DISCUSSION: Commentary & Good Article by J. Lee Grady...

REASONABLE VOICES

Good article below (after my introductory comments) by J. Lee Grady, Editor of Charisma.

Thank God there are some reasonable voices out there like his--whether or not they've recently just come to their senses--or from the beginning knew Bentlley was a bent pin.

Or perhaps reasonable voices emerge just because of healthy disillusionment and disgust with the crazy excesses of sick 'Latter Rain Syndrome' revivalism.

Over the years I've worked as a clinician in two acute psychiatric units. I'd often rush out to meet my friends after my shift--not just to grab a sandwich--but mainly to talk with somebody who was sane, nothearing voices, (and, because he'd had a vision that he was Napoleon--had his hand in my blouse--Ha!). Like--when you've had the unfortunate experience of witnessing a bar fight--or some bitchy soccer mom beating up the coach--you relish going to a scenic park and reading a good book.

I've felt the same way after leaving a Latter-Rain type church or meeting (with its hyper-deliverance, holy laughter, pre-frontal-lobe-disturbance-visions, writhing on the floor like snakes, animal sounds, slaying, PMS-prophetesses, hopping-to-bad-music-like-jumping-jack idiots, pre-occupation with angels, obsession with ridding the place of jezebel-spirits, and making maudlin money-grubbing pleas for some damn--mythical usually--orphange in Haiti) ...looking for conversation with anyone--anyone sort of in their right mind--ha!..go to an art show..or, hey...a good cigar shop--talk with sombody--the bigger sinner the better--but hopefully an intelligent reader (a real rarity in Fresno!)--but somebody not religiously-pre-occupied in the goofy charis-manic sense--somebody not taking lists of demon names on a steno pad--with a copy of Frank and Ida May Hammond's Pigs In the Parlor tucked under her arm.

Sane voices (which are also biblically-sound Christian voices) can help us fend off the emotionally unstable, the apostates, the confused sheeple, and, sadly, the so-called 'Christian leaders' who endorsed, 'anointed', praised, followed (and will still follow) Bentley et al--and his 'Strange Fire' (a la Nadab & Abihu) Menace-try.

I have been personlly amazed at finding people that I'd known for years (and thought had half a brain) who still seem to want to remain in the 'Strange Fire' nest--like little birds with their mouths open--waiting for more worms. And, of course, worms they will get..!

For years, i've been warning people (not only about buying food from roach-motel fast food Mc-restaurants) but about the dead cessationist NAE and their ecumenical impotence on the one hand--and about Latter Rain Schizotypal ( charismagical) Personalities on the other.

Throughout my many years of ministerially-unhappy captivity in the 'egypt' of California's San Joaquin Valley--I've seen, for the most part, the one extreme or the other.

You may ask, "Have you found a haven in your cartooning and writing? And have you enjoyed the Psalm 23 respite you find in Satire..? And, while not being cyncial--do you continue to relish a healthy and robust skepticism and sales resistance to any prophetess..? And a godly aversion to all things evangelical, ecumenical, pop-religious, and 'prophetic'. And a healthy allergy to words like 'Elijah' and 'Jezebel'..? And mentally stable avoidance of any tattooed, splenetically-revivalistic, rock-n-roll-praise-band-atmospheres full of kundalini-gyrating emergent-church millennials..?

...Is the Pope Catholic...? ----P.C. Brewer

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Life After Lakeland: Sorting Out the Confusion by J. Lee Grady, Charisma

Todd Bentley's announcement that his marriage is ending has thrown our movement into a tailspin—and questions need to be answered.


It was not supposed to end like this. (Ed. Note: Really? How could it have ended in any other way..when it was off-center 'Latter-Rainism' from the start..? --PB)

Evangelist Todd Bentley had heralded the Lakeland revival as the greatest Pentecostal outpouring since Azusa Street. From his stage in a gigantic tent in Florida, Bentley preached to thousands, bringing many of them to the stage for prayer. Many claimed to be healed of deafness, blindness, heart problems, depression and dozens of other conditions in the Lakeland services, which ran for more than 100 consecutive nights. Bentley announced confidently that dozens of people had been raised from the dead during the revival.

But this week, a few days after the Canadian preacher announced the end of his visits to Lakeland, he told his staff that his marriage is ending. Without blaming the pace of the revival for Bentley's personal problems, his board released a public statement saying that he and his wife, Shonnah, are separating. The news shocked Bentley's adoring fans and saddened those who have questioned his credibility since the Lakeland movement erupted in early April.

