***********Update 07/29/2011*********
Let me just say prior to the rest of the update- the following is 100%, absolute proof that Bill Johnson is a liar whose first priority is to protect his own image. Bill Johnson himself stated on more than one occasion that HE and/or members of his organization had PERSONALLY SPOKEN TO the people who performed the Brazil resurrections, but could offer no more explanation for reasons they would not share. Bill Johnson is on record, on HIS OWN FACEBOOK PAGE stating this, and as you will see below….he is absolutely, positively a liar. If you hate him, if you love him, read on…because no matter how you feel about him, you cannot say he handled this story with any level of honesty or integrity.
(I preface everything with that partially because it is irrefutable, but also because it will get people to “refute it” by saying…..”Well, what PROOF do YOU have that the email is REAL?!?!?!” Or, “pretty convenient isn’t it that Bill went and deleted all the comments you are saying he posted! Where is YOUR PROOF!?!?”…because those are the types of things that people who worship liars instead of God tell themselves in order to sleep at night. And hey, works for Bill, you idiots just paid for him to take a three month vacation in Hawaii that he justified with his usual brand of horribly inaccurate theology.)
Sooo…for anyone who continues to follow this, the story has been officially recanted by the very people who began this whole debacle. I’ll post the text from the full email below, but long story short, the “nurse” who went with the imaginary team to Brazil and performed the imaginary resurrections, was….GASP!!!!!….making the whole thing up! It only took six months for the braintrust who swore and swore and swore, and defended, and watched this whole thing turn into a circus, to realize their friend was an insane liar. Now, that is the story they are telling….I would bet anything on this planet that Claudia and David are lying about many, if not ALL, of the details. They have known this was total BS for quite some time so they got their story straight once even more video came out proving these resurrections never could have happened. How do I know this? Same gut instinct that literally called every single twist and turn in this story since it was first posted, with zero error. The simplest answer is usually the truth, and the simplest answer HERE isn’t that a single person created an elaborate ruse that fooled so many people for so many months. This is simply a way for those two to deflect blame so they can get on with their lives, play the victims, boo-hoo for a bit and keep going Bethel-wild. Do I have proof? No. But before you hammer me too hard for calling them massive lying liars, make sure you weren’t one of the idiots who needed a lot LESS proof to believe sixteen people were raised from the dead despite the fact that Bethel-friendly missionaries visited the impacted area and talked to residents and officials and came to the conclusion that this was one huge hoax.
I think this whole thing is symptomatic of the addiction that followers of Bethel, IHOP, Vineyard, etc. have to the fantastical. For the most part, the American contingent is hugely self-serving and they have more in common with a political party than a Christian movement. To doubt the resurrections when they were first reported was nearly heresy, as was asking for proof or questioning the character of the insanely hypocritical garbage-speaking egomaniac Bill Johnson. Even if THIS instance wasn’t true, a million other reports (of which, ZERO have ever been verified) of miracles WERE true, so this was a one-off, yada yada yada….long story short, what was the BIG DEAL if this specific one wasn’t true? To cast doubt on Bethel and Bill Johnson is to question an idol that people have invested far, far too much time, money and emotion into to ever let it be tarnished. If you don’t believe me, try this….go over to any of Bill or Bethel’s Facebooks and see how long any question about this retraction lasts on their wall. Not only will they delete it, they will block you from ever posting there again. I dare you to prove me wrong. It was mighty big of Healing Herald to post a tiny retraction buried way down on the website and not allow any comments or questions to be posted. Not nearly as bad as Bill, but the Healing Herald people truly are self-serving assholes. The only thing that gets more time an energy than the “ministry” of posting hundreds of miracle claims that cannot possibly be validated (giving them plausible deniability), is the time and energy that goes into making sure the actual truth never, ever sees the light of day….and if it does, it is controlled with the same kind of spin-tactics as any political movement. They equate “truth” with whatever continues to make them and Bethel look good, and they work backwards from that assumption. Then you trickle all the way down to the jobless, prosperity doctrine mouthbreathers like the dude who says he actually SPOKE TO the Brazil team leader and VERIFIED that the miracles happened….. http://dasparling.blogspot.com/ . You seriously need to read this asshole’s writing….he is the ultimate case of what can happen to you when you become so insulated in self-serving, hypocritical heresy that reality totally disappears. First, (and I’m sure he’ll end up either deleting the comment on his most recent post OR saying HE was a victim just like Claudia and David) this dude shot down all doubters by saying that he literally met the Brazilian team leader. Humongous, absolute, LIE. No such person even exists. Second, he has no real job outside of begging money for missions trips, but his obsession with money over Christ or anything else is proven by the fact that he talks about it most of all…dude has every dollar for every day accounted for and how God granted it to him…including the time he had zero money but felt God would want him to take a date to an extremely expensive restaurant. And sure enough, he had enough money by the end of the day and instead of doing anything responsible like paying rent so he didn’t dick his roommate over AGAIN and force THEM to pay the whole thing, he went on a date! But that’s okay, because this is all God doing it! Not having a job, begging for money and then squandering that money is at the heart of Bethel theology! I kid you not, and this guy is just one out of a million “I wanna be famous…for JESUS!” assholes who forsake all that is even remotely Christian in order to follow Bill Johnson. And every one of them has at least four places where you can send them cash.
Anyway, couldn’t just post the following suspicious-sounding retraction without taking the opportunity to talk some smack….totally true, 100% accurate smack, but smack the same. Oh, and for any of you who think I’m heartless in my approach since these fine people finally came forward….too little too late. They’ve hidden like roaches since this whole thing blew up, letting other people take the heat for them and fight their battle, and after all of that they take the same cockroach way out. Oh, they want the truth out there….as long as it in no way inconveniences them or costs them anything. They know that Papa Bill and Bethel have enough egg on their face to guarantee they won’t let a word of this be uttered on their websites or in their building.
Friends and loved ones,
You are free to send the body of this email to anyone you’d like. In fact, we encourage you to send it to everyone who may have been previously informed about this story because we want the truth to be released. We simply ask that our email addresses remain confidential (which you can accomplish by copying everything below this paragraph and pasting into a new message). Please do NOT forward this email because our email addresses will remain in the header.
Back in January, we released a story about a nurse friend of ours who was part of a team that traveled to Brazil on a medical missions trip and raised 16 people from the dead. At the time, we had every reason to believe the story was true because (like many of you) we are actively involved in a culture where the supernatural activities of God are a normal part of everyday life. Furthermore, we had been her pastors in San Francisco for over 10 years, had begun to interact over Facebook with other members of “the team”, and asked some of her other friends and pastors in SF for character references (which simply seemed like a wise thing to do given the nature of the story).
In releasing the story, we had every intention of bringing glory to God while protecting the anonymity of the team (who, we were told, were fearful that their medical licenses would be jeopardized should their names be associated with such a fantastic miracle story). It all made sense to us at the time. We are still going to protect the identity of our nurse friend (however, now for very different reasons…read on).
Late last week, we discovered some troubling information about her that casts a huge shadow of doubt over the Brazil dead raising story and everything she’s shared with us since we met her 12 years ago. This news came as a shock to us and to our friends in San Francisco who thought they knew her well. Essentially she has been lying to us about a great many things (her job, her credentials, her travels and missions work, her association with prominent world leaders, etc). She created fake Facebook profiles for all the members of “the Brazil team” and was personally managing them (fake check ins, wall posts, photoshopped pics and other pics downloaded from the internet and fake stories written about them). She had given each “person” a different role on “the team” and distinct personalities and managed them so well that they came to life for us. For months we have been interacting daily with many members of the team over email and FB (encouraging them, praying for them, giving them prophetic words), thinking all along that they were unique individuals with whom we had become very close. The deception was elaborate, and we’ve been deeply wounded by this revelation. Earlier this week, all those profiles were deactivated/disabled at the same time (presumably by her).
