This weekend, a mother and father discovered that their two-year-old had stopped breathing during the night and she was pronounced dead the next day (read the story here). While anyone would be devastated, the parents have had a surprising response. The mother, a worship leader, was at church the next day with joy and hope. Based on the teachings of her church, it would appear that she was convinced her daughter would be resurrected by Christ very soon.
Some may hear this story and be filled with excitement at someone’s faith in the power of Christ. After all, He is the creator and sustainer of the universe, so of course He can bring someone back from the dead – again! Others may swing in the opposite direction, going so far as to mock or belittle these parents who are trying to merge their faith in Christ with the reality of their situation.
Knowing what we do about Bethel Church, how can we not only learn from this, but respond to situations like this in the future?
What Bethel teaches
Although this isn’t meant to give a major rundown of Bethel’s theology, it’s important to know the worldview the church creates in order to not only understand the parents but also how we can engage with stories like this.
In a broad sense, Bethel Church embraces the “Word of Faith” movement. Although the specifics can vary from church to church, the broad beliefs are:
- What we say and believe will shape our reality. If we speak good things, good things will come to us.
- God’s purpose is always to bring healing to His people. We just need to have enough faith for Him to do so.
- Sickness and death are seen as “sin.” Thus when Christ freed us from sin, He freed us from all forms of suffering.
- This is supported by interpreting things like “by His stripes we are healed” (1 Peter 2:24) to mean that He purchased us literal healing.
- Supernaturalism is high, especially in Bethel Church. On top of faith healing, the church itself is famous for various things filling their worship hall – gold dust, mist, and angel feathers. All of these, they insist, “just happen.”
Put simply, their understanding of the Trinity is that the Father wants to give gifts to His children, Christ is our means of attaining them, and the Holy Spirit creates a spiritual/emotional high that proves we have faith.
Bethel also has a “School of Supernatural Ministry” where students learn to use the supernatural gifts God gives everyone. This includes standard things like healing, but stories also exist of people being able to see someone’s sins written on their forehead or encountering an angel so large the person could only see its foot. And things like this always boil down to one thing – a person walking in faith to gain these experiences.
Understanding the belief system of these grieving parents is important because it tells us how they understand the world. They live a life where an almighty God sent His son to die so they could experience the supernatural and get the good things they are promised. They view suffering as an evil they can be rescued from today, because it’s never God’s will for His people to suffer. With enough faith and prayer, they should be able to see their daughter again.
When a false Christ meets a real crisis
We must be so gentle as we discuss the necessary conclusions of this worldview. When I read this story, I was holding my one-year-old while my toddler and two older kids were reading books or playing with toys nearby. My heart is absolutely broken for what this family is experiencing, but I’m also deeply grieved for what they are about to go through.
If there’s one thing that places like Bethel Church emphasize, it’s faith. Having enough faith gets us the good things in life that Christ purchased on the cross. And based on statements like this, they believe faith will bring this little girl back from the dead (quoted from the Christian Post article):
“We are asking for bold, unified prayers from the global church to stand with us in belief that He will raise this little girl back to life,” she said, adding, “Her time here is not done, and it is our time to believe boldly, and with confidence wield what King Jesus paid for. It’s time for her to come to life.”
There is no doubt that individuals in the Word of Faith movement can be saved by God’s grace. However, the reality is that the Christ as taught by Bethel Church, the one who wants us to think positive thoughts about ourselves and get our heart’s desires, is a false Christ. Just like the Christ taught in Mormonism or Jehovah’s Witnesses, a Christ who came to satisfy our greed is no God at all, but instead serves the demands of our true god – us.
A false Christ will necessarily create a false hope. After all, how will a person respond when they are certain they have enough faith to get what is promised to them, yet God seems to withhold it? A person can only reach two conclusions:
- they failed to have enough faith for God to respond
- God failed to be powerful enough to answer their prayers.
This is the great danger of viewing faith as a transaction. And this is why faith gets shaken when we base our understanding of God on things like experiences or emotion instead of grounding it in what is fully understood and taught in the Bible.
This is what these poor parents will soon have to deal with. The mother also wrote this hope-filled statement (emphasis mine):
“Day 3 is a really good day for resurrection. We are overwhelmed with gratitude by your outpouring of love for us and faith for Olive. Jesus is Faithful and True and He’s riding in with the victory He bought for Olive. Olive Alayne means ‘victorious awakening.’”
Their understanding of Christ is about to be challenged by the reality that their faith didn’t bring their child back to them. How can they possibly respond? With people around the world praying, surely God will respond with something as simple as bringing someone back from the dead.
