A controversial preacher who has claimed he can cure people of their illnesses by hitting and kicking them has been banned from entering the UK by the Home Office.
Clergy had raised concerns about Todd Bentley’s unorthodox methods — which include choking people, kicking them in the face and pushing them over.
Reality is not what it used to be. Bene Diction reports that Todd Bentley — yes, that Todd Bentley — recently twittered, “Discovery channel has approached us on a new Reality series. Let’s take gospel to the world.”
Bene Diction rightly wonders, “Given Todd Bentley’s record of deceit and prevarication, it is mind-boggling that a TV network would consider a reality show about him. Has Discovery done any research on him at all?”
Todd Bentley, an atypical evangelist who drew thousands to a series of summer revivals in Lakeland, plans to divorce his wife amid revelations that he is romantically involved with the nanny of his children, according to his ministry.
Ministry leaders write, “Having spoken with Todd in recent days, he is resolute in his intentions to divorce Shonnah, and in his mind, the restoration he is seeking is one which would not include reconciliation with his wife. Todd admits to being 100% responsible for the divorce.”
For four months, the Florida Outpouring was an international phenomenon.
Then, in early August, the board of directors of Bentley’s Fresh Fire Ministries of Abbotsford, British Columbia, announced he and his wife were separating because he had developed an “unhealthy” emotional attachment to another woman. There were reports that Bentley engaged in “excessive drinking.”
Bentley abruptly turned the revival over to the Rev. Stephen Strader, pastor of Ignited Church, and left town.
What is the Lakeland Outpouring’s legacy?
What a performance it was: For the past few months, Todd Bentley, a 32-year-old former drug addict from Canada’s west coast, was the hottest thing going on the global televangelist circuit. A hog-riding faith healer with a devil-may-care attitude.
Then he failed his flock, the old fashioned way: By consorting with another woman.
The pastor in whose Florida church the Todd Bentley circus started says Bentley kept him out of the loop for his protection.
The loop? Bentley, who claims to get visited by angels, take trips to heaven and talk with the Apostle Paul, recently filed for separation from his wife — days before it was revealed that he was carrying on an “unhealthy relationship” with a female staff member.
In stepping down, Bentley will also refrain from all public ministries, including his meetings in south Florida which have attracted about 300,000 people to a church and baseball stadium since April.
“In the meantime, he’s going to get himself refreshed,” said Ken Greter, International Missions Director for Fresh Fire Ministries.
Three days after reacting to news that controversial evangelist Todd Bentley is separating from his wife, the board of Directors of Fresh Fire Ministries announces that he has also agreed to step down from his position on the Board of Directors and to refrain from all public ministry for a season to receive counsel in his personal life.
They cite an unhealthy relationship…
Up to 10,000 people a day have been flocking to a Florida baseball stadium to lose themselves in ecstatic music and appeal to Bentley for divine healing, which the T-shirted, bling-wearing redhead sometimes offers by kneeing the sick in the stomach or kicking them with his biker boots and shouting “Bam!”
A number of rival conservative Christian radio hosts, apocalypticists and charismatics have attacked the Canadian preacher for, among other things, claiming to have gone to heaven and met and talked with angels, Jesus and the apostle Paul.
Todd Bentley, who led a Pentecostal revival in Lakeland from a modest beginning to near-historic proportions, has filed for separation from his wife, a former spokesperson said Monday, and will not return to the ongoing revival.
The Bentleys have two daughters and a son, and are Canadian citizens. Under Canadian law, separation is a preliminary step in divorce proceedings, lasting nine months.