I don't intend to harp on this matter, but . . .

Getting back to the Todd Bentley thing.

The reason it's important, and the reason that we as Christians ought to take a good hard look at ourselves, is that the whole episode reveals just how wanting in intelligence and discernment we are. It is with good reason that Jared Wilson says I told you so. Folks, we need to be embarrassed at ourselves!

The whole matter has exposed the pitifully soft underbelly of charismatic Christianity. We are simply not satisfied with Jesus Christ! Bentley would not have fleeced tens of thousands as he did, had we not eagerly played the easy mark to this shell-game charlatan. The bride of Christ is sullied, mud-spattered, demeaned, and we allowed it to happen because we are perhaps the most Biblically illiterate generation since the dawn of the Reformation.

The reason I so like what Nate has to say about this over at The Jesus Paradigm is that he points out there there truly is a revival going on in this country, but folks it's not showing on so-called GodTV (pardon me while I heave). It's a revival among Christians deeply dissatisfied with the path of cultural compromise that the American church has taken. Christians who long not for yet another "blessing," but instead long for a church that will, like Paul, fill up in its body -- in its "bodies" -- what was lacking in the afflictions of Christ on the cross (Col 1:24).

And its happening. It's small. It's counter-cultural in the truest sense of that poorly understood term. As Nate says:

People in grassroots movements like the Simple Way, whose website begins with "Dream Big, Live Small," are being transformed and ceasing to obey the masters of hype, wealth, empire, advertising, celebrity, and crowd opinion in favor of the red-letter Jesus.

So perhaps this will be my last post on Bentley and that whole sorry episode of delusion called the Lakeland revival. Maybe instead I'll keep my eyes pealed for the real revival going on quietly in the body of Christ. I commit myself to reporting on these signs of life with regularity here at In the Clearing.

Taking Note

To put it bluntly, we’re just plain gullible.

The article is a must read, and so is Dan Edelen's incisive summation, entitled Burned.

My prayer for the church at large is that we would grow in wisdom and spiritual discernment. John Piper's brief commentary on all this is a word in season. "The common denominator," he writes, "of those who follow the Antichrist" will simply be that "they refused to love the truth."

It is as true in our day as ever it was: we live in dangerous times, and therefore, as Jesus counseled, we need to be wise as serpents, but innocent as doves.

Meanwhile, Nate Spencer saw Bentley recently in Charlotte and had this blog-response. Here are some good snips:

Here [at Bentley's revival show], I need Jesus, but I also REALLY need to be in the presence of Todd Bentley. I need to come under the anointing. I need the revival to fall on me. I need "the fire." I need to believe everthing I'm told. I need to give money to the ministry(cliche, over-spiritualized pleading and promises of tenfold reward included in the price. Verbatim quote- "Maybe you'll write one check for $100,000!!!")I need to experience a healing miracle. I need to fall over. I need to be on that stage, I need him to touch me and say "bam," I need to listen to him posture around the stage and proclaim to large crowds the huge success of his ten-year healing ministry.

And this:

In Todd's gatherings, there is no cross, no Gospel, no love of enemies, strangers, poor, helpless, and rejected, no forsaking of wealth(unless it's to unload all your cash into the ministry's coffers), no rejection of empire, no death to self, no transformation of the inner being. Implicit or explicit. Just the glitz and hype that America desperately needs to satiate its incredible appetite for the Next Big Thing. Wealth, religion, media and the illusion of safety and security failed to give us what we wanted, so now we're trying emotionalized circuses with rockstar ministers upon whom we're told our hopes for healing/success/wealth/revival/spiritual progress depend.

I gotta tell you, it's a longish post but you should read it. It's full of hard truth.