"Among those who jumped on the Lakeland bandwagon, discernment was discouraged. They were expected to swallow and follow. The message was clear: 'This is God. Don't question.' "

I'm sad. I'm disappointed. And I'm angry. Here are few of my many, many questions about this fiasco:

Why did so many people flock to Lakeland from around the world to rally behind an evangelist who had serious credibility issues from the beginning?

To put it bluntly, we're just plain gullible. (Ed. note: "Duh..." --PB)

From the first week of the Lakeland revival, many discerning Christians raised questions about Bentley's beliefs and practices. They felt uneasy when he said he talked to an angel in his hotel room. They sensed something amiss when he wore a T-shirt with a skeleton on it. They wondered why a man of God would cover himself with tattoos. They were horrified when they heard him describe how he tackled a man and knocked his tooth out during prayer. (Ed. Note; What's that Appalachian saying about "...didn't you know what it was when you picked it up..?" --PB)

But among those who jumped on the Lakeland bandwagon, discernment was discouraged. They were expected to swallow and follow. The message was clear: "This is God. Don't question." So before we could all say, "Sheeka Boomba" (as Bentley often prayed from his pulpit), many people went home, prayed for people and shoved them to the floor with reckless abandon, Bentley-style. (Ed. Note: Of course--"Monkey see--monkey do..." --PB)

I blame this lack of discernment, partly, on raw zeal for God. We're spiritual hungry—which can be a good thing. But sometimes, hungry people will eat anything. (Ed. Note: 'Sheeple' contestants on Fear Factor type TV shows eat all kinds of rodents and vermin...because they want the money..! --PB)

Many of us would rather watch a noisy demonstration of miracles, signs and wonders than have a quiet Bible study. Yet we are faced today with the sad reality that our untempered zeal is a sign of immaturity. Our adolescent craving for the wild and crazy makes us do stupid things. It's way past time for us to grow up. (Ed. Note: Trouble is--that's asking the impossible of I.Q.of 5 'Millennials'--ha! --PB)

Why didn't anyone in Lakeland denounce the favorable comments Bentley made about William Branham? (Ed. Note: Ignorance of modern Church History also comes back to haunt us! --PB)

This one baffles me. Branham embraced horrible deception near the end of his ministry, before he died in 1965. He claimed that he was the reincarnation of Elijah—and his strange doctrines are still embraced by a cultlike following today. When Bentley announced to the world that the same angel that ushered in the 1950s healing revival had come to Lakeland, the entire audience should have run for the exits. (Ed. Note: Ah...but the 'sheeple' didn't recognize the fact that Bentley is 'Latter Rain'...and, of course, there wasn't a scholarly Bible student in the bunch. And, sadly, these folks 'pre-screen' themselves--like attendees at professional wrestling--or Benny Hinn meetings...--PB)

Why didn't anyone correct this error from the pulpit? Godly leaders are supposed to protect the sheep from heresy, not spoon feed deception to them. Only God knows how far this poison traveled from Lakeland to take root elsewhere. May God forgive us for allowing His Word to be so flippantly contaminated.

A prominent Pentecostal evangelist called me this week after Bentley's news hit the fan. He said to me: "I'm now convinced that a large segment of the charismatic church will follow the anti-Christ when he shows up because they have no discernment." Ouch. Hopefully we'll learn our lesson this time and apply the necessary caution when an imposter shows up. (Ed. Note: Don't hold your breath..! --PB)

Why did God TV tell people that "any criticism of Todd Bentley is demonic"? (Ed. Note; Because GOD TV administrators present themselves as pushers ofNew Order of the Latter Rain--due to their endorsement of Bentley's propagandizing:"This fire of revival started in 1948 and is coming back to go around the world today!" --PB)

This ridiculous statement was actually made on one of God TV's pre-shows. In fact, the network's hosts also warned listeners that if they listened to criticism of Bentley, they could lose their healings.

This is cultic manipulation at its worst. The Bible tells us that the Bereans were noble believers because they studied the Scriptures daily "to see whether these things were so" (Acts 17:11, NASB). Yet in the case of Lakeland, honest intellectual inquiry was viewed as a sign of weakness. People were expected to jump first and then open their eyes.

Just because we believe in the power of the Holy Spirit does not mean we check our brains at the church door. We are commanded to test the spirits. Jesus wants us to love Him with our hearts and our minds. (Ed. Note: Amen and amen...!!! --PB)

Because of the Lakeland scandal, there may be large numbers of people who feel they've been burned by Bentley. (Ed. Note: Hey--we can only hope. --PB) Some may give up on church and join the growing ranks of bitter, disenfranchised Christians. (Ed. Note: Like many of the intelligent folk I enjoy chatting with in coffee shops.) Others may suffer total spiritual shipwreck. This could have been avoided if leaders had been more vocal about their objections and urged people to evaluate spiritual experiences through the filter of God's Word.

