Peter Wagner, founder of the International Coalition of Apostles, is offering a lengthier statement on Canadian Evangelist Todd Bentley’s break down.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Aug 26/ THE VOICE magazine: Advancing Christian Life & Culture
The statement reads as follows:
I was in the San Francisco airport on my way to Singapore and Indonesia when the news of Todd Bentley’s separation from his wife became public on August 12. When I arrived back home last week, I found that Doris had received and replied to around 1,700 emails and the stack of correspondence on my desk was unbelievable. It took me the rest of the week to catch up!
During the week I was gone, a major watershed occurred regarding the Lakeland situation as most of you would know. We are now on a new playing field. Lakeland Outpouring I, in which Todd Bentley was the main figure, is now history. Lakeland Outpouring II, in which Stephen Strader of Ignited Church is the main figure, has begun. The Outpouring started in a local church, went to a tent, and now is back in the local church. My suggestion is that we no longer use the term “Lakeland Outpouring” but rather distinguish between Lakeland I and Lakeland II because they are very
different.
Let me talk a bit about the present, then revisit the past, then project the future.
The Present
It will sound surprising to some, but Lakeland II in Ignited Church, which you will remember was the original host church, is going very well. The big crowds and GOD TV, of course, are gone. Ignited Church seats around 700 in the main sanctuary and Stephen Strader reports that on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings they have to use their overflow room. It is comfortably filled on week nights.
The morning training sessions continue with a couple hundred every day, and teams continue to move daily into the streets of Lakeland spreading the gospel. Percentage-wise the dramatic miracles and healings occur nightly with probably a higher percentage of salvations on a daily basis. Support from local pastors is improving considerably. The most interesting report is that every night some 30 percent are first-time attenders, meaning that people are still coming to Lakeland from the outside to experience Outpouring II.
A lady from our church with a severe chronic back problem went to Ignited Church and came home healed! Such a thing does not usually happen when a public figure suddenly goes down the tubes, so we need to take our hats off to the apostolic gifts and role that Stephen Strader is demonstrating for us.
Speaking of the public figure going down the tubes, Todd Bentley now carries the label of a liar and a deceiver. I’m sorry to mention it, but I felt personally deceived in the same way when Ted Haggard’s sin was exposed and he was immediately removed from ministry. In the Lakeland I case, I am elated at the way things are turning out. The Revival Alliance with whom Todd was aligned on June 23 has kicked into action with a vengeance. Ché Ahn and Bill Johnson, like me, were overseas when things broke, but John Arnott stepped up to the plate and moved in apostolically. It has since become clear that Todd’s Fresh Fire Board could not have handled the situation, Stephen Strader and Ignited Church could not, nor could any of his other close friends. Only the Revival Alliance could. I am delighted that they are not buying into typical charismatic soft morality, also called “greasy grace” or “don’t touch God’s anointed” or “mercy must triumph over judgment,” phrases that have been used on other similar occasions as convenient religious cop-out excuses. They’re proceeding in love, but it is tough love!
Since this is an update, I will share some of what I know about what is happening with Bentley, but not all because some things need more verification and it is up to discernment of Revival Alliance what and when this will be revealed. Suffice it to say that there is more than I am going to mention. First of all, Todd has been removed from public ministry until further notice. He has resigned from the ministry he founded, Fresh Fire, so he is no longer a part of that board. It has become clear that he indulged in periodic drunkenness. He has no intention at the moment of reconciling with Shonna, nor does she with him. Their marriage has been torn for years by his emotional attachment with at least one other female whose physical contact went beyond hugging and kissing and holding hands. Enough said-maybe more details will be revealed later-but it was clearly immoral. All of this was skillfully concealed by lying and by swearing close associates who had observed his behavior to secrecy. Stephen Strader, for example, knew nothing of this before June 23. Apparently some of his board members did, but they did not have the ability to deal with it.
