BETHEL IS A NEW AGE THEOLOGICAL BROTHEL

By Akin Ojumu

Let’s talk about Bethel. Yes, that Bethel.

Although this Church – and I’m using the word Church loosely – is situated in a tiny urban town within a largely rural part of California, don’t be fooled by its Anytown, USA, location. Its quaint bedroom town setting deceptively belies the reach of its influence.

Established in 1952 and currently led by Bill Johnson (the self-appointed apostle and Senior Leader) with the assistance of Kris Vallotton (the resident false prophet and Senior Associate Leader), Bethel Church is a non-denominational neo-charismatic megachurch in Redding, California, with over 11,000 members. As one of the most influential charismatic churches in the world, Bethel is the marque of the heretical New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) movement. 

From its rural home, Bethel’s theology and music, like an aggressive metastatic carcinoma, spread around the world, on the wings of its worship ministry (known as Bethel Music) and on the broomstick of its Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (aka Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, BSSM). 

There’s hardly any Pentecostal/Charismatic church in the world that has not been influenced by Bethel’s worship practices, man-centered theological beliefs, and experiential Christianity. Bethel Music, a global music powerhouse, has produced hit songs such as Goodness of God, Raise a Hallelujah, No Longer Slaves, Reckless Love, etc., that are staples of many Churches and Christians worldwide. 

Since its founding in 1998, the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry (BSSM) has produced more than 13,000 graduates. Having been inoculated with Bethel’s teachings, these alumni, who come from all over the world, return to their home churches where they inject Bethel’s theological virus into the veins of members of their local churches. The virulence of these Bethel clones is reflected in the way they distort the Gospel, undermine the sufficiency of Scripture, and lead many biblically undiscerning people into witchcraft and all sorts of New Age practices.

Even though some of you reading this commentary have probably never heard of Bethel Church, one way or the other, you have imbibed several of Bethel’s erroneous teachings, which include the following:

Modern-Day Apostles & Prophets

Bethel affirms the restoration of apostles and prophets as governing offices in the Church. This is the central dogma of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) which teaches that God has raised up the apostles and prophets to whose authority the churches must submit and surrender.

This is, of course, a doctrine of demons. There are no Apostles or Prophets in the Church today. Once their work was done and the Canon of Scripture was completed, the offices of Apostles and Prophets ceased. 

Moreover, the Bible teaches us that the Church is built on the foundation of the Apostles of the New Testament and Prophets of the Old Testament. A foundation is laid only one time. Once the foundation is laid, it is laid. Even now, two thousand years later, the Apostles and the Prophets continue to build the Church as we read and study their writings and teachings which they left for us in the Bible. Their authority is preserved in Scripture – not passed on.

Ephesians 2:18-22

“For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”

Furthermore, the Bible spells out the criteria and qualifications for apostleship, quite clearly and pretty explicitly. To be called an Apostle, you must have been:

(1) With the Lord Jesus from the very beginning of His ministry and,

(2) Chosen and commissioned directly and personally by Jesus Christ himself and,

(3) An eyewitness to the resurrected Christ and,

(4) Given the power to perform miracles, signs, and wonders

Apostles & Prophets Can and Do Get Prophecies Wrong

Unlike the Prophets of the Old Testament and the original Apostles of the New Testament, it is perfectly acceptable for the apostles and prophets of the NAR to get their prophecies and revelations wrong. Getting 90 out of 100 prophecies wrong doesn’t make a false prophet or false apostle. 

NAR prophet Kris Vallotton, Senior Associate Leader at Bethel Church, Redding, California, sums up succinctly the hit-and-miss nature of the prophecies of the NAR apostolic leadership:

“There is a difference between a bad prophetic word and a false prophet. You can get the word wrong and not be a false prophet. Because you give words that aren’t completely accurate doesn’t mean you are a false prophet. It just means that you have prophetic words that need help. I can tell you that there are people who have been wrong for thirty years. I’m not saying they are false prophets, I’m just saying that they are bad ones. There is a difference between a false prophet and a bad prophet. False prophet has an evil heart. A bad prophet just gets everything wrong. I don’t know a prophet that gets everything right. I don’t know a prophet that gets everything right. But you ought…you know…fifty-one percent would be nice, because you could guess better than that.”

