The following report has been covered extensively across the internet between the years 2001-2009. We are publishing this report from 2001 so we can refer to it in future articles and to ensure that it is not removed from the internet.
To this day, not one of the apostles in the report have apologised for their outrageous ‘apostolic and prophetic claims’ over Todd Bentley back in 2008. Specifically, two Apostles, Rick Joyner and Bill Johnson, defended Todd Bentley and attempted to restore him to ministry to save their reputations from Bentley’s godlessness.
THE 2008 RECAP
It is worth reminding people of some of the ministries that endorsed this paedophile back in 2008 at Bentley’s ‘Lakeland Apostolic Alignment Ceremony’. Such ministries included Morning Star Ministries (Joyner), Hillsong (Beacham), ICAL (Wagner), Revival Alliance (Campbell, Johnson, Ahn, Arnott, Banov) and Bethel (Johnson). These are the people who endorsed him, and refused to rebuke what others said about him on stage:
This from Bill Johnson: “We shape the course of history by partnering with you, giving honor where it’s due. You welcome the glory as well as anybody I’ve ever seen in my life. I long to learn from you in that. And I bless you and I pray with the rest of these, that the measure of glory would increase. That Moses would no longer be considered the high-water mark, where the glory shone from his face. But instead the revelation of the goodness of God would change the face of the church and that He would use your voice. He would use your grace. Your anointing to alter the face of the church before this world, that the goodness of the Lord will be seen once again.”
This from Sharon Stone: “Todd , the Spirit of God says, ‘Years from now people will look at this time. And they will recognize it as when their God showed up and created within the church a new heart,’ says the Lord…”
This from Stacey Campbell: “… the Spirit came on me and said, ‘Todd! Because you asked like very few men on the face of the earth ask to see My glory, I will begin a revival through you that will pass beyond gifts into the very heart that moves God to release gifts to His children. … Todd, I have chosen you because of your background; because of your background; because of your background, to release my nature when you release my gifts; to become a living epistle like the Word that became flesh, and people saw the glory of God.
And I will use you to father a movement that operates in such revival power, but it is coming out of the very nature and heart of God… And I feel like, Todd, that when you were twelve-years-old, and I just graduated from Baptist seminary, the Holy Spirit fell on me and He started to speak to me over and over and over again about a generation that would come on the earth that would do signs and wonders that would change society, and society would not change them. And you are a first fruits of that generation of nation-changers that will release the glory of God in all its fullness, in Jesus’ name.“
All the NAR Apostles at this event regarded Todd Bentley a New Breed, a ‘god’ in human flesh ushering in the final end-times revival. These ‘apostles’ were expecting divine manifestations through the person of Todd Bentley (and other New Breeds) to raise up ‘God’s Army’, to bring judgment and to usher in Christ’s return to judge humanity.
They understood Bentley’s Lakeland revival to be the global end-times revival. This is why Apostle Wendy Alec went so far as to say that because of this end-times revival was occurring, “Jesus said, “I am coming in person.” The King is coming in person… there will be a personal divine visitation of the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ to the revival tomorrow night.” [Link]
We encourage our readers to contrast these ‘prophetic’ and ‘apostolic’ statements to the scandalous report below.
Does forgiving mean forgetting?
A faith healer comes clean on his young-offender conviction for child molestation
Todd Bentley has a confession to make. A faith healer who has attracted international attention over the past several months, Bentley presents himself as a reformed bad boy who was once jailed for 18 months for ” crimes of an assault nature” and breaking-and-entering in his hometown of Gibsons, B.C.
The truth is, his most serious crime was more heinous: the molestation of a seven-year-old boy. “They were sexual crimes,” Bentley admits. “I was involved in a sexual-assault ring. I turned around and did what had happened to me. I was assaulted too.”
“I don’t like to talk about it publicly because it would hurt [my ministry ].” he concedes. “I don’t whip it out in the newspapers or on TV because people will go ‘Whaaa?’ I’ll say ‘I was in prison, period. Let’s move on.’”
Bentley’s admission took place after he was confronted with information given to The Report following the magazine’s publication of a story (” Signs and wonders,” March 5) on his burgeoning ministry. Federal law protects young offenders by prohibiting the dissemination of any information that may identify a youth convicted of a crime, but Bentley, now 25, freely provided details of the offence. “I was 13 years old when I committed my crime,” he says. “I was jailed at 14.” (In fact, The Report has learned that Bentley molested the boy in October 1990, when Bentley was 14, and that he was sentenced in March 1991, when he was 15.)
Bentley, who is now married and is the father of three young children, stresses he has repented for his crime and has undergone three years of counselling. “There has not been and there won’t be other cases,” says the evangelical faith healer, who feels he needs no counselling to ensure he does not re-offend. “It’s something that’s dead and buried for me.”
But, in an age when the likes of Protestant televangelists and Catholic priests have been ensnared by sexual scandal, the issue is far from dead.
Denny Cline, pastor of the Albany, Oregon, Vineyard church where Bentley launched a healing revival last year, looks on him as a spiritual son and says Bentley always exhibits a godly character. Upon learning of Bentley’s molesting offence, Pastor Cline remarks, “I don’t think he told me that, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. It wouldn’t have mattered in regards to what he is doing now, and the person that he is now… If he’s paid his debt to society and God’s forgiven him of everything, then who am I to not forgive?”