Why did a group of respected ministers lay hands on Bentley on June 23 and publicly ordain him? Did they know of his personal problems?

This controversial ceremony was organized by Peter Wagner, who felt that one of Bentley's greatest needs was proper spiritual covering. He asked California pastors Che Ahn and Bill Johnson, along with Canadian pastor John Arnott, to lay hands on Bentley and bring him under their care. (Ed. Note: Wouldn't this cause a sensible, sane, wise Christian to question the spiritual wisdom of the above-mentioned 'respected ministers'..? --PB)

Bentley certainly needs such covering. No one in ministry today should be out on their own, living in isolation without checks, balances and wise counsel. It was commendable that Wagner reached out to Bentley and that Bentley acknowledged his need for spiritual fathers by agreeing to submit to the process. The question remains, however, whether it was wise to commend Bentley during a televised commissioning service that at times seemed more like a king's coronation.

In hindsight, we can all see that it would have been better to take Bentley into a back room and talk about his personal issues. (Ed. Note: And then take him out to the wood shed!....ha! --PB)

The Bible tells us that ordination of a minister is a sober responsibility. Paul wrote: "Do not lay hands upon anyone too hastily and thereby share responsibility for the sins of others" (1 Tim. 5:22). We might be tempted to rush the process, but the apostle warned against fast-tracking ordination—and he said that those who commission a minister who is not ready for the job will bear some of the blame for his failures.

I trust that Wagner, Ahn, Johnson and Arnott didn't know of Bentley's problems before they ordained him. I am sure they are saddened by the events of this week and are reaching out to Bentley and his wife to promote healing and restoration. But I believe that they, along with Bentley and the owners of God TV, owe the body of Christ a forthright, public apology for thrusting Bentley's ministry into the spotlight prematurely. (Perhaps such an apology should be aired on God TV.) (Ed. Note: Again...don't hold your breath..! --PB)

Can anything good come out of this?

That depends on how people respond. If the men assigned to oversee Bentley offer loving but firm correction, and if Bentley responds humbly to the process by stepping out of ministry for a season of rehabilitation, we could witness a healthy case of church discipline play out the way it is supposed to. If all those who were so eager to promote Bentley now rush just as fast to repent for their errors in judgment, then the rest of us could breathe a huge sigh of relief—and the credibility of our movement could be restored. (Ed. Note: Please explain further in detail about 'the credibility of our movement'...sounds intriguing..! --PB)

I still believe that God desires to visit our nation in supernatural power. I know He wants to heal multitudes, and I will continue praying for a healing revival to sweep across the United States. But we must contend for the genuine, not an imitation. True revival will be accompanied by brokenness, humility, reverence and repentance—not the arrogance, showmanship and empty hype that often was on display in Lakeland.

We are weathering an unprecedented season of moral failure and spiritual compromise in our nation today. I urge everyone in the charismatic world to pray for Bentley; his wife, Shonnah; his three young children; Bentley's ministry staff; and the men and women who serve as his counselors and advisers. Let's pray that God will turn this embarrassing debacle into an opportunity for miraculous restoration. (Ed. Note: Trouble is--all the cronies, toadies, and groupies chose to dance with the devil out of their own naivete, narcissism, self-conscious attention-seeking, and shallowness . These folks are a mile-wide-and-an-inch-deep--because of their very glomming onto Bentley in the first place. Look at the YouTube videos of these associates in their trance-like stage performances. They're all one taco short of a Happy Meal---ha! --PB)
J. Lee Grady is editor of Charisma.

'Branding': From Dictators to 'Emergent' Postmoderns

{Interesting..Read this book review below and then read the next (older) article about "Church Branding" ...Later, I'd like to have a discussion about another aspect of 'branding'--the postmodern 'cult of body-tattooing'--PB}

DESIGNING DICTATORS

By CHRISTOPHER BENFEY
Published: August 3, 2008
New York Times Book Review

How did a practice as vile as branding become so valued, indeed, the very mark of value? Officials in the past have branded slaves and criminals — remember Milady's fleur-de-lis in "The Three Musketeers"? Samuel Maverick didn't brand his cattle, but dictionaries are vague about whether he was the first maverick or his cows were.

Today, cities and colleges have joined toothpastes and soft drinks in the battle for "brand loyalty."

Steven Heller's "Iron Fists" makes a sophisticated and visually arresting comparison between modern corporate-branding strategies — slogans, mascots, jingles and the rest — and those adopted by "four of the most destructive 20th-century totalitarian regimes": Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin, and Mao's China.