The Past
I hope this is the last time I will have to address the past. It is now history. But as history is written, I feel that I have some responsibility of helping to have history be written accurately, especially since I have turned out to be a lightening rod for a number of severe criticisms.
Most of you know this, but let me reiterate to keep it on record. Previous to around the middle of June, my interest in Lakeland was about a 2 on a scale of 1-10. Then I got a call from Stephen Strader, the host pastor who was a member of ICA, which I lead, with a passionate appeal for apostolic intervention because chaos and confusion had begin to invade the Outpouring I. Toward the end of the hour we were talking, I received one of my infrequent direct words from God: “Alignment!” Just one word, but I knew I had a divine command and responsibility.
Once I knew that God had assigned me to initiate some sort of apostolic intervention at Stephen’s side, I began praying and consulting with close colleagues. In less than two days I discovered that Todd Bentley had no formal, established apostolic alignment. I asked God how I should proceed, especially since I had no inclination to attempt an apostle-evangelist approach and expect that Bentley would submit to or even listen to what I had to say if I made an appointment with him in Lakeland. I felt that proper apostolic protocol would be for me to deal with one or more peer-level apostles to whom Todd had aligned apostolically. Since as yet he had no such alignment, I began asking God how such an alignment might come about. He directed me to my close friend, Ché Ahn, who himself is apostolically aligned with me and who also had been close to Bentley for years. Ché agreed that the best apostolic protocol would be for Todd to align with the Revival Alliance if he were willing. Ché called him and Bentley agreed to submit publicly to the Revival Alliance.
At this point some disagreements arose. I have already mentioned that I was consulting with several apostolic colleagues whom I trusted and whom I know trusted me. It is very necessary for us to understand exactly what the disagreement was about. It was about the most appropriate apostolic protocol for the occasion. After prayerfully listening to the different points of view with careful consideration of what was being said, the decision had to be mine. I believe that God’s word to me about “Alignment!” had to be directional. I concluded that the best protocol was to do the alignment first, then deal with the issues that had been raised. My other friends disagreed and urged me to deal with Todd’s problems first then do the alignment. I respected their point of view and I was very sorry that I had to follow God’s leading for me personally instead of taking their advice. It was not a comfortable decision.
Now let me address what was behind much of their disagreement with my apostolic protocol. They were concerned that if I appeared on the platform with GOD TV, many viewers would interpret it as my personal endorsement of everything that was going on in Lakeland I, and since they were so closely associated with me, they would be implicated as well. This was a legitimate concern, and one I seriously wrestled with as I made my decision. If I went to Lakeland and presided over the alignment, some might well take it as an endorsement. It was a risk, I knew. Let me say personally that all my life I have been a risk-taker instead of a play-it-safe person, and I have taken many hits for it. As an example going to the jungles of Bolivia as a career field missionary when I was 25 with my wife and a one-year-old baby girl was a serious risk. Both that daughter and another who was born in the jungle without medical attention came close to losing their lives during those five years. And we were criticized for our decision to take the risk by many, including parents!
Closer to the Lakeland I situation, I have a private list of no fewer than 18 high-profile Christian leaders starting from the 1970s until Bentley for whom I took risks. For each one of them I took serious criticisms and in some cases personal hits even much more serious than I have received in this current case because I endorsed or partnered with or provided alignment for them. Some were typified as “crazy!” However, I can pretty much discern winners, although not always. My track record for the 18 is 72% emerged as real winners (you would know most of them), 17% ended up losers (including Bentley), and 11% indecisive. I’m sorry for the losers, but they prove I am not perfect. The point I am making is that I am no stranger to taking risks and living with the fallout.
One fallout from Lakeland I is that several have resigned from ICA and other organizations that I lead because they no longer want to be identified with me. Others are still upset. Still, believe it or not, I think that everyone involved is still my friend. We just disagree.
I want it understood that I did not go to Lakeland on June 23 for Todd Bentley. I had never met him personally. I had no knowledge of and little interest in his ministry. I went because I received an apostolic plea to help bring order to the confusion and chaos that was sweeping through the body of Christ worldwide because of the television. I went strictly for the body of Christ at the invitation of the host pastor of the Outpouring I.
