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Bulletin 136 Date : 16th Jun 2008
Revival and Healing

From time to time we hear of places where revival and associated healing miracles break out in profusion. A few years ago we had the Toronto Blessing, a manifestation which surrounded the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship. Church leaders debated long and hard about its authenticity and reflected upon the division caused within the Vineyard movement as a result of this. Peculiar stories emerged about how people were given gold fillings, experienced unusually bodily actions (shaking, laughter, quaking and so forth) and this naturally put some Christians on their guard about the whole thing. However, Toronto Blessing hotspots broke out in this country too.

Well this isn’t going away. Only recently, God TV (not a channel I have access to) have been featuring the most recent phenomena – the Dudley Revival. Inspired by the ministry of the Canadian healing evangelist, Todd Bentley (who ministers regularly to crowds in excess of 10,000 in Florida), the church in Dudley is packing hundreds into their meetings and experiencing Toronto-like manifestations along with dramatic healings.

Now, I don’t know where you stand on all of this, but it has always perplexed me why God should choose Toronto rather than East Midlands or Stanstead and why certain people have an overdose of spiritual gifts while other equally faithful ministers and evangelists struggle on in relative obscurity bearing little fruit in comparison.

Is it Revival?
For me revival is about the fulfilment of the Lord’s Prayer, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as in heaven”. Can we therefore say that what has broken out in Toronto, Florida and Dudley is revival? It may be the first-fruits of it but until society has been transformed in a measurable way, surely it is premature to use such a word.

Unconventional?
For respectable, middle class, British Christians with a fair smattering of the ‘stiff-upper-lip’, this all has an air of unorthodoxy. Todd Bentley is covered in tattoos and body piercing and has engaged in child abuse. I don’t know which theological college he went to or who he reports to. I also have concerns about itinerant evangelists who leave a trail of emotionally hurt people in their wake.

But let’s be honest. All this could have been said about Jesus. He was not part of the religious establishment, had no theological qualification to boast about, went from town to town at will, rarely went back to visit those he had healed and was, by the standards of the day, unconventional (healing on the Sabbath – tut tut!). Much to the disdain of the religious authorities, Jesus attracted the kind of crowds they could only dream of.

Verification
I suppose that the real test of the authenticity of these ministries lies in verification. If statistics show that those who come forward for healing have been verified, by health professionals, as healed and their lives have been changed to become more Christ-like, what can we say against it? If, as a result of these outpourings, churches across the nation become more open to the healing work of the Holy Spirit in the same way as the charismatic movement has touched all denominations and streams over the last few decades, then surely that’s something to welcome.

A Word of Warning
In spite of all this, I can well understand the Christians who look at the stage antics of Todd Bentley which, frankly, fit more comfortably with shamanism (see here) than Methodism, and question whether these manifestations are genuinely God-inspired. We know that Christianity does not hold the monopoly on healings and miracles. I’m reminded of those sobering words of Jesus in Matthew 7:21-23). So, what do you think?

Judge for yourself
Here are a few useful links about the latest phenomena:
Todd Bentley Florida Healing Revival
Dudley Revival Fires
Studio Discussion on the Florida Outpouring
Christianity Magazine – July 2008