We have amassed a great deal of evidence that we’ve made available to Bethel Church leaders since our nurse friend had personally met with several of them and since Bethel’s name was linked to the original story. We also released this evidence to a small group of friends from San Francisco who are in the best position to help her. We are NOT planning to release this information to the general public as it would only serve to defame our friend, and that is not our intention.
Why has she done this? we aren’t completely sure. We think it’s in response to a painful break up she experienced last Christmas or possibly something much deeper.
We’ve confronted her in love with the guidance of a licensed Christian psychologist and assembled a small team of her close friends in SF to support and encourage her to receive professional help. Unfortunately, at this time, she’s not admitting to any lies/deception, and she’s cut us off. We still love her very much, want to see her whole, and continue to reach out to her. Given her current condition and need for healing, we will not be releasing her name. There was so much controversy regarding the initial release of the story that revealing her name would draw attention that would undermine every effort to see her whole. We hope someday, when she’s ready, that she will choose to take responsibility for her actions and publicly apologize.
Please accept our humblest apologies for our involvement in this story. We are so deeply sorry for the people that have been led astray or hurt. We have learned a very valuable lesson……Believe in the supernatural, trust your friends, but still do adequate due diligence (i.e. fact checking) when a story seems too good to be true.
We believe in a great God who does amazing miracles, even if this one was a fabrication.
Blessings,
David and Claudia
***********Update 03/15/2011**********
For anyone who is still following the story or looking for updates, one of the many blogs to initially report this is now claiming in their comments section that this story is absolutely true, and that the leader of the team who went to Brazil (despite the fact that the possibility of any foreign teams being in the area at that time has been completely debunked by Brazilian officials) was just at Bethel. Well, isn’t it weird how only people who are closely tied to Bethel have the honor of knowing who these powerful, magical people are who performed the greatest miracle in modern history…..and are too lacking in integrity and honesty to come forward with a shred of proof or testimony? “Trust us, this really happened?”. Yeah, you degenerates are really following the example of Christ….seriously how do you even sleep at night knowing how deeply in denial you have to be to continue defending lies just to satisfy your own misdirected pride?
Anyway, here is one more person who PROMISES they know a person who was THERE to witness the miracle….and even though their identify or the details cannot be discussed, they know that the source is solid!
Really! I Swear The Miracle Happened!
The claim is down in the comments, but I’ll copy it here for the inevitable time when the comment is deleted once it starts to see some traffic and people ask too many questions…
“Alright, I’ve looked into it – the story is totally true, the leader of the team was at Bethel this last week. The article however has been formally de-bunked, and the link you provided makes that quite clear. The fake article was created by an interpreter, and his motives aren’t exactly clear. I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that it was his attempt at a creative expression for memories sake, but it was definitely not supposed to be presented as a real article, and somewhere along the line it got presented as that. I’ve removed the article’s contents from my post. The story, as it’s presented, is acurate. Thank you for your concern.”
The Brazil resurrections aside….have any of the “resurrections” claimed by Bethel been independently verified? I’m not talking about the friends of friends of cousins giving a testimony, or the myriad YouTube video testimonies from unknown people, or the words of someone who was way over in some foreign country, or the reports from the Dead Raising Teams who “resurrected” someone who happened to be having a heart attack in a restaurant and never really died….I’m talking about this- someone stone cold, rigor mortis dead for hours, resurrected through prayer. Pronounced dead by a doctor hours earlier, indpependently verified with any sort of medical record….and then brought back to life? You see, that is why all of these supposed miracle stories fall apart and only serve people who are already willing to believe them…..REAL miracles do not require a leap of faith to believe they happened, and they don’t require you to already be deep in the bosom of a charlatan like Bill Johnson….by their very nature they speak for themselves.