The final question is: Was it successful? Looking back, I praise God for using me and others to help bring order to confusion, which is one of the chief biblical tasks of an apostle. Stephen Strader, who has been keeping records, affirms that the evil that the prince of the power of the air had been subtly introducing into the Outpouring I started to be exposed and unraveled the day after the alignment, June 24! Spiritually, this is very understandable. Just about every leader I knew had discerned that Lakeland I was a mixture of the godly and the ungodly. We were praying in one accord that the evil would be separated from the good. My take is that God had decided to answer these prayers and in order to facilitate His process, He assigned me and the Revival Alliance leaders and others who were with us to align Todd Bentley apostolically for the first time in his life. When we did this publicly, spiritual transactions took place in the invisible world that would not allow the enemy to maintain the veil of secrecy he had carefully placed over the Outpouring. The evil was exposed, Revival Alliance had the authority to deal with it, and the net result is that order is replacing chaos in the body of Christ.
In my section above on “The Present” I gave you some details. Believe me, they are only the tip of the iceberg as I just learned from a new phone call even as I was writing this paper. The proper apostolic structure, happily, is in place at the time of crisis!
The Future
It is now important to recognize that from now on we have a different playing field. Two separate things are going on. (1) The Revival Alliance is dealing with Todd Bentley and the fallout from his sin that has been and continues to be exposed. (2) I have told you previously about a group of 11 apostles that I have formed into the Lakeland Outpouring Apostolic Team. We no longer need to deal with Lakeland I and Bentley as such. However, we have a list of 24 serious issues that have emerged from that unpleasant experience which need to be thoroughly discussed with the conclusions circulated in the body of Christ. If you have seen Dutch Sheets’ recent “A Statement and Appeal Regarding Lakeland” you will get a glimpse of some of the things that we agree need to become standard operational beliefs and practices, particularly in our charismatically-inclined evangelical segment of the church.
My only question would be this: Why should anyone be a “main figure” in any move of God? We place labels on people, and we have a love for titles. We have a desire for revival, yet are clueless as to what “revival” really is or means. When I first saw videos of Todd Bentley I was extremely uncomfortable with what he was saying, and the message he was “Preaching?” I warned others to prayerfully discern, and I was told that I didn’t know what I was talking about because the “notables” in Christiandom endorsed him.
If anyone has done a study on sheep, you will realize that shee[ aren’t too smart. Sheep are easily led astray, and to the slaughter. In the “move” in Lakeland, many Christians displayed just that attribute, and then when the truth came out many were in an uproar crying “I’ve been deceived!”
Todd was a novice with a stick of dynamite in his hand,no one took it off of him and it blew up. When people are healed, set free, and delivered Satan isn’t very happy, so if there are unsurrendered areas in the “messenger’s” life, Satan is more than happy to deceive that person to think of themselves more than they ought, as well as decieve those in ministry under them. Also, we must realize that all mircles aren’t of God, and that deception doesn’t come from without the body, but it is from those within.
I would encourage all of those who had hands laid upon them by Todd to find a Godly man or women to pray off anything that was transferred to them because it wasn’t good. Todd wasn’t praying for his marriage to be healed, so many could have damaged marriages due to this “other” spirit that came from him.
can’t we learn something from every freakin time this happens? inevitably some well-meaning idiot starts getting superstitious and doesn’t want anyone rockin the boat. can we agree? from now on when anyone from an angel or GodTV starts telling you to just believe without testing the spirits or, even worse, tell you to just go with it… they are speaking with demonic influence. it’s not rocket science. if ur afraid people are gonna miss the move b/c of it… LET THEM MISS THE MOVE! why bring judgment on yourself? i swear. anytime someone says in a book, or on tv or in person just suspend your beliefs and doubts about whether something’s from God, u call it what it is. you ruin good things with stupid superstition. anointed people are stupid too.
