Todd Bentley

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The neutrality of this article is disputed.
Please see the discussion on the talk page.(May 2008)
Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved.

Todd Bentley
Todd Bentley in Florida, April 2008.
Born	January 10, 1976 (1976-01-10) (age 32) Sechelt, British Columbia, Canada
Nationality	Canadian
Occupation	Evangelist
Spouse	Shonnah Bentley
Website FreshFire Ministries.ca

Todd Bentley (born 1976) is a Canadian Evangelical Christian and evangelist. He is one of the primary preachers involved in the Charismatic revival meetings in Lakeland, Florida known as the Florida Healing Outpouring. Attendance at the meetings has reached as high as 10,000 visitors a night from around the world^[1].

1 Biography
2 Florida Healing Outpouring (also known as the Lakeland Revival)
- 2.1 Event Finances
- 2.2 Faith Healing
3 References
4 External Links

[edit] Biography

[edit] Youth and Criminal History

Bentley was raised mainly in Gibsons, British Columbia, a small community on the western coast of Canada. In his 2008 autobiography, The Journey into the Miraculous, he claimed that he struggled with drug and alcohol addiction and criminal activities from his early youth. Bentley credited his conversion to Christianity for delivering him from that lifestyle and propelling him into ministry at age 18.^[2].

In 2001 the now-defunct Report Newsmagazine, a secular conservative publication, ran a profile on Bentley. In the article, they claimed that his criminal activities as a teenager included more than one instance of sexual molestation. The article was graphic in details, summarizing Bentley's behavior as "heinous"^[3]. In Canada, the criminal records of juvenile offenders are protected from public disclosure^[4], which led to heated controversy in the Christian press, websites, and forums (although not much picked up in mainstream press) about whether Report NewsMagazine had acted correctly in publicizing Bentley's crimes - and whether, if true, this impeached Bentley's position as an evangelist.^[5] ^[6]

[edit] Appearance

Bentley is described as unorthodox-looking for an evangelist, as compared to the archetype commonly associated with Billy Graham. Bentley's arms and neck are covered with tattoos, he has multiple facial piercings, and he favors t-shirts over ties^[7]^[8]. Fellow evangelist Randy Clark has said; "Some people are judging it because Todd doesn't look like your typical evangelist."^[9] Bentley contends; "I don't look like your normal evangelist because I'm not."^[10]

[edit] Ministry

In 1998, the FreshFire Ministry group^[11] asked Bentley to give his testimony at one of their weekly meetings. Soon after, Bentley took over the leadership of the group, which became more of a revival movement. Revivals, in comparison to other kinds of religious services, are intended to renew the faith of believers and to convert nonbelievers. They are usually marked by passionate and colorful preaching, music, and dramatic exultations of salvation and damnation. Bentley's talent for this kind of Charismatic preaching made him popular as a guest evangelist and speaker. He traveled globally around India, Africa, and Latin America taking part in religious crusades and revivals. ^[12]^[13]^[14].

[edit] Florida Healing Outpouring (also known as the Lakeland Revival)

Bentley preaching at the Florida Healing Outpouring

Beginning on April 2, 2008, Bentley was invited by Stephen Strader, pastor of Ignited Church^[15], Lakeland, Florida, to lead a one-week revival.^[16]

In addition to showcasing Bentley's evangelism, the revival features colorful light shows and power-chord Christian rock music. The Ignited Church also took a multimedia approach to publicizing the event. Information and webcasts are available via their website^[17] and the revival is streamed live via Ustream - which received over 1 million hits in the first 5 weeks of transmissions. After the initial weeks, GOD TV, a religious satellite channel available via DirectTV, decided to pre-empt their primetime programming and broadcast the Lakeland meetings nightly.^[18]

[edit] Event Finances

The popularity of the revival exploded very quickly, causing the Church to make it open-ended. It has outgrown several venues since its launch, including "an air-conditioned tent that can accommodate 10,000 on the grounds of the local airport". The revival is supported entirely by donation. Both Strader and Bentley deny that they are making a profit from the event; Strader maintains that the donations do not bring any large infusion of cash into his ministry and Bentley maintains that he is supported by the same, modest salary he was previously pulling from Freshfire. Both have offered to open the books for independent auditors.^[19].

[edit] Faith Healing

The revival and Bentley's preaching heavily feature "faith healing", which is a tenet of the Charismatic movement. Faith healing is the attempt to use spiritual means such as prayer to cure illness and improve health.

Bentley's faith healing at the revival is through exhortations and laying on of hands. "Bentley places his hands on someone's head or area of infirmity and cries out for the power of God to descend. In response, some people may stand and physically tremble, while others may literally fall down to the ground in what they call "falling under the power" of the Holy Spirit.^[20]" The faith healing aspect has brought people from around the world, hoping to be cured. Although there hasn't been independent medical corroboration of the nature or permanence of the healing, Bentley and his staff say they welcome as much documentation as people are willing to provide. ^[21]

Additionally in the MSNBC article on the revival, Bentley is quoted as saying that;

God has used him to supernaturally heal hundreds of people of diseases ranging from glaucoma to diabetes to even cancer...he doesn't know exactly why now, why him, why Lakeland, and he does not promise that everyone who comes to him will be healed. But he does maintain a pragmatic posture toward prayer. "I say, you have nothing to lose but your sickness. If the doctors can't help you, why wouldn't you give God a chance?" ^[22]