Before I begin what I am going to write, let's look at this molestation issue right out of the gate.
The Report Newsmagazine
04-30-2001
Does forgiving mean forgetting?
A faith healer comes clean on his young-offender conviction for child molestation
Rick Hiebert
Todd Bentley has a confession to make. A faith healer who has attracted international attention over the past several months, Bentley presents himself as a reformed bad boy who was once jailed for 18 months for crimes of an assault nature and breaking-and-entering in his hometown of Gibsons, British Columbia. The truth is, his most serious crime was more heinous: the molestation of a seven-year-old boy. They were sexual crimes, Bentley admits. I was involved in a sexual-assault ring. I turned around and did what had happened to me. I was assaulted too. "
I dont like to talk about it publicly because it would hurt [my ministry]. he concedes. I dont whip it out in the newspapers or on TV because people will go Whaaa? Ill say I was in prison, period. Lets move on. "
Bentleys admission took place after he was confronted with information given to The Report following the magazines publication of a story (Signs and wonders, March 5) on his burgeoning ministry. Federal law protects young offenders by prohibiting the dissemination of any information that may identify a youth convicted of a crime, but Bentley, now 25, freely provided details of the offence. I was 13 years old when I committed my crime, he says. I was jailed at 14. (In fact, The Report has learned that Bentley molested the boy in October 1990, when Bentley was 14, and that he was sentenced in March 1991, when he was 15.)
Bentley, who is now married and is the father of three young children, stresses he has repented for his crime and has undergone three years of counselling. There has not been and there wont be other cases, says the evangelical faith healer, who feels he needs no counselling to ensure he does not re-offend. Its something thats dead and buried for me. But, in an age when the likes of Protestant televangelists and Catholic priests have been ensnared by sexual scandal, the issue is far from dead.
Denny Cline, pastor of the Albany, Oregon, Vineyard church where Bentley launched a healing revival last year, looks on him as a spiritual son and says Bentley always exhibits a godly character. Upon learning of Bentleys molesting offence, Pastor Cline remarks, I dont think he told me that, but it wouldnt have mattered anyway. It wouldnt have mattered in regards to what he is doing now, and the person that he is now If hes paid his debt to society and Gods forgiven him of everything, then who am I to not forgive?
On the other hand, Lieutenant Jeff Johnston, a Salvation Army pastor in Port Alberni, B.C., who used to work in Bentleys hometown, is more skeptical. Theres absolutely no way that I would allow my own kids to come within a million miles of anyone who had been involved in a youth sexual assault, he says. Lieut. Johnston notes a church group tried to bring Bentley to Gibsons for a series of meetings in 1997, but the gatherings were called off after Lieut. Johnston and other pastors threatened not to allow their youth groups to attend.
Its one thing to be forgiving, its another thing to be stupid, Lieut. Johnston says. If you, as a pastor, had someone in your church ministry who had been involved in these things and they ever re-offended, the fact that you knew and didnt disclose it to parents, take every precaution, would be a huge liability issue.
Forewarned is forearmed, says Canadian Alliance MP Randy White. Given the notorius recidivism of pedophile offenders, the federal government should pass the national sex-offenders registry bill he tabled April 4. Mr. White explains that police need to be able to keep track of sex offenders who enter fields such as itinerant evangelism. Its worse not to admit the offence from the start, Mr. White observes. If you hide it, ultimately someone will cross your path and expose you. It becomes twice as hard to deal with.
Furthermore, Darrell Johnson, a professor of pastoral theology at Vancouvers Regent College and a Presbyterian minister, says that although Bentley promises his past is dead and buried, his victimand the victims familyare likely still suffering. The professor is also concerned that Bentley admits he has no team of pastors or counsellors to help him now. Says Prof. Johnson, Openness, transparency and accountability would protect him, as well as the people he ministers to.
Photo cap: Evangelist Bentley: I dont like to talk about it publicly because it would hurt [my ministry].
_________________________________________________
Todd Bentley also addressed his past in the following Charisma article.
http://www.charismamag.com/display.php?id=7032
Healing Evangelist Todd Bentley Reveals Facts About Past Assault
The young preacher says he wants to set the record straight about an offense he committed at age 14, before his conversion
Canadian evangelist Todd Bentley knows well the power of a testimony to convince the lost that no one is too far gone to find healing in Christ. Recently, he has also learned that when the secular media digs into one's testimony, confession may not be so good for the soul. In a lengthy feature article published in the September 2002 issue of Charisma, Bentley, 26, acknowledged that at age 14, as a juvenile, he had been arrested for assault. A March 2001 story about him that was published in The Report--a secular, conservative political magazine published in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada--offered a similar report.
