A Sea Of Red

So uh Bethel is outing themselves as a cult. Pretty heart breaking to give a family hope of a resurrection miracle days after their 2 year old died.

I didn’t hear about that until today but holy crap it’s a mess.

The mother is part of the worship ministry, I believe. They write some decent worship music but have always been a bit out there theology wise. This kind of has taken that to a whole new level.

For reference in case others haven't heard about it

https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion ... th-prayer/

thepostman wrote: ↑December 20th, 2019, 10:01 pm The mother is part of the worship ministry, I believe. They write some decent worship music but have always been a bit out there theology wise. This kind of has taken that to a whole new level.

For reference in case others haven't heard about it

https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion ... th-prayer/

Oh my goodness. Crap like this always keeps me skeptical of emotion-driven churches.

So I think I’ve read somewhere that they have given up...

My sister and brother in law attend church there and...well...lets just say I'm not surprised when I read stuff like this.

Yacht Rock wrote: ↑December 31st, 2019, 9:31 pm My sister and brother in law attend church there and...well...lets just say I'm not surprised when I read stuff like this.

That’s gotta make family get-togethers very fun!

Considering they're in Redding, CA and we live in Virginia, we haven't seen them in a few years.

My sister in law deleted me on Facebook awhile ago when I challenged some of her "medical advice."

Anyone who's been paying attention to Bethel (and most people don't) knows that this is who Bethel is and has always been. Read their stuff, watch their interviews, learn about their "school", it's a bit terrifying. This whole episode with the child is what they *have* to believe, their theology requires it, and that makes it even more heartbreaking.

I get that their music is pretty and enjoyable, but considering the source, maybe start looking elsewhere for your worship music.

if you want further education on Bethel and other like minded individuals(heretics) then check out the documentary entitled "American Gospel".

ALUmnus wrote: ↑January 2nd, 2020, 11:23 am Anyone who's been paying attention to Bethel (and most people don't) knows that this is who Bethel is and has always been. Read their stuff, watch their interviews, learn about their "school", it's a bit terrifying. This whole episode with the child is what they *have* to believe, their theology requires it, and that makes it even more heartbreaking.

I get that their music is pretty and enjoyable, but considering the source, maybe start looking elsewhere for your worship music.

And this is why I do not understand why their music groups have been invited to Liberty on multiple occasions and Nassar has spoken complementary of Bethel. IMO Nasser doesn't exercise much discernment with many of the Christian guests that are invited. I'm not for a narrow, theological purity test but at the same time I think that some things that are pretty blatantly aberrant should be avoided. I know of a couple of LU students who have gone on to Bethel's "School of Ministry".

I haven't listened to much Bethel in the past couple years, but for the most part, their music has been fairly solid theologically, even though the church itself is not.

It's sort of like Hillsong. Many people don't realize Hillsong is a full gospel pentecostal church. But the music is solid theologically so the bands are pretty universally accepted.

I would really like to see Convo have a couple of theological panels discuss positions between some of the groups that are likely represented at Liberty. I'd love panels on predestination, baptism, Christian Liberty(individual sins in actions that may not be sin for others), tongues, and other mild differences. Nothing hostile, I'd just love to see educated discussion. I would even be fine if there were a Baptist bias because LU is SBC, but fair representation to the likely widespread denominations at Liberty. Pentacostal, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Calvinist. It would be a great way to shift some of the political convos and be more interesting than monologs.

What you're talking about is essentially the Elephant Room sessions from 2012-ish. Those didn't end well for some guys. I'd be interested to see if they'd be willing to do that publicly again.

I get why this is a story. I wouldn't write a church off just because of this though. I went to a college friend's funeral here in Virginia and the funeral was over 2.5 hours. The first hour, or so, was dedicated to trying to bring him back to life. It was not in my comfort zone, and I hated that they were giving his kids this false hope - but man did they have faith and truly believed it was possible. I personally know others in this church and can see that they are on fire for the Lord and believe 100% of what I do. Who am I to judge them for having Faith that it could happen. You know it could - my God is capable of anything. Would God chose this time or my friends time - as the time to perform a miracle - probably not, but man does it take a tremendous amount of Faith to ask.

I think the judgment of Bethel is more so on their full body of work and not just this.

Jonathan Carone wrote: ↑January 2nd, 2020, 3:32 pm What you're talking about is essentially the Elephant Room sessions from 2012-ish. Those didn't end well for some guys. I'd be interested to see if they'd be willing to do that publicly again.

I hadn’t heard about Elephant Room at all! Wow that was some serious theological discussion and controversy I missed out on while I was in Guam.

Do you think continuing it(or making convo the forum) publicly with published, public, hard questions(no softballs) weeks ahead of time could make it “fair” for the participants to prepare and for the audience to believe the guests were given adequate opportunity to provide clear positions?

You could have each participating party pose a question and the student body vote on two or three too.

Thinking as those guys - I don’t know that they have much to gain by agreeing to do it.

I also don’t know that convo is the place for it. I almost think you’d need a longer amount of time and a room full of people who cared.

I don’t know of this elephant room

Class of 20Something wrote: ↑January 2nd, 2020, 12:48 pm I would really like to see Convo have a couple of theological panels discuss positions between some of the groups that are likely represented at Liberty. I'd love panels on predestination, baptism, Christian Liberty(individual sins in actions that may not be sin for others), tongues, and other mild differences. Nothing hostile, I'd just love to see educated discussion. I would even be fine if there were a Baptist bias because LU is SBC, but fair representation to the likely widespread denominations at Liberty. Pentacostal, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Calvinist. It would be a great way to shift some of the political convos and be more interesting than monologs.

This was my THEO 201 course, circa 2005. The professor? Ergun Caner. I scheduled it for the rep of an Easy A. I enjoyed the open discussion thoroughly.