In spite of giving a favourable review of Todd Bentley’s “Lakeland Outpouring” in the July edition of Christianity magazine editor John Buckeridge, in the September edition, asks “Where is the medically verifiable evidence of healing?” He then tells of his attempts to secure this evidence from Bentley’s organisation and how he drew a blank because a spokeswomen told him that for legal reasons medical records are difficult to make available.
Buckeridge concludes: “It seems that Lakeland is a confusing mixture of God and flesh, faith and hype, healings and tall tales, the presence of God and hysteria”
The same edition contains an article by a pastor who visited a related revivalist organisation in America in search of healing. He tells of “high levels of passion and expectancy” at the meetings. In spite of “the wacky stuff” he observed, like a worship leader who said “the dream fairy was coming into the meeting to give us good dreams”, he nevertheless claimed, “a powerful sense of God’s presence was enough to convince me that the trip was worthwhile”. The pastor came back from his trip unhealed.
So basically we have nothing: no evidence of healing, nothing but a pastor who felt a powerful sense of God’s presence and observed a high levels of passion and expectancy. The “evidence”, it seems, is simply high passsion and expectancy of evidence! That sounds like the hysteria Buckeridge is talking about.
As for the “wacky stuff” we are, of course, supposed to overlook that because “It’s all about the presence of God” as the pastor was told, a presence evidenced only by the unhealed pastor’s feeling that there was “a powerful sense of God’s presence”. That sounds like the hype Buckeridge is talking about.
In spite of all the wacky stuff, the hype, the tall tales and the hysteria we are supposed to overlook all these in favour of some scanty evidence. But I wonder if the supporters of these “ministries” are prepared to overlook a critical analysis of this latest “Move of God”? Doubtful, because if past experience is anything to go by it’s then that we start to hear spiritual threats like “Don’t analyse it!”, “Touch not God’s anointed!” and of “being in danger of committing the unforgivable sin”. These people know how to use the spiritual stick as well as the carrot of baseless expectancy and hype.
Large swathes of Christendom are at a very low ebb, intellectually impoverished, lacking in authenticity and integrity, and sometimes downright hypocritical.
Buckeridge concludes: “It seems that Lakeland is a confusing mixture of God and flesh, faith and hype, healings and tall tales, the presence of God and hysteria”
The same edition contains an article by a pastor who visited a related revivalist organisation in America in search of healing. He tells of “high levels of passion and expectancy” at the meetings. In spite of “the wacky stuff” he observed, like a worship leader who said “the dream fairy was coming into the meeting to give us good dreams”, he nevertheless claimed, “a powerful sense of God’s presence was enough to convince me that the trip was worthwhile”. The pastor came back from his trip unhealed.
So basically we have nothing: no evidence of healing, nothing but a pastor who felt a powerful sense of God’s presence and observed a high levels of passion and expectancy. The “evidence”, it seems, is simply high passsion and expectancy of evidence! That sounds like the hysteria Buckeridge is talking about.
As for the “wacky stuff” we are, of course, supposed to overlook that because “It’s all about the presence of God” as the pastor was told, a presence evidenced only by the unhealed pastor’s feeling that there was “a powerful sense of God’s presence”. That sounds like the hype Buckeridge is talking about.
In spite of all the wacky stuff, the hype, the tall tales and the hysteria we are supposed to overlook all these in favour of some scanty evidence. But I wonder if the supporters of these “ministries” are prepared to overlook a critical analysis of this latest “Move of God”? Doubtful, because if past experience is anything to go by it’s then that we start to hear spiritual threats like “Don’t analyse it!”, “Touch not God’s anointed!” and of “being in danger of committing the unforgivable sin”. These people know how to use the spiritual stick as well as the carrot of baseless expectancy and hype.
Large swathes of Christendom are at a very low ebb, intellectually impoverished, lacking in authenticity and integrity, and sometimes downright hypocritical.
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