According to TheVanCouver Sun, faith healer Todd Bentley’s Revival Outpouring in Lakeland, Florida proves to be more divisive than uniting for Christians. Here’s a quick excerpt:
(TheVanCouverSun) …Despite drawing tremendous crowds to his mesmerizing, rock-music-filled services, Bentley has sharply polarized North American evangelicals.
A number of rival conservative Christian radio hosts, apocalypticists and charismatics have attacked the Canadian preacher for, among other things, claiming to have gone to heaven and met and talked with angels, Jesus and the apostle Paul.
Those critics have called his ministry “demonic,” “occult,” “deceitful” and “plain silly.”
Bentley’s growing legions of defenders, however, say God often uses “flawed people” to perform miracles and heal the sick.
Bentley’s controversial revival meetings, which have been running every day in Florida for more than 18 weeks — replete with people writhing on floors in religious ecstasy — have also taken a toll on Bentley’s family.
His large Abbotsford office, called Fresh Fire Ministries, acknowledged Monday on its website that Bentley and his wife, Shonnah, who have three children, have separated.
His wife and children have returned to Canada.
Bentley also announced he will end his Florida revival, called The Outpouring, on Aug. 23.
The revival has been mostly running in Lakeland, Fla., east of Tampa Bay, both at Ignited Church (where it started) and on the spring training ground of baseball’s Detroit Tigers.
Bentley’s imminent departure from The Outpouring, so he can instead travel throughout North America and to Britain, has come in the midst of rising media coverage questioning the authenticity of his healings.
London’s Express on Sunday started a campaign last month to keep the Canadian revivalist out of Great Britain and, as of this week, Fresh Fire Ministries “postponed” a planned gathering in Birmingham, England.
Bentley was not available for an interview Thursday with The Vancouver Sun. An official at Fresh Fire Ministries, Bruce Merz, avoided answering questions, directing The Sun to the ministry’s website for information.
The Fresh Fire website said the intense “worldwide awakening” started by Bentley in Florida has created “pressures and burdens … which have helped to create an atmosphere of fatigue and stress that has exacerbated existing issues in [the Bentleys'] relationship. We want to affirm that there has been no sexual immorality on the part of either Todd or Shonnah.” Read the Full Story…
The only division in the body comes when genuine lies and rumors and false doctrine divides the body of Christ. The problem with most of the body of Christ is they are being held captive by a stronghold that says that God’s Spirit can’t operate in our time as in the the early church. This stronghold of “church mindset” instead of “kingdom mindset” has crippled a huge part of the church and left it weak and helpless and ineffective. These saints have lost the vision that God originally intended for his body on earth. God didn’t put us on earth to just play church, protest and preach agaist sin in order to get their ticket punched for heaven. God meant for His kingdom to be ushered in by us His king/priests who would rule the earth and all of its resources under His authority. He gave His annointing, His authority and Holy Spirit power to us. This power to rule until the end of the current Church Age. It is ridiculous to believe that an omnipotent and omniscient God would empower only the early church and leave the last days church weak and powerless. Especially since God knew long before we came to this earth of the great tribulation and persecution that His last days church must and will someday have to endure. Instead of criticism these believers need to fall to the faces and beg God “what meaneth this” They are denying the power of God and hindering the ability of the church to win souls and disciple them as king/priests trained up to usher God’s kingdom the earth as God deems not what they deem.