Another week, and yet another miracle working apostle is exposed as a fraud and abuser. In this case, a bevy of YouTube clips tell me, it’s some dread-locked ex-addict called Todd White, who founded an outfit called Lifestyle Christianity but has now been exposed by his own people as living the lifestyle of Satan instead.
To be frank, I’ve not listened far beyond the headlines, because there’s nothing new in the story. A few months ago it was the prophet Mike Bickle and IHOPKC, a while before that Hillsongs leadership was shown to have feet of clay, and another unkempt miracle-working Todd, Todd Bentley, turns up every year or two betraying his alleged calling, then going quiet before being restored by the Pentecostal great and good and repeating the whole cycle.
The clues have been there all along, of course, White apparently being a protege of the charlatan Benny Hinn. But then as the YouTube channel Leaving the Message has documented, the whole edifice of the Pentecostal-Charismatic movement has had such an incestuous pattern of networking (and scandal) right back beyond the time of William Branham (always on intimate terms with God and angels but completely heterodox even to his followers in the end) to Pentecostalism’s founding showmen-revivalists, like Charles Fox Parham, John Dowie and William Seymour. The movement itself grew out of the questionable roots of the Holiness Movement and Charles Finney’s “New Measures” revivalism.
The thing that struck me most from my sketchy overview of this latest megapastor to fall from… grace(?) is that the honest whistleblowers from Lifestyle Christianity seem, as in every other similar case one encounters, to be totally unaware of any theological or sociological context to their disillusion. Their open letter reveals all the fraud and abuses (whose details I’ve not bothered to check, but which usually include fake miracles, sexual abuse, spiritual abuse and financial dishonesty). But their letter insists that the writers are still utterly sure that God works in power through great miracles and signs and power evangelism, even though their leader’s particular miracles and signs and power are fake. They pray that he will repent and be restored to his God-given calling, suggesting that they believe that he had a calling and did real miracles and signs and power evangelism before, inexplicably, he started faking everything. Think about it – why would one turn from doing real miracles in God’s power to doing stage tricks?
Given that, like his mentor Benny Hinn, Todd White allegedly completely revised his theology a few years ago (though in the event nothing much changed), we have once more an apostolic or prophetic figure supposedly bringing God’s power to the world in unprecedented ways, who nevertheless is all over the place in his teaching, whilst abusing his position. In a sane and biblical world, not only would such a pastor (a) never have been given authority and (b) would be condemned as a false teacher of the spirit of antichrist; but his dupes would immediately recognise the consistent pattern of stage-showmanship, and lust for power and money, in this whole revivalist movement.
Instead, you can be sure that, as the dust settles on this episode, and in all likelihood Lifestyle Christianity withers on the vine as money and support dry up, the disillusioned will find a new power-preaching megachurch founder to keep their dreams alive, until he or she too shows their true colours. You can see this exemplified in people who, finally seeing through one dysfunctional operation at IHOPKC, moved halfway across the continent to join Bethel Redding or some other temple of power with slightly different theology, practices and (most importantly) music. The same dog-returning-to-vomit phenomenon has happened in previous decades: after the exposure of the Kansas City Prophets there was the Toronto Blessing, and when that went off the rails revival was happening at Pensacola, then at Lakeland (which brings us back to Todd Bentley, if I’m not mistaken). I’ve not even touched on the permanent prosperity elite like Kenneth Copeland and Benny Hinn.
And so those who understand Christianity as being all about power, miracles, experiences and light-shows will shrug off Todd White’s disgrace as an aberration, though it is in fact pathognonomic of Christianity as power, miracles, experiences and light shows. No doubt some of his followers will return to him if, in a couple of years time, other Charismatic stars lay hands on him to restore his “anointing.” For none of these guys ever retires to a monastery as a penitent or buries himself in unpaid mission work as lifelong contrition. That is not in the business plan of the Revivalists.
If Satan has his way, most members of Lifestyle Christianity will actually be soured to religion by the experience and turn to New Age or outright atheism, for inducing apostasy is a more reliable strategy of the Enemy than inducing heresy. By the grace of God a few (like some of those who guest on Leaving the Message) will find their way to real churches where the biblical faith is faithfully taught.
In other posts I’ve discussed how the “big guns” in the Charismatic movement fuel the enthusiasm of more honest and modest folks in local churches across the world. Briefly, it seems easier for people to be impressed by wondrous stories of God’s miracles somewhere far away, than by the seamy realities of repeated corruption. Perhaps it would be better to be wondering, when the biggest guns turn out to be damp squibs, whether there might not be a problem with their whole theological scheme.
Today is Palm Sunday in the Western calendar, which was the pinnacle of Jesus’s popularity in the flesh. But the climax of the Christian year is actually next weekend, when Jesus achieved heavenly glory through the renunciation of power in favour of vicarious suffering.
