A personal reflection on a ‘faith healer’
- Jul 24, 2008 - 8
Todd Bentley’s healing ministry has gained national attention. His daily meetings for the past three months in Lakeland, Fla., have attracted hundreds of thousands from all over the world. The press has begun to question Bentley’s legitimacy—Is his financial accounting above board? Are miracles really happening? I want here to raise some more personal concerns.
On July 3, my wife, three children, and I attended Bentley’s “impartation service” in Denton, north of Dallas. Why? We have twin boys aged 7, one of whom is autistic (largely nonverbal, still not fully toilet trained, serious developmental delays). Friends urged that we attend the meeting for his miraculous healing.
Call us stubborn, but my wife and I are unimpressed with doctors who see our son’s condition as hopeless. We believe that God still heals and that his means of healing include conventional medicine, alternative medicine, prayer, fasting, love, and, yes, miracles. In any case, we haven’t given up on our son’s recovery (we still remember the day when he was developmentally on track). So if God wanted to use Todd Bentley, we were open to it.
As faith healers go, Bentley is unconventional. Exhibiting black shirt, baggy jeans, tattoos, and piercings, he prefers grunge to Gucci. But his appearance wasn’t a problem for my wife or me. God in the Bible used many unconventional people. The problem for us was the manipulation, hype, and agenda that seemed to pervade the meeting.
It was a 130-mile drive for my family to get to the meeting. When we called the organizers, they urged us to get there by 3 p.m. even though the meeting didn’t start till 7 p.m. The venue (a basketball arena) seated 8,500 people, yet the organizers told us to expect 14,000 people to show up. So the only way to be sure of getting a seat was to get there early.
We therefore piled the kids into the minivan early afternoon, arriving around 4:30 p.m. At 6:30 p.m., after sitting for two hours, the arena was about three-quarters full. One of the organizers then announced that traffic was backed up for miles around Denton and that several thousand were trying to get into the meeting, most of whom would have to be turned away. This was sheer hype. A significant block of seats (at least 20 percent) was cordoned off and never used throughout the whole night. We could have arrived anytime and still gotten seats.
At 7 p.m., Keith Miller (the chief organizer, sfwm.org) started things off. After prompting the audience to perform ritualistic acts of worship (stand up, raise your hands, say after me …), he passed the baton to a young woman singer and her backup band. The sound system was terrible—sounds were loud and distorted. The music was repetitive in the extreme. In almost two hours of this “music ministry,” only a handful of songs were sung, and many of them seemed to consist of only one or two phrases.
Finally, around 9 p.m., Bentley began to speak. He devoted much of his message to the visions he has received and the miracles he claims have happened in his ministry. Then, almost as an afterthought, he spent a few minutes preaching from the Bible (John 5). In fact, he admitted that he was having us open the Bible simply so that it couldn’t be said that he didn’t preach from the Bible. So much for reverencing the Scriptures.
Nowhere in Bentley’s message did I see an emphasis on the love and compassion of God—that healing is an expression of God’s goodness and care for humanity. Rather, the emphasis throughout was on power—the power to heal and be healed.
Bentley told stories of remarkable healings. In fact, he claims that in his ministry 30 people have now been raised from the dead. Are these stories credible?
A common pattern in his accounts of healing was an absence of specificity. Bentley claims that one man, unembalmed, had been dead for 48 hours and was in a coffin. When the family gathered around at a funeral home, the man knocked from inside the coffin to be let out.
But what are the specifics? Who was this man? What’s his name? Where’s the death certificate? And why not parade the man at Bentley’s meetings? If I am ever raised from the dead through anyone’s ministry, you can be sure I’ll put in a guest appearance. Bentley claims that he is having a team investigate healings performed under his ministry and will soon go public with the evidence. I look forward to seeing it.
After preaching, Bentley took the offering. During the offering he asked, “How much anointing do you want to receive?” Thus he linked the blessing we should receive with the amount of money we gave.
After the offering, Bentley said a general prayer for mass healing. People who thought they were healed then came forward. But I saw no obvious or dramatic evidence of healing. After the general prayer for mass healing, Bentley indicated that he would pray for the severest cases.
At this point, a friend who was with us urged that she and my wife take our son with autism down for prayer (I stayed with our other son and daughter).
Over an hour later my son with autism was still not able to get to the main floor for prayer. Ushers twice prevented that from happening. They noted that he was not in a wheelchair. Wheelchair cases clearly had priority—presumably they provided better opportunities for the cameras, which filmed everything. They also invoked the fire marshals, who, they claimed, prohibited too many people on the floor of the arena. But earlier in the service, during the worship time, they had packed the floor with people singing and whooping it up.
After midnight we were told that it would be an hour and a half before our son could get prayer. At that point, we got up and left. Yet the story doesn’t end there. When we got to the minivan, our other son remembered that he had left his Bible in the arena. When my wife went back to retrieve it, everybody, including Bentley, had suddenly cleared out. Staying an hour and a half would not have mattered.
Our son was refused prayer twice because he didn’t look the part, and he was told to wait still longer for a prayer that would never have been offered. And even those who looked the part seemed to look no better after Bentley’s prayer—the exodus from the arena of people bound in wheelchairs was poignant.