On the other hand, Lieutenant Jeff Johnston, a Salvation Army pastor in Port Alberni, B.C., who used to work in Bentley’s hometown, is more skeptical. “There’s absolutely no way that I would allow my own kids to come within a million miles of anyone who had been involved in a youth sexual assault,” he says. Lieut. Johnston notes a church group tried to bring Bentley to Gibsons for a series of meetings in 1997, but the gatherings were called off after Lieut. Johnston and other pastors threatened not to allow their youth groups to attend. “It’s one thing to be forgiving, it’s another thing to be stupid,” Lieut. Johnston says. “If you, as a pastor, had someone in your church ministry who had been involved in these things and they ever re-offended, the fact that you knew and didn’t disclose it to parents, take every precaution, would be a huge liability issue.”
Forewarned is forearmed, says Canadian Alliance MP Randy White. Given the notorius recidivism of pedophile offenders, the federal government should pass the national sex-offenders registry bill he tabled April 4. Mr. White explains that police need to be able to keep track of sex offenders who enter fields such as itinerant evangelism. “It’s worse not to admit the offence from the start,” Mr. White observes. “If you hide it, ultimately someone will cross your path and expose you. It becomes twice as hard to deal with.”
Furthermore, Darrell Johnson, a professor of pastoral theology at Vancouver’s Regent College and a Presbyterian minister, says that although Bentley promises his past is “dead and buried,” his victim–and the victim’s family–are likely still suffering. The professor is also concerned that Bentley admits he has no team of pastors or counsellors to help him now. Says Prof. Johnson, “Openness, transparency and accountability would protect him, as well as the people he ministers to.”
Source: Rick Hiebert, Does forgiving mean forgetting? A faith healer comes clean on his young-offender conviction for child molestation, Report Newsmagazine, https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-82621921.html, Published April 30, 2001. (Accessed August 07, 2018.) [Archived]
Charisma Magazine also attempted to report on Todd Bentley’s sordid past.
Healing Evangelist Todd Bentley Reveals Facts About Past Assault
The young preacher says he wants to set the record straight about an offense he committed at age 14, before his conversion
Canadian evangelist Todd Bentley knows well the power of a testimony to convince the lost that no one is too far gone to find healing in Christ. Recently, he has also learned that when the secular media digs into one’s testimony, confession may not be so good for the soul.
In a lengthy feature article published in the September 2002 issue of Charisma, Bentley, 26, acknowledged that at age 14, as a juvenile, he had been arrested for assault. A March 2001 story about him that was published in The Report–a secular, conservative political magazine published in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada–offered a similar report.
But The Report story backfired when the mother of the victim of the assault read the article and informed the magazine that Bentley’s assault had been sexual and that he had molested her son, also a minor, at the time. Bentley served several months in jail for the crime, and five years afterward he gave his life to Christ. Today his crusades around the world are producing reports of healing miracles and thousands of salvations.
The Report writer who filed the original story about Bentley’s ministry called him back to verify the nature of the crime. As a juvenile offender, Bentley’s record was protected from public disclosure, and he said he had no idea The Report would then turn around and publish his acknowledgement of the crime.
“[The reporter] didn’t tell me he was doing a follow-up story,” Bentley told Charisma. “He was just friendly and told me what the mother had said, and I admitted to him in what I thought were off-the-record comments that it was true, but that it happened years ago and I had since been changed by the gospel.”
Bentley openly acknowledges the rougher parts of his juvenile past when he preaches in public, including his near-fatal drug overdoses, criminal burglaries, physical abuse of his mother and several stints in prison. But he said he has never talked openly about the sexual assault because of the stigma the crime carries and what he says is “the inability of Christians to forgive certain sins.”
His advisers, who include several pastors and counselors, have advised him to refrain from talking publicly about the sexual crime for the same reasons.
Bentley did publicly acknowledge the sexual assault during the summer of 2001 while leading a conference and crusade in Kewlona, British Columbia. He had received the support of the New Life Vineyard church in Kewlona to use their facilities for the events, and organizers had installed posters advertising the event around town.
The family of the assault victim had moved to Kewlona, and when they saw the posters with Bentley’s name, they contacted local media. Bentley decided to address the local outcry by going on the 6 p.m. local TV-news broadcast. He admitted the crime on-air, asked for forgiveness, told viewers how ashamed he was, and how he was transformed five years after the incident by the gospel’s power.
“From that incident up to this article in The Report, our ministry has not had one complaint about this revelation from my past,” Bentley told Charisma. “The church in Kewlona stood behind me and continued to allow me to use their facilities to finish the conference. The protests stopped after I went on TV, and they aired that broadcast two or three times.”
Bentley, who is now married and has children of his own, said he has feared Christians would be afraid to leave their children around him if the
juvenile sex-offense were known. He says he will report on the crime in a book he is writing that is expected to release this year.
Two ministers who provide pastoral covering for Bentley told Charisma they have full confidence that God has forgiven him for his juvenile crimes and that he is in no way susceptible to repeat offenses of that nature.
“Todd is in good standing with us, and we believe him most definitely to be restored,” Pat Cocking said. “There has been no sign at all of any questionable behavior.”
Bobby Conner of Demonstration of God’s Power Ministries in Moravian Falls, N.C., echoed Cocking’s sentiments.
“I do serve on Todd’s watch-care group and minister with him several times a year,” Conner said. “I know that he is a faithful young man. The anointing on his life is awesome. I feel he has been up-front with me and the watch-care group about his life before Christ. It seems well to move on now and not to continue to open what God has forgiven and covered.”
Source: Healing Evangelist Todd Bentley Reveals Facts About Past Assault, Charisma Magazine, https://mycharisma.com/charisma-archive/healing-evangelist-todd-bentley-reveals-facts-about-past-assault/, Published December 31, 2002. (Accessed December 08, 2023.)
Categories: Bethel "Church", Harvest International Ministry, Hillsong, International Coalition of Apostles (ICAL), Morning Star Ministries, New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), Revival Alliance