Daniel Silliman/US Correspondent.
Charismatic megachurch pastor Bill Johnson urged Bethel Church, in Redding, California, not to dismiss fake prophecy just because it’s fake. Speaking at a “family meeting” on Feb. 3, Johnson said that a made-up revelation, with information taken from Facebook and manipulated to sound like a divine “download” could, in fact, be from God.
“I would say be careful before you throw it out, before you flush it,” Johnson said. “I don’t know if this is the right time for it or not, but just, if you received a prophetic word from somebody that you question, go ahead and question it. But don’t flush it unless you know for sure it’s not from the Lord.”
The senior leader of the 11,000-member Northern California church, known for its emphasis on miracles and widely popular worship music, acknowledged that manufactured “words of wisdom” can manipulate and hurt people. But he asked victims to take a wider perspective.
“I think, if I can be totally frank, I think it’s worth it,” Johnson said. “I think becoming a part of what God’s doing here, in spite of the failures, in spite of the blemishes, in spite of the wrong decisions — that’s not who we are. … What God’s doing here is having incredible impact.”
Bethel Church leaders apologized on Jan. 25 for how they handled prophetic minister Shawn Bolz, remaining quiet about allegations that he faked divine revelation and sexually harassed his staff. Bethel ministers reconsidered their decision to stay silent after Bible teaching Mike Winger accused the church of having a “cover-up culture,” detailing many examples in a five-hour, 50-minute YouTube video.
“We did not tell the truth enough, early enough, long enough, or loud enough,” pastors Johnson, Kris Vallotton and Dann Farrelly said in the Jan. 25 online statement.
A little more than a week later, however, the ministers had a “family talk” with members and regular local attenders. A recording of the Feb. 3 meeting (read transcript), obtained by The Roys Report (TRR), shows Johnson, Vallotton and Farrelly were not entirely sure what they did wrong.
Johnson started by saying he has deep regrets over the hurt people endured in his years in ministry. He and other leaders, he said, had to make “hard decisions” to “choose to move with God.” And some people were “affected negatively by something God was doing.”
In the current crisis facing Bethel, Johnson said he’s deeply concerned charismatics will grow too suspicious of prophetic words. He reminded Bethel of the apostle Paul’s instructions to the church in Thessalonica: “Do not quench the Spirit.Do not despise prophecies,but test everything” (1 Thess. 5:19-21).
Prophetic ministry is essential to the culture of Bethel, according to Johnson, and the church is now in danger of overcorrecting.
“As a result of the prophetic that were in error — you know, obviously, there’s no excuse, but we grieve over that, because we have this mandate to protect the purity of the prophetic,” he said. “We’ve got a challenge right now to really protect in our heart the prophetic.” More work needed discerning the truth
During the Feb. 3 meeting, Johnson pointed to prophetic overseer Ben Armstrong as someone who is helping the church with spiritual discernment. Less than two weeks later, Bethel suspended Armstrong, pending an investigation into allegations he forced an intern into bed with him on multiple occasions.
At the beginning of February, Johnson gave no indication he had any concerns about Armstrong’s character or qualifications for leadership. He did say, though, that character and Christian holiness are unrelated to spiritual anointing.
Sometimes bad people are given prophetic words, Johnson said, while “the most clean prophet you know” says things that aren’t from God.
Top leaders, Johnson told those at the church’s “family meeting,” have done a good job discerning the work of the Spirit at Bethel. But regular churchgoers, he said, need to be reminded it is their responsibility to sift for the truth.
Johnson also admitted he sometimes says things that are untrue in the hope his words will have a positive impact. That’s what happened, Johnson said, when he went on Christian television and praised Bolz publicly, even though he had heard firsthand accounts accusing Bolz of sexual harassment. Johnson, speaking on TBN in 2023, said he was trying to speak something into existence.
He knew what he said about Bolz wasn’t true. He thought it might become true.
“I’ve been able to call people into their destiny,” Johnson said on Feb. 3. “I only had one thing in mind, and that was I want to get into this and deposit something of faith, of courage, into somebody that has been a friend.”
In retrospect, he said, he regretted that decision. According to Johnson, Bethel leadership is now working to increase accountability.
Question of accountability unanswered
Vallotton, another Bethel pastor, was asked in the meeting what increased accountability was going to look like at the church. He struggled to answer.
Senior Bethel leaders, according to Vallotton, need to be having more “hard conversations” with each other. At the same time, he said, he wasn’t convinced that kind of accountability would have made a difference in any of the recent cases.
“Hard conversations with each other probably would have — I don’t know if it would have solved everything,” Vallotton said. “I don’t know. It’s hard to look back and say.”
Vallotton promised that church leaders are making progress at strengthening accountability. But, he said, they were still wrestling with the question of how to do it.
Church leaders have also not found an answer for how they should vet people before putting them on a platform. They also seemed unsure whether leaders are or aren’t responsible for the moral failings of people they have platformed in the past.
Vallotton said he still thinks he and other church leaders dealt appropriately with allegations against Bolz, with the exception that they should have spoken out publicly.
But he said he doesn’t know when they should speak out about other ministers.
“We’ve had hundreds of people on our stage,” Vallotton said. “This is a great question that we are just beginning to ask. So we don’t have an answer to that question, and it needs to be answered.”
‘Not just talk’
Farrelly, the third pastor to speak, said that leaders recognize that one reason people are upset is that Bethel only seems to take responsibility in response to public pressure. But he said, ongoing online criticism of the church has made it more difficult for Bethel ministers to accept accountability.
He called it “accusation fatigue.”
“When you have so many accusations … there’s a frustration on some level, and you’re just done dealing with accusations. I think we had accusation fatigue and resentment potentially going on,” Farrelly said.
Church leaders ended the meeting after a little more than an hour, saying they were still listening to feedback, taking questions and reflecting on them. They asked for patience during the process.
“You will watch us repent, I promise you. Not just talk about it,” Vallotton said. “But it will take us a while.”
About The Author: Daniel Silliman is senior reporter/editor at The Roys Report. He began his two decades in journalism covering crime in Atlanta and has since led major investigations into abuse and misconduct in Christian contexts. Daniel and his wife live in Johnson City, Tennessee.