Either these heart-broken parents must accept that they didn’t have the faith required to see their daughter turn three, or the Christ they so boldly proclaimed isn’t as mighty as they thought. Based on the teachings of Bethel Church, these are their only options. But I hope the parents aren’t content with those options.
More than anything, I want this family to dig into the Bible for answers. I want them to be confronted with a true Jesus Christ whose death didn’t purchase a good life now, but an eternal life with God for those who will repent and trust in Him alone to pay the price of their sin. I want them to find comfort in the arms of a sovereign God who absolutely will not fail them.
How can we respond to something like this?
This story will likely have very little direct impact on most of us. We can read about it, feel sorrow, then forget about it as we scroll on to the next story. Yet despite its distance, there are a few ways we can honor Christ with our response.
The importance of an accurate worldview
I hope it’s clear just how important it is to have a biblical understanding of Christ, sin, and salvation. We can easily build ourselves a version of Christ that pleases us, but doing so doesn’t give us any genuine hope when we face the reality of our sin-broken world. So many people around the world walk away from faith after facing tragedy because the Christ they thought was real turned out to be nothing at all. I don’t want that for this family at Bethel, and I don’t want that for anyone else.
We must understand Christ correctly, as the glorious son of God who took the wrath for our sin so we can repent and no longer be enemies of God. To see Him as anything less will pull Him down from where He belongs and elevate us higher than we deserve. A poor view of Christ will cause us to shake our fist and ask how He could let us down, as though He exists to serve our needs.
And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. (Colossians 1:17-18)
Instead, a worldview that puts Christ in His rightful place as King of Kings will have the genuine faith required to glorify God on this side of eternity. With wisdom, we can know that God not only cares for His people, but ultimately works everything together for His glory. And as followers of Christ, we can find no greater joy than that.
Find hope in truth
We look forward to Heaven where Christ will wipe every tear from our eyes. Yet even today, we don’t find ourselves lacking in hope and comfort. We have a savior who not only makes us dead to sin, but alive to Him. He us our great satisfaction, and He is our only true hope.
Surely God is good to Israel,
To those who are pure in heart!
But as for me, my feet came close to stumbling,
My steps had almost slipped.
For I was envious of the arrogant
As I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
For there are no pains in their death,
And their body is fat.
They are not in trouble as other men,
Nor are they plagued like mankind. (Psalm 73:1-5)
The word hope is an important one in our world. Whatever a person’s worldview, we can all look around and see that things are broken. Helpless people suffer while the guilty prosper. People are killed daily by those who seem driven by causing pain. We all need hope, yet so few can find it.
Of course, we all search for a savior to protect us, or at least distract us, from the evil of the world. Some find their hope in alcohol, family, work, or hobbies. Yet ultimately, all of these saviors will fail us. Nothing else we put our hope in will fully satisfy our needs because those things, although many of them are good, were never meant to be ultimate things.
Only the true Jesus Christ, as shown all throughout the Bible, can fully save us. He doesn’t just exist to make us feel better about ourselves or give us a sense of purpose. Any false god can do that. Instead, Christ pulls us beyond the here and now, setting our minds on eternal things as we live in love and devotion to our perfect Savior.
Mourn with those we don’t agree with
As I said in the beginning, some who hear this story may scoff at these “misguided people who think their baby girl will miraculously return to them.” Yet when we have a fuller understanding of what they’re taught every week, we realize that these people are more than the false teachings of their church. Whether or not they’re truly redeemed by Christ, these are still image-bearers of God who have been confronted with the reality of sin’s effect on the world. They aren’t just dealing with death, but the unimaginable pain of a parent outliving their child.
Our reaction to someone’s loss is an indicator of our own heart. As Christ’s followers, we want to respond to people as He does. Christ mourned the reality of death during His brief time on Earth, and we can be certain He continues to mourn it as He sits next to the throne of God. Do we do the same in our own, limited way?
These people are in deep pain. They’ve lost their child, and their faith is about to undergo a radical trial as reality comes into sharp focus. Whatever their spiritual condition, we want nothing more than for them to find a genuine understanding of who Christ is and see how much they need Him in every area of their lives.
Even as we mourn for them, we want our Savior to be glorified in everyone’s life. Christ isn’t a support animal to get us through our grief or a vending machine to satisfy our desires. He is the creator and sustainer of the universe who took the punishment for sin so that we can find repentance and salvation. That’s a truth we all need to remember.
Our hearts break for these people, but I hope we’ll also take a moment to genuinely pray for them. Not only do we want them comforted in their loss, but we want them to come out of this with a deeper, more genuine faith in the true Jesus Christ.