This cockamamie nonsense is not taught anywhere in Scripture. It is the figment of Vallotton’s unregenerate mind. God has not changed the standard for judging a prophet. Just as it was in the Old Testament, so it is in the New Testament. And the standard is 100 percent accuracy.

Extra-Biblical Revelation

In his book, Dreaming with God, Bill Johnson writes: 

“It’s difficult to get the same fruit as the early Church when we value a book they didn’t have more than the Holy Spirit they did have.” 

This is an erroneous teaching that invalidates the authority and sufficiency of Scripture.

2 Timothy 3:16-17

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

Scripture is God’s sufficient and authoritative revelation. It is not secondary to subjective experiences or personal revelation.

Jesus Ceased to be God

Bill Johnson, in his book, When Heaven Invades Earth, claims that:

“Jesus is eternally God, but He laid His divinity aside as He walked the earth.”

This blasphemous teaching is the kenotic heresy, which is an unbiblical view of Christ’s nature that postulates that the divinity of the Son of God was somehow lost or lessened when the Lord took on human flesh and entered our world.

Colossians 2:9

“For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity dwells in bodily form.”

A wrong view of Christ produces a wrong Gospel, theology, and, ultimately, a wrong life. Misunderstanding the deity, humanity, or work of Jesus leads to idolatry, heresy, and an inability to truly love or worship God. A faulty view of Christ often results in a “different Jesus” that cannot save (Source: Google AI).

Jesus is an Example of a Man in Right Standing with God

In his book, When Heaven Invades Earth, Bill Johnson writes: 

“Jesus had no ability to heal the sick. He couldn’t cast out devils, and He had no ability to raise the dead. He said of Himself in John 5:19, ‘the Son can do nothing of Himself.’ He had set aside His divinity. He did miracles as man in right relationship with God because He was setting forth a model for us, something for us to follow….Jesus so emptied Himself that He was incapable of doing what was required of Him by the Father – without the Father’s help.”

Johnson also writes: 

“He performed miracles, wonders, and signs, as a man in right relationship to God….not as God. If he performed miracles because he was God, then they would be unattainable for us. But if he did them as a man, I am responsible to pursue his lifestyle.” 

In the same book, Bill Johnson also teaches that Jesus became “the Christ” when he came up from His water baptism.

Again, this is the kenotic heresy. While He was on earth, the Lord Jesus Christ was fully God and fully Man. He never, at any time, ceased to be divine.

In his review of Bill Johnson’s book, When Heaven Invades Earth, Bob DeWaay writes:

“If Johnson is right and Jesus had laid aside His deity, then the mighty works prove only that Jesus learned what anyone could learn if he had the right faith and relationship to God. The claims of the Gospels thereby become moot. Jesus is no longer unique, but only a special enlightened one who could lead the way to many such enlightened ones in the future. Thus, we have a New Age Christ rather than the Biblical one. If Johnson is correct and we can do greater works than Jesus (based on his misinterpretation of John 14:12; Johnson: 136), then whoever did greater works would have even greater reason to make himself the object of someone’s faith and worship. The apologetic that points to Jesus’ life and miracles as proof of His deity would become worthless because others could do the same.”

I couldn’t agree more. Bill Johnson is a New Age guru who employs distorted and twisted Bible verses to promote his New Age teachings.

Grave Soaking/Grave Sucking

Bethel leaders and students of the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry (BSSM) often visit graves of famous dead preachers whom they believe had miraculous power while they were alive. They do this hoping to receive “impartation” of anointing. Known as grave soaking or grave sucking, these folks engage in this demonic act believing they can “soak up” the spiritual anointing or “mantle” left behind by deceased Christians.