***********Update 02/07/2011**********
I’ll be writing another post soon since this one is pretty much a jumble of information now…..but long story short as things stand now- Bill Johnson and Bethel church have admitted that the newspaper article with the story about the resurrections in Brazil is a hoax. Sadly, despite an amazing amount of evidence to the contrary, provided by missionaries on the ground in Brazil, they are sticking to the lie that the story is REAL….BUT the identities of those involved must be protected for their own safety. Go back and review some of the blog links below for the forensic details, but basically….Bill Johnson is an amazing liar, and his ministry students and staff that created the fake article and have now run and hidden, and are depending on the good graces of the people in Brazil they have hurt not to out them to the world. Claudia and team jumped out of their rabbit holes long enough to delete their Facebook accounts and tell people they had “no honor” for including their names in their blog posts…but then they just ran away. What wonderful examples of Christian love and truth…..but I guess it could be worse, they could be the Bethel ministry students who got drunk, let their friend fall off a cliff, and then let him lie crippled for six hours before calling for help a couple of years ago….because they didn’t want to get in trouble for breaking the “no drinking clause” in their contract.
Again, will follow this up with another blog post, but there are plenty of people who aren’t going to ever let this just go away. It will continue to be like Chinese Water Torture…the question “but why do you still claim the resurrections happen?” is easy to copy and paste over, and over, and over. The arrogance and hypocrisy of “Christians” like Bill Johnson who rely on the co-dependency of their followers in order to ignore huge lies like this one…is just unreal. They apologize for putting out a fake article, but stick to the lie that the story in the fake article DID happen, NEVER, EVER, NOT ONE TIME acknowledge the tragedy in Brazil and call for prayer, and then treat people who expect an explanation like faithless idiots….including those who are doing actual relief work in Brazil and are witnessing the impact of this massive lie. Hundreds dead, thousands homeless, entire neighborhoods destroyed….but I guess the important thing here is that Bethel’s image remains intact so that they can sell more books to people who think that faith means never having to question whatever is spoken by leaders at Bethel. Oh, and jam to some Jesus Culture! WHEEE!!!
There’s still discussion going on at the following Facebook locations for Bethel, Healing Herald, and Bill Johnson. A lot gets deleted, but the Bill-worship and misplaced anger at the Brazilians who want an answer is entertaining, and also extremely sad, to watch-
http://www.facebook.com/bethel.church.redding?ref=ts
http://www.facebook.com/healingherald?ref=ts
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bill-Johnson/54557413386?ref=ts
Much of what Bethel and the people directly involved with the hoax have stated online has been either edited or deleted, but thanks to wonders like Google Cache and Google Reader, little gems continue to pop up, like Bethel’s insistence that the story is still true:
From testimony writer Pam, who still firmly stands behind the friend of a friend of a friend of a friend, but refuses to answer any questions…
“This testimony was sent to us by someone we know and trust and it was given to her by someone she knows and trusts. I cannot answer any more e-mails requesting more information. The medical people involved wish to remain private. I have removed the attached article that seems to bother so many of the readers. However, I do believe that all the details are correct and factual or I would not have posted this testimony. Thank you for your understanding.”
(Side note- it has been confirmed by missionaries in the area, medical personnel, relief workers and government officials that NO foreign medical team of any kind was EVER onsite.)
Oh, and you can read the very lawyerly and non-commital statement that FINALLY came out of Bethel….basically they say the miracles really happened but the story was false, and they are sorry and no matter what they find out in their “investigation” of the matter they will never, ever speak of this again. Partially because Bill Johnson is on record in a podcast and on his Facebook stating the miracles happened….but the doctors who witnessed it could lose their jobs if their names came out…so do you REALLY think there is any chance of him coming clean?
http://www.ibethel.org/site/testimonies/2011/02/02/statement-about-brazil-miracles
*********************end of update**********************************
First, if you would like to read a forensic account of this entire thing that is handled with far more patience and grace than I could ever muster, this is pretty fantastic- www.paulcull.org/blog/
I wanted to throw my hat into the ring so that Google has one more blog linking to this story. In short, there is a completely unsubstantiated report of 16 people being raised from the dead by a Christian missions team in Brazil last week. There’s a photo of the front page of a Brazilian newspaper that in no way matches the actual newspaper….the website for the newspaper makes no mention of the story….there are no names associated with the story whatsoever. Basically it is 100% hearsay but it has people going wild with joy.