But The Report story backfired when the mother of the victim of the assault read the article and informed the magazine that Bentley's assault had been sexual and that he had molested her son, also a minor, at the time. Bentley served several months in jail for the crime, and five years afterward he gave his life to Christ. Today his crusades around the world are producing reports of healing miracles and thousands of salvations. The Report writer who filed the original story about Bentley's ministry called him back to verify the nature of the crime. As a juvenile offender, Bentley's record was protected from public disclosure, and he said he had no idea The Report would then turn around and publish his acknowledgement of the crime.
"[The reporter] didn't tell me he was doing a follow-up story," Bentley told Charisma. "He was just friendly and told me what the mother had said, and I admitted to him in what I thought were off-the-record comments that it was true, but that it happened years ago and I had since been changed by the gospel."
Bentley openly acknowledges the rougher parts of his juvenile past when he preaches in public, including his near-fatal drug overdoses, criminal burglaries, physical abuse of his mother and several stints in prison. But he said he has never talked openly about the sexual assault because of the stigma the crime carries and what he says is "the inability of Christians to forgive certain sins." His advisers, who include several pastors and counselors, have advised him to refrain from talking publicly about the sexual crime for the same reasons.
Bentley did publicly acknowledge the sexual assault during the summer of 2001 while leading a conference and crusade in Kewlona, British Columbia. He had received the support of the New Life Vineyard church in Kewlona to use their facilities for the events, and organizers had installed posters advertising the event around town. The family of the assault victim had moved to Kewlona, and when they saw the posters with Bentley's name, they contacted local media. Bentley decided to address the local outcry by going on the 6 p.m. local TV-news broadcast. He admitted the crime on-air, asked for forgiveness, told viewers how ashamed he was, and how he was transformed five years after the incident by the gospel's power.
"From that incident up to this article in The Report, our ministry has not had one complaint about this revelation from my past," Bentley told Charisma. "The church in Kewlona stood behind me and continued to allow me to use their facilities to finish the conference. The protests stopped after I went on TV, and they aired that broadcast two or three times."
Bentley, who is now married and has children of his own, said he has feared Christians would be afraid to leave their children around him if the juvenile sex-offense were known. He says he will report on the crime in a book he is writing that is expected to release this year. Two ministers who provide pastoral covering for Bentley told Charisma they have full confidence that God has forgiven him for his juvenile crimes and that he is in no way susceptible to repeat offenses of that nature.
"Todd is in good standing with us, and we believe him most definitely to be restored," Pat Cocking said. "There has been no sign at all of any questionable behavior." Bobby Conner of Demonstration of God's Power Ministries in Moravian Falls, N.C., echoed Cocking's sentiments. "I do serve on Todd's watch-care group and minister with him several times a year," Conner said. "I know that he is a faithful young man. The anointing on his life is awesome. I feel he has been up-front with me and the watch-care group about his life before Christ. It seems well to move on now and not to continue to open what God has forgiven and covered."
Billy Bruce
_________________________________________________
The problem here is not so much about his PAST, but about his PRESENT unwillingness to be forthcoming about it. Would it disturb parents to know that Todd Bentley has a home for orphans called "Uganda Jesus Village"?? Anybody who ministers to children and is around them on a regular basis should not act like he has something to hide, especially when the something to hide is the fact that he was involved in a sex-abuse ring that preyed on little children.
Time and time and time again, I have seen these eminently and truly GIFTED individuals [both male and female] in the body of Christ who have "history", and it seems that when it comes to the Charismatic church, those things get ignored, overlooked, swept under the rug, et cetera, only because someone possesses a certain giftedness that attracts the numbers and the money.
It's the same way in non-religious arenas also. You have your Martha Stewart, who sat on the board of the New York Stock Exchange, and who had inside information that her stock would tank the next day, so she dumped all her shares. Now, for someone to sit on the BOARD of NYSE, to have that much power, and then to be privy to information concerning stocks, and not to tell everyone else, but to keep it to herself, that was horrible.
I think she should have done a lot more than four months in some CandyLand Summer Camp For Girls prison in West Virginia.
Her crime would be like [comparatively] if she was in a store, and someone called her cell phone to say "there's a bomb in the building you are in" and she were to say "thank you", hang up the phone, and walk out ... and never tell anyone. Then the bomb goes off, people's lives are shattered, some are dead, others are wounded, still more are maimed.
And that's exactly what she did, financially speaking.
But because she has a gift that makes people money, and draws the big crowds, we give her a pass. We let her by with a slap on the wrist. We don't check into her. We overlook things that we would slam others [the little, unimportant people] down to hell for doing!! We make people like her out to be a hero, only because she can draw people and money.
[So I see the same thing with the body of Christ.]
Let me give a parallel example. If I was some serious inappropriate content addict who looked at naked people all day, I wouldn't go into a job where I filtered out objectionable websites for an internet filtering company.
You get these warning signs about people, and a lot of people brush it under the rug, and just pooh-pooh the danger signs, and just act like everything's okay.