While Bill Johnson has tried to distance himself and Bethel from the practice, he, however, writes in his book, The Physics of Heaven:

“There are anointings, mantles, revelations and mysteries that have lain unclaimed, literally where they were left, because the generation that walked in them never passed them on. I believe it’s possible for us to recover realms of anointing, realms of insight, realms of God that have been untended for decades simply by choosing to reclaim them and perpetuate them for future generations.”

The idea that anointings and mantles of dead charlatans lay unclaimed at graveyards is a concept from the occult. The practice of grave sucking is necromancy and sorcery which the Bible says are abominations to the LORD. 

Deuteronomy 18:9-14

“When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you. You shall be blameless before the Lord your God, for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do this.”

Guaranteed Healing

On page 127 of his book, The Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind, Bill Johnson writes:

“There’s no disease Jesus wouldn’t have healed. There’s no affliction that’s from the Father. So, we go after all of it.”

Not only is the idea of guaranteed healing not taught in Scripture, but it is also especially dangerous because of the false expectations it creates in the people that believe in it.

What the Bible tells us to do when we are sick is to pray. Whether or not we receive healing when we ask for it is up to God’s divine prerogative and sovereign providence. We have not been guaranteed that we will be free or healed of sicknesses in this life. 

James 5:13-16

“Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”

2 Corinthians 12:7-9

“So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

It may surprise you to know that none of the aforementioned teachings and practices promoted by Bethel is new. Variations of these heresies were fiercely debated, denounced, and discarded by the Church centuries ago. The same rejected ideas are now being recycled from the garbage dump of history by Bethel and the NAR. 

The following are just a handful of the antecedents of Bethel’s heresies:

1) Arianism

Promoted by Arius (c. 250–336 AD), an Alexandrian Christian priest, Arianism is a Christological doctrine that taught that Jesus was a created being, not eternally God. This was decisively rejected at the Council of Nicaea (AD 325), which affirmed that Jesus is eternally and fully God.

2) Nestorianism

Based on the teachings of Nestorius of Constantinople, the Archbishop of Constantinople from 10 April 428 to 11 July 431, Nestorianism is the idea that Christ had two separate persons, one human, one divine, rather than one person with two natures. This was condemned at the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451), which upheld Christ’s full humanity and deity united perfectly in one person.

3) Montanism

This is a 2nd century Christian charismatic, apocalyptic movement founded in Phrygia (modern Turkey) by Montanus, along with prophetesses Priscilla and Maximilla. They emphasized personal prophetic revelations that claimed equal authority to Scripture. Early church fathers, like Tertullian and Irenaeus, rejected Montanism, affirming the closed canon of Scripture as the final and authoritative Word from God.

There are many other wingnut, wackadoodle ideas and practices that have emanated from Bethel over the years. These demonic practices have spead to Churches all over the world. 

Here are some of them:

1) Bethel promotes The Passion Translation (TPT). TPT was written by Brian Simmons. Holly Pivec, one of the foremost scholars on the NAR, summarized an interview Sid Roth conducted with Simmons wherein “Simmons claims that, in 2009, Jesus Christ literally visited him in his room, breathed on him, and commissioned him to write a new translation of the Bible. He claims that, by blowing on him, Jesus gave him ‘the spirit of revelation’...” Specifically, Simmons said, “he breathed on me so that I would do the project, and I felt downloads coming, instantly. I received downloads. It was like, I got a chip put inside of me. I got a connection inside of me to hear him better, to understand the scriptures better and hopefully to translate.” (Source: Thinking and Living Biblically).

2) Bethel Church claims to frequently encounter unexplained phenomena both during their services and also in their everyday lives, such as falling gold dust and “angel” feathers. 

