You have surely heard about Bethel
Church, an independent Charismatic movement from Redding, California. In
its beginnings in 1952, the group was similar to what might be called a ‘home church.’
But the movement has grown rapidly and has about
9000 members today, which classifies this church as a ‘megachurch.’
This movement was at the heart of several scandals
and controversies
on which anyone could debate endlessly, which is not the point of this note.
What you may not know, however, is that this movement has also set up since
1999 a school for young people, the Bethel
School of Supernatural Ministry (a.k.a ‘BSSM’)[1].
This school welcomes about 1000 students per year at a minimum. The classes
focus on advanced Bible studies, supernatural formulas and pseudo-biblical
gifts or faculties. In a pejorative and humoristic nutshell, we could say that this
school is somewhat similar to the school of X-Men Charles Xavier or Hogwarts
and the apprentice wizards from the saga Harry Potter.
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| (c) Lawofficer.com |
If one cannot blame the study of the Bible – which is in itself the best of
schools provided that students have the ‘spiritual glasses’ on – we can only be
skeptical about its use and results on which are based the prodigies realized
at BSSM. Among other things, you will learn to walk through the walls, to hold
objects in the air and, cherry on the cake, to “suck”
the anointing from the dead.
In a recent interview
of Banning Liebscher[2],
a former senior member of Bethel and founder of the group Jesus Culture, the latter gets back to
this drift of "Grave Sucking" and explains why, even though the whole
Bethel staff does not condone, nothing will stop these "young zealous
Christians, hungry for supernatural sensations."
What is Grave Sucking?
This expression would translate into "aspiration of graves,” which
Jerome Prekel translates as "cemetery anointing." The
appellation alone is enough to give a glimpse of the kind of practice to which
its followers indulge. Concretely,
you are animated by the will to obtain more spiritual power and you are
persuaded that you will be able to recover it from the deceased people by going
to pray on your knees or completely lying on their graves. Of course, we do
not talk about any deceased! The
ordinary mortal leaves you completely indifferent. The deceased must have an
exceptional experience and an exemplary ministry. In
the above-mentioned interview, Liebscher cites the example of those men of God
worthy of "serious sucking": "the Whitfields and the Wesley, the
Luthers and the Booths ... the John G. Lakes and the Kathryn Kullmans." These
names can ring a bell if you are aware of the many (unfortunately, not enough)
men and women of God and the revivals they have undertaken. In
his article, Jerome Prekel reports that Benny Hinn himself often went to the
graves of Kathryn Kullman or Aimee McPherson and felt something strong: "I
felt an incredible anointing ... I trembled from all my limbs ... under the power of God ... 'Oh! Lord,
I feel the anointing ... I believe that the anointing still exists in the body
of Aimee.”[3]
Nevertheless, apart from one single occurrence of an incident that would
look much like this, nothing in the Bible supports the use of such a practice.
This incident, recounted in 2 Kings 13, tells us how a dead man, probably a warrior,
was thrown into the sepulcher of Elisha, and how, in contact with the bones of
Elisha, he returned to life. The lack of proximity to the Bible is such that
Liebscher has trouble finding the name of Elisha, vaguely stammering
"Elijah" or "Elisha," showing us the little importance
given to the Word of God.
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| Grave sucking (c) Ben Smith on YouTube |
This practice has nothing Biblical and would be just one more pagan
idolatry worthy of the times of apostasy into which we are striding. No worship
is done to God but to his servants; pointing to the moon, the ignoramus looks
at the finger and not the moon ... Prekel makes a very relevant connection with
the relics of earlier times that were kept and worshiped, hoping to receive
holiness, absolution and special anointing.
Does God bless this stuff? Certainly not. This lugubrious deviance is a
false gospel that you should keep away from because 1) it turns away from God –
it is God through his Holy Spirit who grants power, not men and even less the
dead 2) contact with the dead is nothing Biblical. Only the idolatrous peoples,
enemies of Israel, practiced a certain worship of the dead. Some animist
cultures are still having practices which imply contact with the dead nowadays.
On another note, the Latter-day Saints – a.k.a. the Mormons – have similar
rites (cf. the baptism of the dead). 3) it is simply morbid or even offensive
for relatives and the family of the deceased to see crackpots come to bask on
the grave of their ancestors.
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| (c) Warner Bros. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban |
Liebscher confesses that, although he is not "partisan" of this
practice, he does not see why he would denounce it since the intention to
approach God by all means is a laudable
goal. Moreover, Liebscher says that Bill Johnson[4]
himself has nothing against this approach and will never condemn it publicly.
On the other hand, according to Liebscher, the disruptive individuals drawing
on them the curiosity of the world would be more or less "pulled back into
line" individually. But, Liebscher continues, "you cannot control
everything." This is the risk when you launch movements of several
thousand members.
In plain language, Liebscher and his friends do not condemn the too
"grandiose" charismatic excesses on the pretext that it goes with the
label "charismatic" whose goal is to live fully the supernatural
spiritualism without limit. But if there are no limits, how far will these
antichrist, apostate, and foolish practices go? What testimony does this give
to unbelievers? To what confusion are we arriving?
As John says in the book of Revelation, 22:15 "Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the
sexually immoral, the murderers, the
idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood."
Seeing all this, we have only one thing to say, in prayer: Lord Jesus, come
back soon.
[1] See the
article of J. Prekel, especially the sction « Questions sur les
justifications scripturaires ». https://lesarment.com/2015/07/lonction-des-cimetieres-nouvelle-derive-de-lhyper-charismatisme/
[2] You may find a non-exhaustive
summary of this interview at https://www.charismamag.com/spirit/church-ministry/36641-bethel-pastor-why-bill-johnson-didn-t-immediately-shut-down-grave-sucking
[3] See Double Portion Anointing, Benny Hinn, Part #3 and on TBN April 7,
1991.
[4] Bill Johnson is the current
senior leader of Bethel Church; he was appointed in 1996.
