A Theological Evaluation of Fresh Fire Ministries (Part 1)
The “Lakeland Outpouring” certainly is getting a lot of attention. The nightly services held at the Sun-N-Fun campground in Lakeland, Florida are attracting as many as 10,000 to Todd Bentley’s events; events which he describes as “biblical, and definitely God!”
Attempting a theological evaluation of events like this can be tricky, as statements of faith or theological position papers are rarely produced by the organizations involved. This is because “Revivalists” don’t want you to evaluate their ministry based on theological truths, they want to force you to make judgment calls about the truthfulness of the “evangelist” and the legitimacy of the claims made by those in attendance. They know that most Christians will be far less critical when they’re evaluating the men making the claims rather than the theological claims themselves. Don’t fall into this trap – you cannot judge a “ministry” or “revival” like this apart from comparing the theological claims made with the word of God.
As I said before, it is unusual for events like this to produce documented theological claims for evaluation. In the case of Mr. Bentley’s Fresh Fire Ministries however, we are provided with some oppotunities to do so. The first document that provides some insight into the theological positions of Mr. Bentley is an entry on his website dated June 8, 2008 and titled “Lifting Jesus High! Bringing Biblical Light to Your Questions about the Lakeland Outpouring & Todd Bentley.” This is a long (6,000+ word) apologetic for the events he is conducting in Lakeland and the type of “revival” he is offering. Such a detailed reponse to concerns about his work is unusual and Mr. Bentley is to be commended for making such a document available.
A second opportunity for theological evaluation comes in the form of a booklet written by Dr. Gary S. Greig, PhD, “a former Associate Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Regent University School of Divinity, and Senior Editor, Theology and Acquisitions for the Regal Publishing Group.” Dr. Greig claims to have been healed of sleep apnea while watching a telecast of the “Lakeland Outpouring,” and wanted to provide a scholarly response to criticisms of Fresh Fires’ “that as many as possible would receive biblical permission to get on board” with the Lakeland event. This 55 page booklet, for which Dr. Greig says God told him to suggest a $3-$5 donation to Fresh Fire Ministries, is available for download on the Fresh Fire website.
Finally, Fresh Fire Ministries provides a 12 point “Statement of Faith,” available on their website. While it is a helpful guide in some respects it is not entirely reliable because, as we will see, there appear to be statements in the other two documents which do not line up with sections of the faith statement.
This is the section of the article where I am supposed to say something to the effect of “my goal is not to discredit Mr. Bentley but to protect the purity of the church,” and the spirit of that statement is true. I have no personal vendetta against Mr. Bentley nor am I against a large-scale outpouring of revival in this country (indeed I pray that it will happen!). If Mr. Bentley’s teachings are in line with Scripture then I will pray for his ministry and financially support it – because it would represent a significant work of the Holy Spirit. However, if Mr. Bentley’s teachings are not in line with the words of Holy Scripture then I do hope to discredit him to protect those who would be taken in by a false teacher (Matt 6:15-27).
Parts of Mr. Bentley’s teaching should be affirmed and commended as biblical. His statement of faith is explicitly Trinitarian and he wholeheartedly affirms: a bodily resurrection, God as creator of all things, man’s total inability to save himself, the Biblical instruction to lay hands on the sick, the future (bodily) second coming of Christ to judge all men, and the responsibility of Christians to live holy lives and to promote righteousness and godliness.
Within the whole of his stated beliefs however, there are significant theological problems. To avoid an article that is too long to read I have decided to divide this critique into three parts. Parts two and three will address specific theological concerns with Mr. Bentley’s “ministry.”
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Part 2 of the series is available here.