Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Leaving Lakeland | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

image This article about the Todd Bentley show in Lakeland, FL appears in the online version of Christianity Today.

It's one thing when Baptists say, "I don't know about that Todd Bentley; it looks like a bunch of hype." Baptists are supposed to say that about Pentecostal Revivals. They teach them that from the time they're Awanas and all the way through youth group.

But when Pentecostals say, "I don't know about that Todd Bentley; it looks like a bunch of hype," then, Houston, there's a problem.

Christianity Today wrote a few paragraphs about the claims that the dead have been raised. There has been no corroborations of these claims - not even a whiff of a reported stench. Just claims. No fruit. But maybe a bit of fruitcake.

While faith healing is a part of the Pentecostal tradition, leaders' claims that at least 25 people have been raised from the dead have especially raised eyebrows. No dead bodies have been brought into the revival. Rather, reports of the recent death of a loved one in some cases located long distances away are relayed to the stage by e-mail or cell phone, and Bentley has led prayers for the person to be revived.

"We do our best to find out the situation. In one case, a boy drowned in a pool. He had no pulse, wasn't breathing, and was clinically brain-dead," he said.

Recent news reports have been unable to verify any of the claims of healing, although revival officials say they have been barred from releasing complete information about the identities and conditions of people claiming to be healed due to privacy concerns and laws forbidding the release of medical records.

"We hear about the dead being raised, but we don't know who they are or where they are," said Reggie Scarborough, pastor of Family Worship Center in Lakeland, a charismatic congregation that frequently practices faith healing. "I saw a lot of passion from [Bentley], but there was too much hype. I just don't feel I can endorse something that's being exaggerated.

Read the whole story here: Leaving Lakeland | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Here are a couple stories we did on Bentley recently:
http://www.goodnewsfl.org/columnist.asp?page=bc/0808/columnists/edit.asp
and
http://www.goodnewsfl.org/local.asp?page=bc/0608/front/todd.asp