Warning: Jesus Culture Cult - Cult Education Forum

 Cult Education Forum

Bill Johnson, the Bethel Cult in Redding California

The warnings for this church group should raise red flags for anyone involved with this movement! 

The theology promoted by Bill Johnson (Senior Pastor at Bethel), along with teachers like Kris Vallotton, is what should be raising red flags for Bethel Church members and anyone looking at this group!
What these men teach is a far cry from orthodox Christianity. This movement falls more in line with the "Word Faith," "Signs & Wonders," New Age Mysticism, Hypnotherapy, and the "Prosperity Gospel" movements. These teachers are embracing such teachings as:
 
1. The demotion of God and the deification of man.  
2. One can become a god, heal one's self and others.  
3. Johnson teaches that Jesus was simply a man Who was somehow spiritually connected to God. 
3. Jesus became sinful and had to be born again.  
4. That Jesus went to hell. 
5. Bethel's association with the New Apostolic Reformation embraces the many false teachings coming from this group, such as its modern Gnosticism.  These include the teachings of the "Latter Rain",  with self-appointed prophets like Bob Jones. Mr. Jones is reported to have had women come into his office and disrobe in front of him in order to get a supposed word from God. 
6. A failure to heal is caused by a lack of faith. 

This news from Bethel in 2010 should raise even more concerns:  

"Rather than call police when their drinking partner fell — or was pushed — off a nearly 200-foot cliff, two students at a Redding Bible school tried first to reach the severely wounded man and pray him back to life, a lawsuit alleges."  (Source) 

"Angel feathers,"' "diamonds," and "gold dust" have also been reported to appear suddenly in services.  

When "angel feathers" first started to fall at Bethel Church, Bill Johnson thought birds had nested in the air conditioning ducts, he said.  (Source)

Bill Johnson responded apathetically to the gold glitter cloud that appeared at Bethel in 2009. Yet he deemed it a manifestation of the glory of the Lord. 

(Source)

Jesus Culture's Dangerous Denial of Christ

Q&A: Bill Johnson & Bethel Church in Redding

The Berean Call

www.thebereancall.org

August 2012

Question: I don’t understand why Bill Johnson and Bethel Church in Redding are not classified as a cult (along with Word-Faith). They deny the deity of Christ, they deny the Scriptures and add to and subtract from them, their schools of ministry are lessons in how to operate in the occult and demonology (I was shocked when a friend told me what techniques they used). They are false teachers and wolves in sheep’s clothing. What do you think?

Response:  Bill and Brenda Johnson are the Senior Pastors of Bethel Church in Redding, California. Bethel Church is firmly aligned with the Word-Faith movement and identifies with the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), or the Third Wave Movement with its “prophets,” “apostles,” and alleged manifestions. Bill Johnson is called an “apostle” by C. Peter Wagner (See  TBC  5/97, 2/07). His theology has amounted to what some call a “ de facto  denial of the deity of Christ.”

By this, they are referring to Johnson’s teaching that Christ set aside His deity during His earthly sojourn. Johnson has said, “Jesus was (and is) God. Eternally God. That never changed. But He chose to live with self-imposed restriction while living on earth in the flesh—as a man. In doing so, He defeated sin, temptation, the powers of darkness as a man. We inherit His victory—it was for us. He never sinned!” (Bill Johnson, Facebook 3/21/2011).

If Johnson had stopped at this point, his view of Christ would seem to be biblical—but he didn’t.

Consequently, that’s not all that he’s taught or all that his followers have said. Speaking of Jesus, Johnson wrote, “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” (Johnson,  When Heaven Invades Earth , p. 29). That’s human reasoning, and by implication opens the way for a deification of man.

Johnson’s view of our Lord’s “emptying Himself,” of which the literal meaning is “humbled himself” (Philippians 2:7), aligns very well with the Latter Rain/Word-Faith “little gods” teaching of Kenneth Copeland and others. Johnson has gone on to say,  “God gave every believer the power to heal as Jesus did”  (Johnson, “You’ve Got the Power,”  Charisma Online , March 2012). In line with Word-Faith teaching, Johnson and his followers speak of these presumed abilities in a way that sounds very much like mind science and departs from Scripture.

Though differing from Jehovah’s Witnesses, who deny the deity of Jesus, Johnson’s view of Christ is confusing at best, and he endangers his followers by leading them away from the security of the Word.

Johnson writes, “Those who feel safe because of their intellectual grasp of Scriptures enjoy a false sense of security. None of us has a full grasp of Scripture, but we all have the Holy Spirit. He is our common denominator who will always lead us into truth. But to follow Him, we must be willing to follow off the map—to go beyond what we know” (Johnson,  When Heaven,  p. 76).

In conclusion, Johnson is advocating extrabiblical revelation. Going “off the map” is forsaking the safety and sufficiency of Scripture.

This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. (Joshua:1:8)

The human tendency is to focus on experience, which then can lead to a number of problems. The charismatic movement is full of examples of people who did not “prove all things” (1 Thessalonians:5:21), and it eventually led to pride, an attitude of superiority, imitating and covetousness by followers, and ministries full of error and imbalance. The works of God are indeed splendid  and hand tailored , but how we handle them must glorify Him and Him alone. Source

Jesus Culture LA's Non-Christian Roots and Fruit

What is the history of

the Jesus Culture movement?