It’s important that I posted this right now, because this story will be dead soon….never to be resurrected. When REAL questions are asked of those who insist it is true, they are met with misdirection, masked hostility, “oh it figures that a non-believer doesn’t get this”, mentions of anti-Christian bias in the media, scripture quotations, and last but not least……”well I know someone PERSONALLY who was raised from the dead, so I know this can happen!”. What you get is everything except any real explanation of the story….there is no proof. There is no proof because these stories are usually only meant to be seen by those who are ready to believe anything that comes from someone who already thinks like they do…..when an outsider gets ahold of it, they get defensive, then they go silent, and the story that was never substantiated becomes an urban legend that will be referred to in sermons for generations to come.
Do I believe miracles can happen? Sure. Why am I hurriedly focusing on this one example? I’ve been obsessed with it since last night, and I wanted to give you at least a peek into a culture with which I am all to familiar. Here are a couple of the better sources…..
http://upsidedownbethlehem.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/16-people-raised-from-the-dead-in-brazil-yes/
http://www.ibethel.org/site/testimonies/2011/01/21/sixteen-flood-victims-raised-from-the-dead-in-brazil (link is dead as of the evening of 01/24/2011…shortly after evidence of the REAL newspaper article for that day came to light….what a wonderful and responsible ministry! When caught in a lie….just sweep it under the rug!
If anyone can find anything….any name, picture, documentation, article, news footage….just one single thing that validates this story, here is the place to do it. I know people will see this post, because basically the ONLY places you can find a reference for this tale is on blogs via Google.
More on this later, sorry for such a quick and cheap post, but this cultural phenonemon fascinates me. People who are so specifically socialized into one way of thinking that they are willing to accept anything at face value as long as it matches up with what they already believe…..and any skepticism is met with a retreat back to the hive, where they can immediately be reassured that they are right (even if the story they report to be true is a lie). Whether this specific story is true doesn’t really matter to them, because when met with doubt they can always point to ANOTHER instance where it DEFINITELY happened, or throw out a scriptural reference that proves it CAN happen.
Anyway, I’ll be back once the Theraflu is out of my system….all is well in the household, and I have more than enough on my mind to hand out some more four thousand word rambles…..
*************UPDATE 01/24/2011***********
Clearly I’m overly obsessed with this story, and for whatever reason have a laser-like focus on one in a million similar tales that constantly creep across the blogs. The more I dig into the website of Bethel Church that I have linked above, the more I understand it….hocus-pocus culture for hocus pocus believers with attention deficit disorder. When you are hawking prosperity doctrine books that claim “supernatural and prophetic” methods on the front page of your website…..I don’t really need to read any further. And THIS site is where the aforementioned miracle was reported…..and actually, the ONLY site as of this writing.
Right now, the only sites that are repeating this story are those that are pretty closely aligned with Bethel-style culture, and to sum things up- it is clear that people are ready to believe ANYTHING that is reported from a familiar source despite any shred of evidence, and when any doubts are raised they are ready to believe it even MORE.
Basically:
One anonymous source reports this testimony on Bethel’s website.
As related blogs begin to copy and paste it, a .pdf of a newspaper page reporting this story suddenly appears. The authenticity is sketchy at best, it is not in line with how the real Teresopolis paper is formatted, and there is no mention of this story on the newspaper’s website despite the fact that they have links to prior stories for the past several months.
Someone from one of the blogs supposedly emails a pastor at Bethel, who confirms not that the story is true, but that they trust the person who reported it. BUUUUUUTTTT…for reasons unknown the person wants their identity protected.
Similarly, alleged communications from people still in the field report that the only way they were able to provide as much information as they have has been with the promise that no identities of those resurrected, nor the identities of any doctors, nurses, organizations or facilities were named in the retelling of the story.
I’ll compile a “best of” list of whacked-out retorts later, but people who are defending this story pretty much admit that even if THIS story ends up not being true, there is no denying that more and more of these types of miracles are happening these days and THAT fact can’t be disputed (because they can either cite some book or a friend of a friend or distant cousin who knows one of these stories is true).