According to Bill Johnson, “the feathers, gold dust, etc., are not things we do. They just happen.” (Source: The Gospel Coalition).

3) Bethel members also claim to see a “glory cloud,” the appearance of dust/smoke in their services that they say is a supernatural sign of God’s presence, similar to the pillar of cloud that traveled with Moses and the Israelites (Ex. 13:20–22). (Source: The Gospel Coalition).

4) “Fire Tunnel” or “Tunnel of Fire” is a New Age ritual invented and propagated by Bethel. It entails people who are deemed “anointed” forming two lines (i.e. a “tunnel”) through which others walk to receive laying on of hands, prayer, prophecy, and “impartation” or “transference” of “anointing” they supposedly carry. As people walk through the tunnel and hands are laid on them, they often display strange physical manifestations, which range from appearing drunk and laughing hysterically to getting “slain in the spirit,” jerking or shaking, etc. 

Now, it’s important to note that none of this is taught or promoted in Scripture.

5) Jenn Johnson, Bill Johnson’s daughter-in-law and co-founder of the Bethel Music label, believes the Holy Spirit is like the sneaky blue genie from Aladdin. She even thinks the angels around God’s throne text each other and they have farting contests in their downtime.

6) Beni Johnson, Bill Johnson’s late wife, believed and taught that there are “different kinds of angels: messenger angels, healing angels, fiery angels” who have “fallen asleep.” In a blog post she wrote, “I think that they have been bored for a long time and are ready to be put to work.” She relates a story about one of her students at the Bethel Supernatural School of Ministry who claims God told her to go to the chapel and yell “WAKEY WAKEY!” (Source: The Gospel Coalition).

7) Bethel promotes the use of “Christian Tarot Cards,” which they call Destiny Cards. Teams associated with Bethel often go to New Age festivals as undercover “Christians” where they set up booths, that look like psychic booths, and seek to evangelize New Agers by offering Christianized versions of psychic services. Their services include “Destiny Card” readings, modeled after Tarot cards.

8) Students from Bethel’s Supernatural School of Ministry often go to the morgue to “practice” raising the dead, unsuccessfully, of course.

9) In December 2019, 2-year-old Olive Heiligenthal, the daughter of Bethel Music songwriter Kalley Heiligenthal, suddenly stopped breathing in her sleep. Instead of letting the poor family grieve for their dead child, Bill Johnson discouraged the family from immediately laying the child to rest. Bethel engaged in a week-long fruitless effort, praying for the child’s resurrection. They organized 24-hour worship sessions with the hashtag #WakeUpOlive inviting people from all over the world to pray for Olive to rise from the dead. 

It was all for nothing. Poor Olive stayed dead. She was, eventually, buried in a quiet ceremony away from the TV cameras and social media melodrama. Bethel had to hire a high-priced PR company to help clean up their damaged image.

You see, Bethel Church presents itself as Spirit-filled and Jesus-centered, but Christians must look beyond appearances and examine doctrine. If you or someone you know is involved with Bethel or similar movements, take time to compare their teaching with the Bible. Seek out a biblically faithful church, study sound doctrine, and help others do the same. Share this truth with compassion – and courage. 

Bethel’s teachings consistently contradict God’s Word. The danger isn’t just in what they say – it’s in what they assume: that Scripture isn’t enough, that experience is a higher authority, and that Jesus is a model of power rather than the Savior who bore our sin in our place, for our sin, rose, and is totally and completely sufficient.

When core truths about Scripture, Christ, and salvation are distorted, the result is spiritual harm to individuals and entire congregations. They strike at the heart of the Gospel, the character of God, and the authority of His Word.

Here is what you should know. Bethel and NAR religious establishments like it are New Age brothels where those who patronize them acquire spiritually transmitted diseases that imperil the soul. These are places you must mark and avoid like a plague.

P.S: This commentary used materials borrowed from Thinking and Living Biblically, The Gospel Coalition, and Servants of Grace.