 

Do the teachings at Jesus Culture conferences line  up with the Bible? 

This teaching video addresses the historical roots of the Jesus Culture Movement and its current fruits, specifically the teaching presented at the Jesus Culture Los Angeles Conference in August 2012.

These additional videos explore the "Word-Faith" movement, the heretical stream of non-Christian teaching addressed in the above video. The first is part 1 of an eleven part series by Tim Martin of Watchman.Org

Justin Peters also has an excellent teaching series on the movement. 

This is part one of four teaching videos.

Pastor Rebukes False Teacher and Points Toward Christ (VIDEO)

Pastor Scott Rodriguez and “Pastor” Dayna — The Real Story

[Translate]

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Pastor Rodriguez was kind enough to email out to a few of us the full story of the video we have all seen by now. ( if you haven’t See Below)

Here is What Pastor Scott Sent out:

Brothers, several have been asking for some backstory/context on these videos. Mrs. Muldoon set her tent up across the street from our church (it is still there until Sunday 5/20.) I received a call from one of our people that some families that attend our church were sitting in her audience. Others were there to pray and share the gospel afterwards with people leaving. They had been accosted by a young man named Devon, (the managers son) on the evening before when he overheard one of our young men talking with someone after the service about the call of Pastor being reserved for men.

I came out at the end of her Saturday night service and spoke with her, and her manager Dennis about their perspective on what had occurred. They felt that they were being heckled. I asked what they were preaching in order to get a better idea about their ministry, and explained to them that we, as a Gospel preaching church, would be extremely sensitive to a ministry that came off as strange as hers. She then claimed to be preaching the same message I described to her: that Christ came in the flesh to die upon a cross for the sins of man; that he was buried and rose again 3 days later; and that people are commanded by God the Father to turn from sin and put their faith in His Son’s finished work on the cross in order to be saved; and finally that there is no other way of salvation. She claimed that this was her message too, but that she also believed in miracles – which I agreed are still done today according to the will of God. I shared with her that if she would give me some materials to look over to her affirm her claims about her message, I would come back the next day and say a quick word to people from our Church about the need to refrain from being disruptive, disrespectful, and to hold any questions or disagreements until after her service to be voiced with her or her leaders. After some more discussion she said that would be acceptable to her.

I came back the next evening. She didn’t call me up as we’d discussed. Had she, I honestly don’t know what I would have said. I sat through about  an hour of what I’d classify as normal charismatic preaching quite off-base, but nothing overly shocking. However, there was a transition after her message into various fraudulent acts of “ministering in the “Holy Spirit” that range from her laying hands on people who would respond by gyrating, shaking, screaming, flapping arms like being in a strong wind, knocking over chairs, throwing themselves down (not falling) on the floor. She prophesied over 3 girls that she said were seated where the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were, that would be getting married in June – she acted as if she knew nothing of their personal lives, but one of them was the attorney for the ministry that I’d met the night before – the other two were her friends. She said angels were there and that there could be voices of angels heard in her music because they followed her wherever she went. Then she scared a 3 year old little girl when she called her mother up – girl in arms, and began laying hands all over her body (the Mom’s).

Finally, I thought it was over, but she walked up to me where I was seated on the front row, and began “prophesying”. She said, “Young man spit your gum out and face me”. I got up (probably should have just walked out), and she began telling me how I thought I had come as a peacemaker, but was really there because God had used the hecklers to get me to her tent because He had something to give me through her. Then she went on and on saying all kinds of stuff, including that I said or thought that her ministry was a work of God, and that she was doing good and trying to help people. That was a lie. I never led her to believe any such thing. At that point I felt I needed to make it clear that I didn’t agree with her message or ministry, and that’s what I tried to do. Sadly I think it appears more as though some guy got in a prayer line or requested prayer and then seized on the opportunity – which isn’t true.

My greatest desire is to see God’s people warned, but I don’t feel I did things perfectly. Here’s why: I knew the right thing to do was to seek my Senior Pastor’s approval, but as a matter of convenience I did not. He is a man of God, and would have helped find a more godly way of approaching this, but in a moment of passion I acted and entrapped myself. Please don’t misunderstand, I believe once in the circumstance the worse thing I could have done is simply remained quiet, but I just feel as though Jesus would have done it differently. So while I stand behind my words to Mrs. Muldoon and would plead with people to flee from any ministry that replaces the Blood stained Gospel of Jesus Christ with a pursuit of miracles,  I ask forgiveness of the Lord and my brothers for any way in which I got ahead of the Spirit of God or acted independently. Finally, please know that I’m not the bold man some think I am, I’m a man who is inconsistent and struggles with the fear of man like everyone else – we all desperately need the Cross, myself included.

P.S. I don’t use face book – maybe if people know that  my wife can get some sleep.

I would Simply Say that Pastor Scott is clearly a Humble and Godly Pastor. While He may not think of himself as a bold man, I can firmly and honestly say that He showed great boldness and love for his flock. I doubt I will ever get to meet Pastor Scott in person, but I can honestly say that he has both convicted and encouraged me. I look forward to Worshiping at the feet of the Lamb with Pastor Scott one day.

Joel Osteen - Demonic False Teacher (Washer, MacArthur, Piper)