So basically, if you’re like me and are calling bullshit on this story, it’s because your heart is hard and there would be no convincing you even if you saw it for yourself! Because, and I quote, IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE IT WHEN YOU HEAR IT, YOU WON’T BELIEVE IT WHEN YOU SEE IT! The secular anti-Christian media is so biased they would never report this through their channels, etc, etc, etc……to doubt this story is to doubt God, and if you can’t trust a believer to be telling the truth about this, who can you trust?
And yes, that is the kind of insane logic with which I am all too familiar….I was that guy once upon a time.
I’m not going to keep rambling about this or do an old school tear-down like I would have a couple of year ago. I just have a simple question. And disclaimer alert, it is based on the fact that my basic belief is of the generic Judeo-Christian variety, and as someone gullible enough to believe a spaghetti monster may very well have at least kicked off the big bang….I say, sure- if God felt like raising some people from the dead, he could do it. And I would not be rude enough afterwards to question what was so special about those 16 people vs. the 584 that were left to rot.
With all of that said, my question is this- who or what was the reporting of this (still unfounded) miracle really meant to serve?
At face value it looks like it was never really meant to see the light of day, and was meant to serve as a basic little shot in the arm for those who would never question its authenticity. Then for whatever reason, out of a gazillion similar stories, it got out on the blogs and did not even pass a simple smoke test.
The only people who were meant to get anything from this story are the people who need it the least. They are the folks already so tightly insulated within this belief and its full-body-cast culture, that they hear similar things every single day. They already believe, are already seeing miracles…they are basically God’s Delta Force. BUT for whatever reason, a miracle so massive in its implication, that if proven with even the most basic evidence….one doctor, one photo, a family member, any first hand account whatsoever, could shake the foundations of even the crankiest agnostic….is purposefully and willingly being hidden from view by the very people who could provide evidence. How selfish of a hypocrite do you have to be to do that? And why?
In my opinion, it is because evangelical/charismatic/pentecostal/fundamentalist culture has safeguards in place to make sure it remains a closed culture. Jesus said “come unto me”….and that’s basically the whole story. Love God with all your heart, your neighbor as yourself. The End. What we have here is a modern church that will totally agree with that statement, but as soon as you DO believe it, and you want to remain (happily) in THEIR church….there is a WHOLE lot of shit you’re going to have to just take for granted as being true if you want to climb the ranks of the sanctified. It’s a process of enculturation and socialization that becomes so specific yet so complicated that all reality begins to be processed through that filter. The biggies are simple….stuff like porn, drinking and being gay are obviously OUT. But once one reaches a level of scriptural sophistication and comparative sanctification…you know, able to eat at the cool kid’s table…then THAT is where all ties with the regular world are, at worst severed completely, and at best turned in to one of those beaded curtains so that they can stick their head out and give plenty of unsolicited, condescending, and often just plain hurtful platitudes. Their lives basically become a game of philosophizing with other likeminded believers over the finer points of scripture as they pertain to exactly what things in this modern world are TOO secular…. you know, stuff like “are you really a Christian if you watch movies like ‘The Hangover’?”. The guy who says NO, well HE is the alpha Christian right then….so everyone tries to be more like him, even if they have to pretend or make stuff up. Secretly they hate his ass. What they don’t realize is THAT dude has the first anniversary edition of The Hangover on Blu-Ray.
So anyway, why can’t the miracle of the resurrected 16 flood victims be shared with any authenticity beyond those who are going to believe it no matter what….
It’s basically this- in order for you to be able to rejoice in this story, you already have to be as deeply invested in the culture as the person or people who are reporting it as the truth.