YOU STILL DID STAND ON A STAGE AND ENDORSE THE MAN. I AGREE WITH DUTCH SHEETS, THAT YOU LEADERS NEED TO REPENT, ADMIT YOU MADE ERRORS, DID NOT HEAR WHAT YOU THOUGHT YOU DID FROM GOD, AND ASK FOR FORGIVENESS FROM THE BODY OF CHRIST. ALOT OF CHRISTIANS WERE SERIOUSLY DAMAGED FROM THIS, AND IT NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED.
also,
todd laid hands on thousands upon thousands of people, if this is only the tip of the iceburg, i think we should be told what else is involved, especially if it was witchcraft or any other demonic spiritual thing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!please advise, thanks, maryanne
This shows why the body of Christ is in the state that it is in. The leaders are not walking in the Light. If they were they would have seen this as the first century Apostles. All of the body of Christ should really take a very serious look at what is happening and begin to fast and pray. This is a BIG ugly storm and it is not over. There are many more to come beginning with those in leadership and those who call themselves Apostles. What a ugly situation. I am so tired of so called preachers saying they are not perfect. We all need to grow up and stop looking for feelings and revivals that give us goose bumps. I am seeing ministries looking to bring great power to knock people over and shake but have no real truth and revelation. There so many mysteries in the scripture that so called Apostles have not brought out yet that I am so tired of seeing shaking and falling and tongues but no truth. Power is all ministeries want. All the body of Christ should really begin to repent and get back to the Word of God. Learn the deep teachings of scripture. There is so much there. We need to all grow up and stop saying we are not perfect. Peter Wagner grow up before ministering to hurting people you can not lead others if you are not mature and easliy deceived. All this is so disturbing.
Those who fall in ministry need to “lose the excuses” without which there will be no repentance from the heart. I went against the grain when ALL my spirit-filled friends chastised me for going against a move of God. As a former psychiatric nurse, I have seen some like Todd in my unit, sad to say. What happens when the anti-Christ comes???
Pray for Todd, because that’s what the Bible says to do.
Peter the Bible says, “Pray for those who use you”.
Also, there is a new generation rising up that understands what the Holy Spirit wants. The way things are operate now obviously don’t work. People are begging for more of this Todd Bentley drama, and completely disregarding what the Bible calls us to do. Stop ignoring the Holy Spirit. Every eight seconds someone dies, and they go to hell for eternity… What are you doing to stop this? The current operations of the church is going to be crushed. God is not going to tolerate this anymore with so much at stack.
The Todd Bentley “revival” fall-out
“I insisted much on the necessity of a new birth, as also on the necessity of a minister’s being converted before he could preach aright. Unconverted ministers are the bane of the Christian Church. I think that great and good man, Mr. Stoddard, is much to be blamed for endeavoring to prove that unconverted men might be admitted to the ministry. A sermon lately published by Gilbert Tennent, entitled ‘The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry’ I think unanswerable.”
- George Whitefield, Journal, 1741
If you are a person who was affected by the “revival” meetings conducted by Todd Bentley in Lakeland, Florida this past year, you might be confused or asking questions in regard to the fallout surrounding his ministry.
I hope you will read what I have to say here and consider it.
Prior to August 3rd, I had an internet conversation with a friend whose church is experiencing a similar “revival” movement. I had heard a message on CD from the pastor of this church and I thought it was very sound. At the time, I spoke my mind that what I had seen of Bentley on GodTV looked “vacuous” in comparison. A few days later, Bentley was forced to step down from public ministry. I wrote to tell my friend that I blame those people responsible for endorsing this as much as Todd Bentley.
How can it be a “revival” if the leader is preaching heresy and engaging in immoral behavior?
My friend wrote back to say that it is really too bad that people have shut out Bentley’s message just because he faltered.
I then explained that I shut out Bentley’s message even before I knew about his moral failings. It was the message that made me shut out the message! And in the end, we know a tree by its fruit.