The Report Newsmagazine
04-30-2001
Does forgiving mean forgetting?
A faith healer comes clean on his young-offender conviction for child molestation
Rick Hiebert
Todd Bentley has a confession to make. A faith healer who has attracted international attention over the past several months, Bentley presents himself as a reformed bad boy who was once jailed for 18 months for crimes of an assault nature and breaking-and-entering in his hometown of Gibsons, British Columbia. The truth is, his most serious crime was more heinous: the molestation of a seven-year-old boy. They were sexual crimes, Bentley admits. I was involved in a sexual-assault ring. I turned around and did what had happened to me. I was assaulted too. "
I dont like to talk about it publicly because it would hurt [my ministry]. he concedes. I dont whip it out in the newspapers or on TV because people will go Whaaa? Ill say I was in prison, period. Lets move on. "
Bentleys admission took place after he was confronted with information given to The Report following the magazines publication of a story (Signs and wonders, March 5) on his burgeoning ministry. Federal law protects young offenders by prohibiting the dissemination of any information that may identify a youth convicted of a crime, but Bentley, now 25, freely provided details of the offence. I was 13 years old when I committed my crime, he says. I was jailed at 14. (In fact, The Report has learned that Bentley molested the boy in October 1990, when Bentley was 14, and that he was sentenced in March 1991, when he was 15.)
Bentley, who is now married and is the father of three young children, stresses he has repented for his crime and has undergone three years of counselling. There has not been and there wont be other cases, says the evangelical faith healer, who feels he needs no counselling to ensure he does not re-offend. Its something thats dead and buried for me. But, in an age when the likes of Protestant televangelists and Catholic priests have been ensnared by sexual scandal, the issue is far from dead.
Denny Cline, pastor of the Albany, Oregon, Vineyard church where Bentley launched a healing revival last year, looks on him as a spiritual son and says Bentley always exhibits a godly character. Upon learning of Bentleys molesting offence, Pastor Cline remarks, I dont think he told me that, but it wouldnt have mattered anyway. It wouldnt have mattered in regards to what he is doing now, and the person that he is now If hes paid his debt to society and Gods forgiven him of everything, then who am I to not forgive?
On the other hand, Lieutenant Jeff Johnston, a Salvation Army pastor in Port Alberni, B.C., who used to work in Bentleys hometown, is more skeptical. Theres absolutely no way that I would allow my own kids to come within a million miles of anyone who had been involved in a youth sexual assault, he says. Lieut. Johnston notes a church group tried to bring Bentley to Gibsons for a series of meetings in 1997, but the gatherings were called off after Lieut. Johnston and other pastors threatened not to allow their youth groups to attend.
Its one thing to be forgiving, its another thing to be stupid, Lieut. Johnston says. If you, as a pastor, had someone in your church ministry who had been involved in these things and they ever re-offended, the fact that you knew and didnt disclose it to parents, take every precaution, would be a huge liability issue.
Forewarned is forearmed, says Canadian Alliance MP Randy White. Given the notorius recidivism of pedophile offenders, the federal government should pass the national sex-offenders registry bill he tabled April 4. Mr. White explains that police need to be able to keep track of sex offenders who enter fields such as itinerant evangelism. Its worse not to admit the offence from the start, Mr. White observes. If you hide it, ultimately someone will cross your path and expose you. It becomes twice as hard to deal with.
Furthermore, Darrell Johnson, a professor of pastoral theology at Vancouvers Regent College and a Presbyterian minister, says that although Bentley promises his past is dead and buried, his victimand the victims familyare likely still suffering. The professor is also concerned that Bentley admits he has no team of pastors or counsellors to help him now. Says Prof. Johnson, Openness, transparency and accountability would protect him, as well as the people he ministers to.
Photo cap: Evangelist Bentley: I dont like to talk about it publicly because it would hurt [my ministry].
_________________________________________________
Todd Bentley also addressed his past in the following Charisma article.
http://www.charismamag.com/display.php?id=7032
Healing Evangelist Todd Bentley Reveals Facts About Past Assault
The young preacher says he wants to set the record straight about an offense he committed at age 14, before his conversion
Canadian evangelist Todd Bentley knows well the power of a testimony to convince the lost that no one is too far gone to find healing in Christ. Recently, he has also learned that when the secular media digs into one's testimony, confession may not be so good for the soul. In a lengthy feature article published in the September 2002 issue of Charisma, Bentley, 26, acknowledged that at age 14, as a juvenile, he had been arrested for assault. A March 2001 story about him that was published in The Report--a secular, conservative political magazine published in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada--offered a similar report.
