On Fallen Christian Leaders

Shawn Bolz – Bolz Ministries

A couple of weeks ago, God put Shawn Bolz on my heart. I kept hearing a clip from a memory. In it, Shawn said he had prophesied the next South Korean president would enter office. Given the latest international headlines about the recently ousted South Korean president, I couldn’t ignore the memory.

This morning, at 3:30 a.m., I decided to look it up, to see if this was the same president Shawn said he had prophesied about. I never did find out about the South Korean president because my search results were inundated with news of Shawn publicly falling from grace.

Apparently, Shawn routinely used Facebook data mining to give fake prophesies from stage, as well as sexually harassed some people, including some employees.

I immediately thought of the welfare of Jeremy Butros and another acquaintance whom my husband and I got to know for a brief period in 2020. In the video below, he quietly and sadly confirms the accusations against Shawn.

I felt torn at the news. In 2016, I had benefited indirectly from Shawn’s ministry, through the DVD series, “Translating God”, which was being shown at the first charismatic church I had visited. I learned about how the spirit of prophecy is not shame, guilt, and condemnation, but of encouragement and love. That was a valuable corrective teaching for someone who came out of the evangelical church, in which prophecy was taught to be the spirit of finding false teachers (AKA people who didn’t agree with their theology).

At the same time, I had decided to stop following Bolz Ministries in 2021, when Shawn launched a “prophetic politics” show in which he evaluated current political events and prophesied about future ones. Much like so many others on the prophetic stage, I found his words to be filled with a spirit of fear. I couldn’t make it through the third episode, and I ended my following of his ministry.

Bill Johnson, Kris Vallotton, Dann Farrelly – Bethel Church

The Shawn Bolz scandal led to Bethel Church of Redding, California–possibly the most influential charismatic church on the planet–to issue a public apology. They acknowledged their role in giving Shawn a global platform, and repented for not publicly sharing the findings of their own investigation in 2019, which confirmed the allegations against him.

Again, I felt torn. I benefitted greatly from Bethel Church’s bethel.tv ministry in 2016-2018–my early days as a spirit-empowered believer. At the time, I found Bill Johnson’s teachings to be deep and wise. I also found Kris Vallotton’s teachings about women playing a full role church leadership to be healing.

However, by 2020, after I married my husband, I felt God tell me that my time for learning from them was done. I heard the Holy Spirit say I was now called to develop an “elder’s view” of the church (in line with my husband’s calling), and my ability to benefit from Bethel Church’s teaching ended overnight. (It was a weird experience.)

Todd White – Lifestyle Christianity

As I dug into the allegations, I found out that the same person who made the whistleblower video about Shawn Bolz, made one about another person whose ministry I followed in my early days walking in the spirit: Todd White.

How did I feel about this? You guessed it: torn. I benefitted greatly from watching early videos of Todd White offering strangers on the street prayer and watching them healed, as well as the impact of generosity as we share the good news of God. In 2017, after three hours of binge-watching his content with great longing in my heart to be able to touch people with the love of God like that, the Holy Spirit showed up in my living room, touched the back of my head, and filled me with the power of God. Two hours later, I was praying for Romas and Turks on the streets of Germany in Yeshu’s name and watching many be healed! (For details, check out my book, Heal or Die.) I tasted the goodness of God, much like the videos I watched.

At the same time, when I heard Todd preach on a live stage at an Awaken Europe conference in 2017, the spirit in the air was… not right. He launched his sermon with cursing the witches in the room and telling everyone that the spirit of pride hates being called the spirit of pride… it was just… weird. Later, he publicly spoke out again inner healing–the act of cooperating with God for progressive healing of someone’s heart and mind from psychological wounds–and I was upset by his stance. I never followed his ministry after that.

Other Charismatic Leaders

In doing my research for this post, I discovered that other charismatic leaders whom I had heard of have fallen from grace over the past few years:

• Mike Bickle
• Bob Hartley
• Daystar Christian television network

Lessons

I didn’t know about any of these leaders falling from grace because I haven’t followed the charismatic movement for many years. Their role in political campaigning from 2016 on was the final nail in the coffin for me. However, I did give these ministries props for their help to my early spiritual journey in this blog and in the first edition of my book, Heal or Die. That’s why I felt the need to write this today, to share the lessons I am learning from this.

Denominational Differences Don’t Count

To be clear, I don’t agree with every reason highlighted by the critics of these leaders. For example, some people say that the works of the Holy Spirit are no longer for today and any mention of them still happening today is blasphemy. The Bible directly and overtly disagrees with that, in many places, these are just three of them. Others say women leading any ministry is ungodly. The Bible directly and overtly disagrees with that, repeatedly showing women in leadership, as well.)

So, we always have to be discerning about why Christians bring up allegations (or sometimes accusations, like from The Accuser) against one another.

Allegations with Evidence Do Count

However, allegations backed up with evidence of ungodly character that are confirmed by two or three witnesses must stand, according to church discipline of elders, as described in the Bible. The leaders in this post have confirmed allegations of:

• falsifying miracles, signs, wonders, prophecies, or testimonies;
• sexual harassment or assault of minors or adults;
• using ministry donations for personal gain (beyond a reasonable salary, public figure services, and travel expenses);
• a “cover-up culture” by other ministers who found allegations to be well-founded but did not take steps to notify followers of their findings.

These are allegations that I cannot let pass by without letting you know of them. As of today, I discern them to be true in my evaluation of the evidence and through prayer.

All Human Leaders Have Weaknesses

I have previously shared how the ministry of some of these people has benefitted my spiritual journey. It is a fact in my life that God has used some of the teachings to help me grow in the spiritual abilities of prophecy, deliverance, healing, miracles, and so on. Therefore, I will not remove those posts in which I recommended these people because I want to show how:

• God can use the works of imperfect people to do beautiful things (just as God can use a donkey to speak to a king)
• people can be unaware of the heart-state of those they follow (just as I was unaware when I followed their ministries)

This is why testing every word you hear (every sermon, every book, every podcast, every video) is crucial to spiritual health.

However, I will add a note next to the names of those leaders on this list who are apparently unrepentant, which links to this blog. This note will state that I cannot recommend specific ministries to anyone at this time because of their lack of restoration (proving repentance with good fruit).

I will praise Kris Vallotton and Dann Fellery at Bethel for publicly repenting in a genuine and self-reflective way. It’s a great start on the path to healing and restoration. That is why I will hold off on no longer recommending them until I see the fruit of their repentance.

After watching and praying about their apology, I believe they could provide a huge gift to the body of Christ by showing what public repentance and church discipline of elders could look like.

Always Test Every Word

For those who read this blog for spiritual guidance, this is my repeated exhortation to you to always test every word you hear, read, and see (even those you receive from me) by :

• whether it comes from someone full of the fruit of the spirit
• whether hearing or following it produces fruit of the spirit in you
• listening prayer about the personalized will of God for your life, and
• the confirmation of others who don’t know of the word and don’t know each other repeat the same word to you

Make It Right

Finally, if my earlier recommendations or my heretofore inaction have hurt you or caused you to lose trust in me in some way, I apologize to you.

Please reach out to me and let me know how I can make it right. This is the will of God for all of us when we hurt one another, even inadvertently.