As he pursues his four "case studies," Heller, by means of unsettling images and shrewd analysis, amply restores the vileness to branding.

From "Iron Fists"
"Give me four years' time"; a photomontage from 1937.
IRON FISTS
Branding the 20th-Century Totalitarian State.
By Steven Heller.
Illustrated. 223 pp. Phaidon Press. $90.

From "Iron Fists"

"Let's build a fleet of airships in Lenin's name"; a poster from 1931.

"Iron Fists" has the dimensions and dazzling illustrations of a coffee-table book, but its subject will fit uneasily among Monet's waterlilies or Fabergé eggs. Heller, who was a senior art director at The New York Times for many years and now writes the Visuals column for the Book Review, brings a graphic designer's perspective to these disturbing proceedings.

He is aware that comparing supposedly "benign" corporate brands with government-disseminated propaganda may seem a stretch: "A popular brand of frozen food or laundry detergent is not forced down the consumer's throat with an iron fist."

Still, as he notes, "the design and marketing methods used to inculcate doctrine and guarantee consumption are fundamentally similar." His aim is not to diminish the insidiousness of the regimes under scrutiny, but rather to reveal why they were so effective.

Three of Heller's dictators considered themselves artists and eagerly participated in marketing their brands. Mao fancied himself a poet and master calligrapher; Mussolini wrote a pulp novel and portrayed himself as a hypermasculine sex symbol.

Hitler was an aspiring architect and avid watercolorist before adopting what Heller calls his "sociopolitical art project." The Führer sought to control all aspects of the Nazi brand, from the swastika "logo" to his own image, with mustache but without glasses.

Heller argues that Mao with his "Mona Lisa smile" and Lenin with his proletarian cap functioned in much the same way as "trade characters" like Joe Camel or the Geico gecko, putting "a friendly face on an otherwise inanimate (or sometimes inhumane) product."

Like modern corporate competitors, these leaders borrowed freely from one another, with Hitler taking the straight-armed Roman salute from Mussolini and Mao adopting Socialist Realism from the Soviets.

Some of the most interesting pages in "Iron Fists" explore the ambiguous place of avant-garde art in rigidly designed societies. Mussolini and Lenin were more accommodating of modernist impulses than Hitler, who declared war on "degenerate art" while making an exception for the filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl's "paradigms of heroic branding."

The temporary "fusion" of Fascism and the technology-embracing art movement known as Futurism led to some terrific pro-Mussolini visual design before Il Duce settled for neo-Classical "Roman" kitsch instead.

The early years of the Soviet Union provide some of the best examples of art flourishing amid utopian hopes for a new society — in Rodchenko's posters (including his famous promo for "Books" in 1924), El Lissitzky's remarkable children's books and Eisenstein's films.

All four regimes ended up suppressing individual creativity as a threat to the total control they sought. When the regimes fell in turn, their brands were retired. The swastika, an ancient symbol whose meaning, Heller says, "was forever changed when the Nazis co-opted it," is now banned in Germany except for "artistic, scientific, research or educational purposes."

Mussolini's body, so central to his national image, was hung from an Esso gas station, an inadvertent premonition, perhaps, that oil companies would henceforth rule the world.

For the most part, Heller's prose is as clear and uncluttered as the graphic design he admires. He takes no ideological position and does not distinguish between repressive regimes of the right (sometimes called "authoritarian") or the left. Nor does he advance any overarching theory about the destiny of art in totalitarian regimes, though he leaves no doubt about the grim fate of ordinary citizens.

Given his dark subject, he can be forgiven for abusing adjectives like "infamous," "horrific," "diabolical" and "heinous," though such words lose some of their power with the third or fourth repetition. They also obscure the continuity between branding campaigns of the past and our own battles over flag pins and the Pledge of Allegiance.

Heller makes no claims to a comprehensive survey, but one wonders why Imperial Japan, at least as "infamous" as Fascist Italy and with an interesting record of artists roped into the cause, was spared. One might also cavil about the material's organization, which places the Nazis first, according them a third of the book, even though Lenin's revolution and Mussolini's Fascism predate Hitler's rise.

Still, as Heller makes clear, the Nazis were the supreme masters of branding, both at the figurative level, in the vicious propaganda campaign he calls the "branding demonization" of the German Jews, and in a literal sense, as the Nazis "resorted to the most degrading branding technique imaginable."

My German grandparents, with a big "J" stamped across their exit passports, were among the lucky ones. Those less fortunate, as Primo Levi wrote of the inmates of Auschwitz, were branded with an indelible tattoo: "This is the mark with which slaves are branded and cattle sent to the slaughter, and that is what you have become. You no longer have a name; this is your new name."

