through an unbroken succession of laying on of hands from the apostles. Most Protestant Christians do not consider this necessary, and indeed do not have bishops. The ordination Henry Neufeld referred to was into the United Methodist Church which does have bishops, but they are not in the proper apostolic succession because the first American Methodist bishops were ordained by John Wesley, who was a priest, not a bishop. Interestingly, some charismatic and Pentecostal denominations, such as the one which consecrated Bishop Michael Reid, do consider it important to have bishops in a genuine apostolic succession.

Now while I would be surprised if Todd Bentley actually considers the apostolic succession to be important, his concept of transferable impartation seems to be in the same tradition. He believes in and practises laying hands, or cloths, on people so that they receive for themselves not only filling with the Holy Spirit but also the power to pass this impartation on to others.

Now an interesting corollary of the traditional apostolic succession teaching is that if one rogue bishop chose to ordain or consecrate everyone at mass meetings and taught them to do the same, a situation could quite quickly come about in which millions of believers worldwide became bishops and would have to be recognised as such by the Catholic churches. One might however argue that this rogue bishop would be doing the right thing, in fulfilment of Moses’ prayer in Numbers 11:29 and Joel’s prophecy quoted in Acts 2:17-21, which foresee a universal outpouring of the Holy Spirit not restricted by the limited number of apostles who could mediate it.

What Todd seems to be doing is what the rogue bishop might do. Now I don’t mean to suggest that Todd actually stands in any literal apostolic succession, although that is possible. But he seems to be offering a transferable impartation to all, and teaching all to pass it on to others. On the traditional understanding he is consecrating all and sundry as bishops. In this way the impartation will soon make its way to every Christian worldwide who is willing to receive it.

Of course this begs the question of whether the impartation, what is passed on by laying on of hands, is in any way real in the spiritual realm. On that issue all I can say is that this kind of impartation does seem to have been significant to the apostles – also that thousands of people including myself have experienced something real if subjective when given the Todd Bentley impartation either directly or indirectly.

One lesson we can learn from all this is that there are no neat rules or formulae for how this kind of impartation works. God is not bound the apostolic succession but can do a new thing. As he raised up Paul independently of the established apostles, so he can also raise up new leaders even from stones (compare Luke 3:8), people like John Wesley, who was never a bishop, and apparently Todd Bentley. And given the weakness and apostasy of so many bishops in what remains of the original apostolic succession, at least the Anglican branch of it, it would hardly be surprising if God raised up a new source of transferable impartation which he chooses to use to pour out his Spirit on a needy world.

Joel Edwards to join Tony Blair

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The Evangelical Alliance has announced, currently on its home page and in a press release, that Rev Joel Edwards who has been its General Director since 1997,

will bring his passion for justice for the poor to two new roles as he joins Tony Blair’s Faith Foundation and becomes the first International Director of Micah Challenge.

This is excellent news. I have been somewhat ambivalent about Tony Blair in past posts, although I never seriously called him the Antichrist! But, as I wrote before, his Faith Foundation has the potential to do real good. And that potential is all the more likely to be realised with people like Joel Edwards being brought on board.

I trust that this also means that the Faith Foundation will be supporting the aims of Micah Challenge, which is

a Christian campaign challenging governments around the world to meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

Such a challenge needs not only strong leadership from someone like Joel Edwards but also powerful friends like Tony Blair. I note also (this from the June edition of the Evangelical Alliance’s newsletter youMail, which I received by e-mail and will be available online from 6th June) that Blair’s successor Gordon Brown has endorsed and written a foreword (not a “forward”) to the new book by Edwards and others Micah’s Challenge: The Church’s Responsibility to the Global Poor. David Cameron and Nick Clegg have also endorsed the book. The backing of both past and present Prime Ministers, and of the party leaders hoping to be future Prime Ministers, gives a real chance that these development goals will be met.

But will this campaign get the backing of the new US president, which would probably guarantee success? Maybe that depends on whether American Christians actually think about the poor and needy when making their now clear choice in November.

Violence and the Kingdom – and Todd Bentley again

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Roger Mugs writes about How I long to be a violent man, based on Matthew 11:12:

This is such a great verse just because it’s so strange. But the more I read it, the clearer to me it becomes that I am called to be a violent man taking hold the kingdom of heaven.

If this really is THE battle for the kingdom, through powers and such that we cannot see, then how passive of a role am I playing? Every time I come across this verse I’m reminded just how weak my prayer life is, and how forceful it should be. I want to be a violent man, a forceful man, I want the Lord’s enemies to be freaked out when I enter into battle with them. …

Wake us up to our wimpyness. Lord make us violent fighters taking hold of your kingdom by force.

Indeed! At first this post seemed so strange that I wondered if Roger was being satirical, but on closer reading I realise that he is both sincere and correct.

Now I don’t think Roger had Todd Bentley in mind when he wrote this a few days ago. But I was immediately reminded of the criticism that has been levelled at Todd that he uses violent methods in healing. In this comment CharismaticSceptic was the first of several people to send me a link to this video in which Todd tells of occasions when he used forceful methods in healing. On this CharismaticSceptic comments:

I’m sorry, but I cannot accept that this is how a minister of the gospel should behave, and have to seriously question if the voice Todd is hearing is that of the Lord.

Well, at the time I didn’t think of quoting Matthew 11:12 in response, but because C.S. Lewis’ Prince Caspian was in the news (I haven’t seen the film yet) I offered this quote from the book (pp. 133-134 of my copy):

Aslan pounced. Have you ever seen a very young kitten being carried in the mother cat’s mouth? It was like that. The Dwarf, hunched up in a little, miserable ball, hung from Aslan’s mouth. The Lion gave him one shake and all his armour rattled like a tinker’s pack and then – hey-presto – the Dwarf flew up in the air. He was as safe as if he had been in bed, though he did not feel so. As he came down the huge velvety paws caught him as gently as a mother’s arms and set him (right way up, too) on the ground.

It seems that C.S. Lewis’ conception of God allowed him to do apparently violent things to demonstrate that he is real. And from Matthew 11:12, at least as interpreted by Roger (and I know that there are other interpretations), it seems that Jesus also endorsed the use of violence in advancing the kingdom of God.

Now the world in the 21st century insists on wrapping everyone in cotton wool and treating violence against anyone (unless there is some rumour totally without evidence that they might somehow be linked indirectly with someone who has contemplated something which just might be considered terrorism) as the ultimate moral evil. And it seems that the critics of Todd Bentley have bought into the world’s thinking on this. But these are not the values of the Kingdom of God.