My son’s situation was not unique—a man with bone cancer and his wife traveled a long distance, were likewise refused prayer, and left in tears. People with needs were shortchanged. It seemed that power, prestige, and money (in that order) were dominating motives behind the meeting. Minimal time was given to healing, though plenty was devoted to assaulting our senses with blaring insipid music and even to Bentley promoting and selling his own products (books and CDs).
Neither my wife nor I regret going. It was an education. Our kids are resilient. But the ride home raised a question. We found ourselves avoiding talking about the event until the children fell asleep. Then, as they drifted off in the early morning, we talked in hushed tones about how easily religion can be abused, in this case to exploit our family. What do we tell our children? I’m still working on that one.
This article is reprinted from the July 25, 2008, issue of the Southern Baptist TEXAN, the newsjournal of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. The author, William A. Dembski, is research professor in philosophy at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, where he teaches apologetics. His newest book, coauthored with Sean McDowell, is Understanding Intelligent Design (released July 1), a user-friendly guide to the evolution-ID controversy.
8 comments (post your own) feed
1 On Jul 24th, 2008, at 12:27pm, Dan Valdes wrote:
First let me say how sorry I am for the situation you endured with your family and secondly let me commend you for sharing the story and posting it here on the SBC site.
It’s one of the most genuine and from the heart stories I have read here since I started visiting the site.
Good luck to you.
2 On Jul 26th, 2008, at 10:15am, agnes wrote:
Hello:
To anyone who believed in God faith, God has the power to do anything. You don’t have to believe in human pretending getting power from God to do their own need. My dear just believe and have faith in God. He’ll give you the strenth to take care of your son. God can bless your son by his power and realize extraordinary things on him that you would never imagine that’s came from him. Don’t be discourage, continue to pray and have faith in God. You never know what surprise he has left for you. Just always pray him by the name of Jesus his son who died for us.
Thank you,
God bless you and your family
Agnes
3 On Jul 28th, 2008, at 9:26pm, Ken wrote:
Thank you for your article. The one thing that stands out to me was your last question about what to tell your children. Tell them that we can never allow man’s abuse to negate God’s priniciples. Many preachers have abused the priniciples of healing, anointing, tithing, you name it they abused it. God’s Word and prinicples are still th same yesterday today & forever. As you have continue to seek & serve Christ knowing He has you all firmly in His hand.
4 On Jul 29th, 2008, at 7:32am, Jesse Sproat wrote:
Hello
Thank you for sharing your story. Keep your focus on God and His Love and He will never leave you.
May God continue to bless you and your family. You have a special blessing in your son.
I truly believe God wanted you to attend Bentley’s theatrical show, to shed light on his ministry.
Bentley reminds me of a carnival huckster or a snake oil salesmen of the late 1800’s or early 1900’s. The sad part of it is, so many people will be led astray and never see the Kingdom of God by Todd Bentley and others.
As Christians, it is our duty to shine the light on the faith healers and prosperity cults and be salt and light to the world. We need to continue to tell others about the God’s salvation through the shed blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the only best way to defeat those that are leading people astray.
May God continue to Bless Dr. Land and his minsitry.
5 On Jul 29th, 2008, at 6:18pm, Warren McBee wrote:
IF, again, BIG IF, these healers are real, why are they not in hospitals instead of tents?
Dr. Adrain Rogers wrote a book titled “Believe in Miracles, but Trust in God. While these are concerning the miracles of Jesus, nevertheless we must remember the greatest miracle is our salvation thru Jesus our Savior. HE IS still in the healing business and doesn’t need characters in tents. Realize again God’s calendar and ours are not in sync, and the miracle of healing for your son will be in God’s time and His situation.
God Bless you and your family, and accept the blessing, though in disguise, that you have with your son.
6 On Jul 29th, 2008, at 8:04pm, Anita Drum wrote:
Todd Bentley is not only causing a stir in the states but around the world. Some of my friends in other parts of the world are seeing his programs by satellite tv and internet and are buying in it.
If this article concerns you-you should know that this is only the tip of the ice berg. It is nothing compared to what is on his website.
7 On Jul 30th, 2008, at 8:35am, Dr. Randy M. Cheek wrote:
God’s power and not man’s must always be at the forefront. It’s so amazing to me how quick people will believe in a man and negate the Sovereign POWER of GOD! When will man learn to trust God over the power of a mere human? We’ve lost our sense of he holiness of God and His POWER to be “Our Shepherd” - all that we will ever need.
Being human, we tend to look at God’s timing through our human eyeglasses. When it comes to God’s timing, we see it as though His action coming at the last minute of the last second of our need. When, in reality, through God’s eyes, His timing is perfect
What you have written is a valid testimony of your experiences from the depths of your heart. Thank you for your honesty and your integrity. Thank you for speaking the truth in love about your experience. It’s time we take a stand on such “actors” using the ministry as simply a way of financial gain and personal elevation. May God give us all wisdom to see through such a facade!
8 On Jul 30th, 2008, at 10:21am, Stephen Raper wrote:
God’s Work should always be done in God’s Way! When it is not, it is no longer God’s work but man’s. We live in a world where people take advantage of each other, where politicians lie and cheat, and where people abuse religious symbols for their personal material advantage. What to tell your children? That Todd Bently is a reminder of why the world needs the saving power of Jesus.