My friend then suggested that to be consistent I should not receive the message of God’s grace carried through prophets such as King David, King Solomon or the Apostle Paul, since they too sinned. Yet they were used of God to write scripture. I might as well in effect “shut out” what they have to say about God too.
So the reasoning goes.
Here is what I believe God is leading me to say about all of this.
There are revivals all over the world today. They aren’t in the spotlight or on GodTV every night. But they are genuine. I am not saying we should not seek God or that there isn’t something wonderful going on in churches who are promoting “revival.” I am just against the idea of treating these men differently when they sin and preach heresy because they supposedly have the “anointing.”
The Emperor’s New Clothes
The strategy of preachers during these revival meetings — Lakeland, Toronto, Pensacola, etc. — is to tell people who might see their nakedness, that they just aren’t “spiritual” enough to receive all the wonderful things God is doing, that they are “blocking” the anointing, and so on. It’s a heresy in and of itself — elitist Gnosticism.
I’ve heard the “David” argument many times before.
I have one word for that idea too: antinomianism.
This is the heresy that faith is divorced from works or that faith does not produce obedience to the law of God.
If these men are preaching the Gospel yet living in gross unrepentant sin, then they may not even be converted.
Beyond the issue of personal character, I don’t receive anything from these “revivals” because I don’t believe that meetings emphasizing gifts, miracles and the “presence” of God are necessarily “revivals” at all. Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone. Once we are saved, we do not become sanctified through spiritual experiences. We become sanctified by obeying God day by day as we are enabled by grace. In other words, there is no “fast track” to sanctification.
Therefore, we cannot “miss the anointing” if our hearts are not “open to receive.” There are no higher levels of anointing you can get by being in a revival meeting. It’s complete nonsense. It’s manipulative and it’s totally contrary to the message of historic revival — the message of the Gospel.
In 1994, I decided that experiences with God are a good thing, but you can have them in your living room — or anywhere God chooses to move. Four years ago, God healed me of a ten day bout with atrial fibrillation in a hospital room while I was praying by myself. But this didn’t providential healing through prayer didn’t bring me any closer to God than I was a minute before. Even though I certainly felt closer to God due to that experience, it didn’t change my standing in God. Our position with God is a judicial standing not an experience.
People feel the rush they get in a room of thousands of people worshiping God, and they assume this is the “presence” of God. It’s not a bad thing to feel this, but it’s totally contrary to scripture to claim that our standing with God is gained through spiritual experiences.
My Eyewitness Account
1. I was living in Orlando during Rodney Howard Browne’s “laughing revival” in Lakeland, Florida in 1993. I visited several times and wasn’t overly impressed. There was not any “supernatural presence” of God that I could not find through personal devotion or in any church service or prayer group.
2. I moved to Melbourne, Florida soon after that and was disturbed by the worldly carnality of Michael W. Thompson and the antinomian teachings of Randy Clarke. I wrote a position paper on that in 1994 called Revival: It’s No Laughing Matter. I won’t repeat the content of it here, but I tried to explain what historic revival is and why this was not it. This was several years before the leaders of that renewal movement were exposed in their sin.
3. I lived in Pensacola during the Brownsville Revival. I had a friend who came all the way from Russia to sit in those meetings. He claimed it was the strongest anointing he had ever experienced. I sat there with an open mind and an open heart. I just couldn’t bring myself to fake being slain in the spirit or to lie and say I experienced something amazing when all I saw was a religious meeting with a lot people seeking an experience.
4. Todd Bentley was more vacuous than all the others, but I just expected the usual crowd to go along with it and claim, “This was the greatest revival since The Great Awakening!” As they always say. Even though I live in nearby Kissimmee, I did not visit the Bentley meetings.
How many times can people be fooled by the Emperor’s new clothes?
I am nothing special. I don’t have a “super-anointing” or a special gift of discernment. If it were not for the grace of God, I could be fooled too.
In fact, you may think I am fooled by a “hard heart.”
So I will leave you with this.