But The Report story backfired when the mother of the victim of the assault read the article and informed the magazine that Bentley's assault had been sexual and that he had molested her son, also a minor, at the time. Bentley served several months in jail for the crime, and five years afterward he gave his life to Christ. Today his crusades around the world are producing reports of healing miracles and thousands of salvations. The Report writer who filed the original story about Bentley's ministry called him back to verify the nature of the crime. As a juvenile offender, Bentley's record was protected from public disclosure, and he said he had no idea The Report would then turn around and publish his acknowledgement of the crime.
"[The reporter] didn't tell me he was doing a follow-up story," Bentley told Charisma. "He was just friendly and told me what the mother had said, and I admitted to him in what I thought were off-the-record comments that it was true, but that it happened years ago and I had since been changed by the gospel."
Bentley openly acknowledges the rougher parts of his juvenile past when he preaches in public, including his near-fatal drug overdoses, criminal burglaries, physical abuse of his mother and several stints in prison. But he said he has never talked openly about the sexual assault because of the stigma the crime carries and what he says is "the inability of Christians to forgive certain sins." His advisers, who include several pastors and counselors, have advised him to refrain from talking publicly about the sexual crime for the same reasons.
Bentley did publicly acknowledge the sexual assault during the summer of 2001 while leading a conference and crusade in Kewlona, British Columbia. He had received the support of the New Life Vineyard church in Kewlona to use their facilities for the events, and organizers had installed posters advertising the event around town. The family of the assault victim had moved to Kewlona, and when they saw the posters with Bentley's name, they contacted local media. Bentley decided to address the local outcry by going on the 6 p.m. local TV-news broadcast. He admitted the crime on-air, asked for forgiveness, told viewers how ashamed he was, and how he was transformed five years after the incident by the gospel's power.
"From that incident up to this article in The Report, our ministry has not had one complaint about this revelation from my past," Bentley told Charisma. "The church in Kewlona stood behind me and continued to allow me to use their facilities to finish the conference. The protests stopped after I went on TV, and they aired that broadcast two or three times."
Bentley, who is now married and has children of his own, said he has feared Christians would be afraid to leave their children around him if the juvenile sex-offense were known. He says he will report on the crime in a book he is writing that is expected to release this year. Two ministers who provide pastoral covering for Bentley told Charisma they have full confidence that God has forgiven him for his juvenile crimes and that he is in no way susceptible to repeat offenses of that nature.
"Todd is in good standing with us, and we believe him most definitely to be restored," Pat Cocking said. "There has been no sign at all of any questionable behavior." Bobby Conner of Demonstration of God's Power Ministries in Moravian Falls, N.C., echoed Cocking's sentiments. "I do serve on Todd's watch-care group and minister with him several times a year," Conner said. "I know that he is a faithful young man. The anointing on his life is awesome. I feel he has been up-front with me and the watch-care group about his life before Christ. It seems well to move on now and not to continue to open what God has forgiven and covered."
Billy Bruce
_________________________________________________
The problem here is not so much about his PAST, but about his PRESENT unwillingness to be forthcoming about it. Would it disturb parents to know that Todd Bentley has a home for orphans called "Uganda Jesus Village"?? Anybody who ministers to children and is around them on a regular basis should not act like he has something to hide, especially when the something to hide is the fact that he was involved in a sex-abuse ring that preyed on little children.
Time and time and time again, I have seen these eminently and truly GIFTED individuals [both male and female] in the body of Christ who have "history", and it seems that when it comes to the Charismatic church, those things get ignored, overlooked, swept under the rug, et cetera, only because someone possesses a certain giftedness that attracts the numbers and the money.
It's the same way in non-religious arenas also. You have your Martha Stewart, who sat on the board of the New York Stock Exchange, and who had inside information that her stock would tank the next day, so she dumped all her shares. Now, for someone to sit on the BOARD of NYSE, to have that much power, and then to be privy to information concerning stocks, and not to tell everyone else, but to keep it to herself, that was horrible.
I think she should have done a lot more than four months in some CandyLand Summer Camp For Girls prison in West Virginia.
Her crime would be like [comparatively] if she was in a store, and someone called her cell phone to say "there's a bomb in the building you are in" and she were to say "thank you", hang up the phone, and walk out ... and never tell anyone. Then the bomb goes off, people's lives are shattered, some are dead, others are wounded, still more are maimed.
And that's exactly what she did, financially speaking.
But because she has a gift that makes people money, and draws the big crowds, we give her a pass. We let her by with a slap on the wrist. We don't check into her. We overlook things that we would slam others [the little, unimportant people] down to hell for doing!! We make people like her out to be a hero, only because she can draw people and money.
[So I see the same thing with the body of Christ.]
Let me give a parallel example. If I was some serious inappropriate content addict who looked at naked people all day, I wouldn't go into a job where I filtered out objectionable websites for an internet filtering company.
You get these warning signs about people, and a lot of people brush it under the rug, and just pooh-pooh the danger signs, and just act like everything's okay.