Christopher Benfey is the Mellon professor of English at Mount Holyoke College. His most recent book, "A Summer of Hummingbirds," is about American artists and writers during the Gilded Age.


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Burned by Branding

What churches can learn from the anti-Starbucks movement.

Believe it or not, not everyone loves Starbucks. The Wall Street Journal's Janet Adamy has written about the growing resistance the Seattle-based coffee cartel is facing in many communities. The issue—Starbucks ignores local culture in favor of maintaining its brand-identity.

The already omnipresent Starbucks has plans to triple its locations worldwide to 40,000, but Adamy says the plan has alarmed some communities. "The proliferation of [Starbucks] stores has prompted a small number of cities to block it from opening out of concern the chain will erode the local character."

I've attended a number of conferences and read many reports in recent years about the popular multi-site church model. Invariably these sources will reference Starbucks as an example for churches who wish to establish themselves in multiple communities. But what should the church be learning from the rising anti-Starbucks sentiment?

During my first year of church ministry the two more experienced pastors on staff took me to "the Oracle." The old man lived in a bungalow not far from our church. I entered the house rather nervously. The 60's era furniture was covered in plastic, and every horizontal surface I could see was stacked with books. The Oracle looked to be in his 70's, he was unshaven, his trousers held to his belly by suspenders. He wore only a tight-fitting undershirt (popularly called a "wife-beater" thanks to the TV show "COPS").

The Oracle (aka, church consultant) sat in his recliner studying our numbers. He had requested detailed records of our church attendance, service schedule, and giving trends. He wanted nothing else. We sat in nervous silence waiting for the wise man to speak. After a few minutes of the old man saying "Hmmm," "Ahhh," and clearing his phlegm, he finally spoke. Without taking his eyes off the papers he started to tell a story.

"A few weeks ago I had a leaky pipe in the kitchen. Nasty things, leaky pipes. We used to have a very nice little hardware store up the street. It was small, but it was all we had. It's gone now." I looked at the two older pastors that had brought me here. Is this guy nuts? I asked with my eyes. Why have we come to an old man with dementia for advice about our church? The Oracle kept talking.

"So, I got in my car and went to the new place. They built a new Home Depot not far from here. You know the one. It's orange. You can't miss it. Sure enough, Home Depot had the part I needed. They have every part anyone could ever need." He paused for a moment, then started up again. "I like to drive," he said. Oh no, I thought, he's lost it.

"I drive all over the place. And you know what? There are Home Depots everywhere. And they always look the same. Orange. I say to my wife, 'Look another Home Depot' and she laughs at me. And when you go inside they are the same too. The plumbing aisle is always the plumbing aisle."

The Oracle finally put the papers down and looked at us. "You need to become Home Depot," he said very seriously. I felt like Luke Skywalker in Yoda's hut. I wanted to check behind the old man's chair to see if Frank Oz was controlling him.

The consultant went on to say the era of small churches was ending. The future was in mega franchised churches. The most important element, the Oracle said, was "brand identity." No matter where your church locations are, they must all be the same. Like Home Depot, or McDonalds, or Starbucks, people must know exactly what they are going to get from your church in any location.

That was my introduction to multi-site ministry.

But the Oracle didn't have the clairvoyance to see what Starbucks is now facing. Its strategy of vigorous brand management is no longer working. In fact, the coffee giant is now learning from the little guys' play book. New Starbucks stores are opening that do not reflect its well-established corporate identity. They are trying to personalize their stores to resemble local cafés that fit in with the community. One Starbucks in Denver has even abandoned the green mermaid logo of the brand.

The lesson—people don't necessarily want to be connected to a massive corporate identity. An increasing number want to identify with local, accessible, and human-scaled institutions. My own experience affirms this. I am writing this post in a local coffee shop. At 8am there is not an empty table in the house. This is where community happens in my town. Directly across the street is a Starbucks. That store sees a steady stream of people pass through to get their morning fix. But the tables are empty. It isn't a place people gather, converse, or write blog posts
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What is the church to learn?

That's what the comment section is for, but I'll start with this thought. If the church is to be merely a dispenser of spiritual goods and advice, a place people pass through to get their religion fix, then we should follow the example of brand-driven corporate giants.

But, if we hope to form meaningful communities of Christ-followers we shouldn't neglect the power of being local.

Rather than reading the latest branding book, why not gather mature leaders and listen for the Holy Spirit? How is he advising us to be the community of Christ in this unique place at this unique time?

Posted by Skye Jethani on November 20, 2006