It’s kind of a continuum….starting with:
Person A (they are reporting the miracle)
Person A encounters Person B (who has not heard about this miracle)
Person B’s reaction can be anything from hugs of joy to punching person A in the mouth, and for every one of those reactions, Person A (you know, the HANGOVER IS BAD guy) has a fitting response that never, EVER budges one millimeter from their little comfort zone. Person B, upon hearing the news, might call for high-fives all around….”YOU HEAR STORIES LIKE THIS EVERY DAY BUDDY, THESE ARE DEFINITELY THE END TIMES THIS TIME!!!”. Then the reactions begin to gravitate out farther, from statements like “How wonderful this is if it’s confirmed!” to “You mean there is no first hand account?” all the way to “BUUUULLLLSHHEEEEIIIIIIITTTT!!!!”. The farther out the reaction goes, the more defensive and earnest person A has to become….because at this point they are way too invested in this thing. Bring the internet into the picture, and the farther out the reaction goes, the more people there are to throw into the argument….and then it’s all about coalition protection, and at the end of it all the MOST you will get the Hangover guy to concede is “Even if this isn’t totally proven, this sort of thing is happening all the time, all over the place!”. As if by magic, God loves to use blatant lies for his glory! Then the stories of the cousins, Benny Hinn’s books, etc., begin, and the culture remains closed…..because unless you already believed the story as much as Person A, you aren’t going to get any type of confirmation or proof beyond what already fits within the safe confines of their distinct language and culture. If you don’t already think and believe like they do, poor you, you don’t really count. What a shame.
That’s how it plays out pretty much every time, and pretty much every time, the story itself gets totally lost and becomes irrelevent. Those who believe already believe, and those who don’t believe (the people who could benefit the MOST) would have to swallow every particle of the culture in order to be invested enough to be able to believe it.
So again, who is the testimony really meant for? Pentecostals claim to want to be like that first century church….but in all of my education and research I can’t find any examples of simple belief and service being so full of complications and intrigue as this most recent report of an alleged miracle. Corporate Megastructures in the shape of gigantic churches are constructed, television channels, radio stations and websites are integrated into society. People have never worked harder to take advantage of the technology available to them in order to get the word out, BUT when anyone asks for simple confirmation via one of these mediums, it’s “WHOOOAAAA Buddy, whoaa, whoaaa, whoaa…..you are going to have to suspend your level of disbelief in order to understand why this miracle has happened!”.
“There will always be doubters, no matter HOW much proof you have”….. and that is absolutely true. So are the miracles only there for the entertainment and edification of the believers? Is that the way Jesus, the apostles and the first century church operated?
Lastly, I really believe that this story, as it stands now, is either the ultimate example of selfishness or the the ultimate example of pride. Selfishness because someone is out there who supposedly has the proof, but they remain silent despite what it could mean to non-believers. Or pride, because those who are pushing this tale know that it is not true, and they are too prideful to admit they are wrong. When in doubt, protect the organization….protect the culture, no matter how badly it goes against the most fundamental basics of the great commission. Be ashamed, be very ashamed….unless you can either come clean that you are using stories of miracles for your own agenda, or you can provide something more than the horribly lacking evidence being scattered on the web.
I know, I know, I’m way too sermon-y lately and as long winded as always……sobriety has ruined me! Oh well, I’m great at entertaining myself.
Seriously though, I’m going to keep following this story because SUPPOSEDLY there are people trying to confirm with the Brazilian newspaper whether they ran it.
*****update, not long after the first update******
Well, this didn’t take long-
Debunked.
http://thejourneyproject.org/missions/digging-for-the-truth-in-teresopolis.html
The actual O Diario article for the 16th compared to the one from Healing Herald, and also a link to what looks like a pretty perturbed Brazilian article taking issue with the aforementioned website. Unless of course, this very rational sounding person who actually lives in Brazil, speaks Portuguese, has what seems to be a faith based website, and has the resources to disprove this story is wasting their time adding to the conspiracy against the faithful.
And OF COURSE, the original story has been removed from the bethel.org site, and the wonderful folks at Healing Herald who provided everyone with the fake .pdf are blocking all comments to their site, and not responding on Facebook. I have an email out to both, and will post any responses here.
THIS ladies and gentleman, is why I obsess over these little things……these megafaith megachurch megalomaniacs act in every way just like any other political machine…..when confronted with their own lies they either make a fancy spin on it, or they bury it.
Unsaved Loved Ones 