Yet Another Tragedy (#1022)
It's happened again. Another major ministry in the Charismatic world admits to hiding a false prophet who was also sexually abusive—for six years! Why does this keep happening? Sadly, many who claim to follow Christ can't tell the difference between someone filled with the life of the Spirit and those who only pretend to be for notoriety and influence. In the last few weeks, horrible revelations have come out of Bethel in Redding, and Wayne and Kyle wrestle with the questions that yet another scandal provokes. Until hearts turn to care for the victims of abuse and act to protect them, we will continue to see false leaders who would rather cover up abuse rather than warn the sheep when a wolf is among them.
Podcast Notes:
- The video version of this podcast
- Jesus Lens: The Elliptical Playground
- Wayne's Blog on the Bethel Scandal
- The Roys Report on the Bethel Scandal
- Just Love, referred to in this podcast, is a book Wayne is writing with Tobie van der Westhuizen from South Africa. We hope to have it available later this month.
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I once was told “Chew the meat and spit out the bones.”
Thank you Wayne and Kyle for your voice.
I didn’t know much about the Bethel community until the second confession on social media that I listened to. The 1:16 (1 hr 16 minute mark) in the service is what provoked me to loose respect. Paraphrased, the minister says he confronted the perpetrator and said something like ‘if you confess now you will be forgiven if it goes public your ministry is over’.
Right there it is exposed the concern was his ministry not the sin, not the victims.
Unfortunately Wayne and Kyle, your voices appear to be in the minority…I hope I’m wrong but eternally grateful for your voice.
I had a dream a couple days before the exposure of what happened under Mr. Bickel in IHOP. The dream exposed that women have been manipulated /abused by the charismatic denominations and that the leadership didn’t really repent. When allegations came out, my mature Christian friend/mentor had said she didn’t believe the allegations and I told her I had a dream that showed otherwise. Then his confession came.
I praise Father for freeing women from systematic abuse. It’s awful. It’s sad. But even today I felt Spirit say to me, “no pain is greater than My joy”
Thank you Wayne and Kyle thank you for speaking Fathers heart.
Treasured Brothers and Sisters
It is simply because many christians do not have the Spirit of God:
“17 But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. 18 They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” 19 It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit.”
Jude 1:17-19
They were just somehow manipulated to the faith, not how Paul evangelized the heathens (1 Cor. 2:4-5), but with threaths of hell and/or promises. But they never really met the living Christ (John 6:44) and did only learn all the right words. But they never really surrendered to Jesus as Lord of their whole life, but only pick verses in the New Testament which they like and are interested in following Jesus only as far as it helps reaching what they really want (1 Tim. 6:3-5).
Like the female “worship pastor” at Bethel often said: The Holy Spirit is like a genie in the bottle to me, granting my wishes.
They do not experience God’s Spirit teaching them to deeply understand the Words of Jesus (John 14:26, 1 John 2:27, 1 Thes. 4:9) and thus have no spiritual discernment but absorb like a sponge everything a teacher says they think is reliable (aka who promises them the most in the easiest way).
“Don’t look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easygoing formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don’t fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires total attention.”
Matt. 7:13-14 (MSG)
But when they did became open to Jesus, even though they were manipulated to it by others, if they would have then totally devoted themselves to follow the Words of Jesus, they would have experienced Him and His Love and would have gotten inhabited by Him and the Father (John 14:21-23, 1 John 4:7, 2 Pet. 1:5-8).
Be blessed
Jo
PS: The whole cover up culture is a curse of institutionalized christianity, trying to keep harm away from the public opinion about the institution, which would result in losing people and money.
Are we looking for external validation by following people who are chasing notoriety and influence, or finding internal validation by following Jesus? For me it has been a process.
Around 30 years ago, at the beginning of my God Journey, I began to follow a megachurch pastor with a worldwide following, even so far as moving to where the church was located so I could join. Within months I realized it was not going to work out, so I came back home. The pastor has since passed away, the church is still in existence, but the crowds that once filled the church have gone away. They are now in the process of creating multi-purpose facilities on the land they own.
From there I began to follow radio pastors, which were primarily Calvinist in nature and exacerbated my perfectionism to the point of illness. Thankfully I’ve since been in remission.
When I first found the God Journey podcast, it was a breath of fresh air. Learning about having a relationshjp with Jesus, versus jumping through the hoops of religion, made my walk much less stressful. The most important thing I have learned that following Jesus is a 24-7-365 enterprise, but that Jesus does all the work in me. I don’t have to move 1000 miles or turn into a certain frequency to find Him, He is Present with me and in me, all the time.
I graduated, with honors, from a conservative Bible college in 1972. I quit preaching by the end of the decade. I had realized that the biggest occupational hazard in ministry is that a person’s own pride gets wrapped around their position in the church. Some only get too impressed with their own eloquence in the pulpit; too many get wrecked in their own Christian walk. I saw it happen to a friend of mine in just 6 months. And I saw signs it was starting in me. So I quit; and I have never regretted it. I have seen men who would publicly lie to their people to make things look good. I dealt with one man who would not tolerate any disagreement–if someone disagreed with his idea, he did not defend his idea–he interpreted it as an attack on his office, and would defend that, tooth-and-nail, no-holds-barred. He destroyed a good start-up church in 5 years, because he ran off everybody with any capacity for leadership.
There’s an old saying from the British Lord Acton: “Power tends to corrupt; and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” And in most churches, the pastor (and other staff in larger ones) have a lot of power, much of it non-official. Most people look to the pastor for anything, any information, any counsel. And any affirmation.
Even all this sexual scandal is not really new. In Barbara Tuchman’s book, “The March of Folly,” one section tells about the corruption and sexual misbehavior of the Renaissance Popes in the late 1400s and early 1500s that triggered the Protestant Reformation. And it isn’t even a recent thing in the US. I got married in 1970; shortly afterwards, I left that church for ministry elsewhere. Around 1980, I met a man with the same last name as the pastor who performed our wedding–turned out to be his younger brother. He told me that his older brother had been caught having an affair with the church pianist, and the divorce trial was so ugly that his own family sat with his wife in the courtroom!