George Whitefield preached that one of the signs of God beginning to judge a nation is that He will give the church over to unconverted ministers — even those who do not behave as sinners — and God will turn the people over to blindness so that they will receive them as angels of light.
Labels: Current events and issues, Revival and Spiritual Awakening,
Peter,
You say that you are a risk taker and than ‘11% of your risks you are indicisive’ and ‘17% were losers’. Do you realise that you are saying that over a quarter of the endorsements of leaders you make turn out to be ill-judged! 1 out of every 4 times you make an alignment, it turns out less than good. Combined with the fact that the 17% you talk about may sound small to yourself, but if that 17% are leading international multi-media movements, pumping out new directions for a world church then its a pretty massive error on your part. There’s risk taking and then there’s 1 in 4 errors and I feel angry because it is not good enough! It really isn’t good enough! It’s not good enough for Jesus. For the perfection He showed us and the Love He asked us to bring to the world. Belt up.
Pastor Wagner,
If you expect people to believe that you are REALLY moving in the anointing of the Holy Spirit, then it isn’t about you being a “risk-taker”. It is about you being able to truly discern when the life of a minister is completely lacking in integrity, and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!
Integrity, Peter! If there were ministers, including yourself, who could see that this ‘revival’ was part-Godly, part ungodly, then why was there no move to stop it?????
This man brought our God into disrepute and you LET him!! For goodness sake, any idiot with access to YouTube could see that he was a disgrace to the name of Jesus. Just the fact that he claimed to have a “Sundar Singh anointing”, when the aforementioned Sundar Singh was a noted mystic, was enough to send all my red flags into overdrive, and I DON’T claim to have the gift of discernment.
So congratulations, you have just lost all of my respect and trust. What’s worse is the loss of respect and trust of those outside the church. You should all be ashamed of yourselves. You have just put another stumbling block in their way!
I think if everyone discerns their own motive for even having an opinion on some of this rubbish you would be silenced, Peter Wagner and those who stand with him have years of service to people, humanity and society, has anyone considered these men to be great men who made a mistake. We all love grace ourselves but aren’t always as forth coming with others. If you have a bible read about when Jehoshaphat went to battle with his covenant buddy Ahab and you may have a more rounded and faith filled opinion on how little this will effect the body of Christ, if this was all bad, show us something that’s all good and if your just a sideline comentator, shut your mouth get of your backside and do what Jesus made you for. Jesus doesn’t condemn people for not judging (correctly or otherwise)but he does if you do, don’t call it discerning when you just want to make a name for you ugly self.
Die to your desire to be known and you will all love people a lot more.
You have the Holy Spirit in you, you’re better than this.
You go Rob !!!!
I appriciate Peter Wagner’s courage to take the risk, but if he has that direct command of “Allignment” from God, then it is God who has made the mistake! Wagner is made so infamous even in a small nation of Nepal as well when he took his sneseless risk when he stood by a thug.
RE “I want it understood that I did not go to Lakeland on June 23 for Todd Bentley. I had never met him personally. I had no knowledge of and little interest in his ministry. I went because I received an apostolic plea to help bring order to the confusion and chaos that was sweeping through the body of Christ worldwide because of the television. I went strictly for the body of Christ at the invitation of the host pastor of the Outpouring I.
In light of this you tube video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEwsG4lsXq4, it is interesting that Wagner states he had never met Bentley and had little interest in his ministry.
In the video Wagner seems completely in favor of Bentley. No mention of bringing order to confusion. There are a few cryptic reference to “apostolic alignment” which, in context, lead one to believe that Wagner believes Bentley to be an apostle. Or is Wagner making Bentley an apostle? Wagner calls the ceremony an “ alignment and commissioning,” even “a formal commissioning.” Wagner had never personally met Bentley, yet he was commissioning him?
Wagner to Bentley: “Your power will increase! Your authority will increase! Your favor will increase! Your influence will increase! Your revelation will increase!
These do not sound like the words of a person who has “little interest” in the “ministry” of Todd Bentley.