On January 17th, Christian YouTuber Mike Winger from The Bible Project uploaded a five hour and fifty minute video exposing Shawn Bolz for prophetic fraud and sexual abuse towards numerous former interns. He also exposed certain actions by leaders of Bethel Church and coined the phrase “Cover up culture”.

If you are not familiar with modern charismatic Christian culture, you probably have no idea what is going on, and that’s fine. I am familiar with it because I joined a local branch of that general umbrella network in 2018, a year after I miraculously survived a drive by shooting event as I was finishing my second book. That night impacted my life deeply. I put my ambitions to finish my zombie trilogy on hold and took numerous steps to get my life on a more consistent track.

I had a great time at first when I started going to that church. I joined a few small groups, volunteered at one of those family fun fair events, went to the mid week worship sessions, and attended a couple of conferences.

Things went south at the end of 2018, and got exponentially more drastic in the beginning of 2019, when I was dragged into a dynamic of spiritual abuse and bullying that stretched on for a long period of time. I’ve kept quiet about what I went through for more than half a decade. It all started when the lead preacher of the church shared from the stage that God would never use sickness to correct his children. A loving father wouldn’t give his child the flu as a form of punishment, so neither would God. I wrote him an email with several verses citing that God uses plague, famine, and the sword as tools of discipline throughout history. I shared this because the wormwood plague in Revelation which kills a third of all people was the same plague I wrote about in The Outbreak, back in 2016. This global pandemic I dreamed up ended up lining up in about a half dozen ways with the covid pandemic of 2020. From 2016 to March of 2020, I had no idea how much my stories would come to haunt me. The first act of my third book was written as a way to process that very particular stress while also rescuing the Han Solo of my trilogy (Reggie) at the same time.

Back to the sermon about God never using sickness as a form of judgment (what people in the biz call “the inciting event”). In my view, to teach the sheep that all sickness comes from the devil hit wrong, so I tried to share privately via email what I knew in a kind and respectful way. I tried to be gentle in my correction and add some praise and encouragement to soften the blow. My efforts did not work.

This pastor preached his first dig the next week. At first I assumed that several people had emailed him with a list of verses (which would happen in a healthy church environment). He didn’t name names, but he did say that anyone emailing him like that would be wasting their time. Then, over the course of 2019 and beyond this pastor demonstrated numerous times that he hated me specifically for existing in the first place.

I’m not going to tell the full story of what I went through now. I may go into it at some point, but I do at the very least want to share that I was once part of that group. I was sucked in, chewed up, and then spit out. I was bullied repeatedly by this leader from the pulpit on a regular basis and also ignored by other leaders every time I reached out for help. All that to say I know first hand what “cover up culture” does to people, and it is rotten and needs to be plucked out by the root.

People have been getting spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and/or sexually destroyed by what Jesus called “wolves in sheep’s clothing”, for a very long time. Instead of publicly confronting and casting out these wolves, the modern charismatic (and Catholic, and nondenominational) culture has rallied around the predators and restored them while skipping over the repentance and consequences of the restoration equation and ignoring the threat, damage, and trauma this self-proclaimed “culture of honor” imposes on their victims.

The norms of this system treat abusers as precious fragile broken angels who cannot handle the harshness of light or accountability. Their victims? They are labeled as accusers, gossips, and wretched faceless nobodies who aren’t worth the effort to love, or even respond to when they reach out for help.

I know this, because I lived this.

I accepted the judgment of this corrupt and self-serving groups of professional Christian shepherds, and I kept my outcast mouth shut for more than half a decade. I deferred to their authority.

Now I see from a better perspective, and I am adjusting accordingly. Now I see how not-alone I am, and how damaging this un-punishable culture of hirelings has been.

When Jesus talks about separating the sheep from the goats, his main point when talking to his followers is this: however you treat the least important members of your social structure is how you actually treat the son of God. “Whatsoever you do to the least of these, you have done unto me”. The modern charismatic leadership structure needs to go through a collective crash course on this verse.

The standard of radical and genuine love is something of a recurring theme in the Bible. Being a good neighbor, a good host to foreigners, and a good spouse are core values that would do wonders for how the outside world perceives Christians if those values were top prioroty now. Unfortunately the main values of church culture seem to be gaining and keeping power, worshiping money, and having as much political influence as possible. It is natural to value power, money, and influence. Jesus refers to those lures as thorns and thistles that choke off a spiritual stalk of grain before it has the chance to grow. To value love instead is the right goal, according to the ancient ways.

I’m still a Christian because I love the ancient texts and the standards that very few modern churches seem to consider. I love what Christianity is challenged to be, not what the culture that claims to be Christian presently is. Christian culture since the rise of televangelism is a philosophical embarrassment. It is the very epitome of the blind leading the blind right into a ditch. GK Chesterson said “The principles of Christianity have not been tried and found wanting. They have been found hard, and left untried.” That is the core of the problem, in my view.

When I learned that Mike Winger was speaking up about this core cultural rot and actually getting through to them, I was thrilled. His video has about 1.5 million views the last time I checked. Bethel church responded in interesting ways. The first Sunday night after the nearly six hour expose dropped, Kris Valloten (sp?), who was specifically confronted in the video, preached a stream-of-consciousness rebuttal that fell in line with old cover-up norms of old and landed with a wet thud on the ears of those both pro and anti Bethel who were tuning in. Bill Johnson ignored the issue entirely.

I like Bethel. I want them to be functional and consistent with their theology. They have the potential to get there, and they also have a lot of work ahead of them.

The next Sunday gave me a shot of hope. It involved two messages of genuine repentance from Dan Farrelly and Kris Valloten. Then a message from Bill Johnson which felt like at least a few steps in the right direction.

I’m cautious and hopeful that they will get through this. I don’t expect these guys to be perfect as they change gears and own up to decades of negligent norms. I do expect progress in each step they take after their public repentance. Follow through is necessary for their long term survival in this movement.

The Bible lays out the proper steps to take when dealing with abusive leaders. Going back to those ancient ways is the only real way forward for Bethel and other churches in that umbrella. Bethel seems to understand the assignment. Lets hope other churches also choose to step up to the plate and uproot the wolves that they have tolerated for far too long.

Mike Winger lit a fuse. Timely repentance will avoid blowing up the whole powderkeg in the wrong way. If these churches can do the work themselves, they will be ahead of the blast, instead of trying to pick up the pieces in the wake of the blast. The blast is coming either way.

The actual issue goes far beyond the sins of one abuser and directly challenges an entire system that would continuously protect abusers and harm their victims. If the system is willing to be dismantled, then there is hope. If the effort is to wait until attention spans go away, then there is no hope moving forward, and no integrity or authority for those who would rather stay the course of compromise than genuinely confront seats of compromised power.

What Bethel and others choose to do in the next few weeks will determine their destiny in the long run. The global church is now in a realm of “be real or be gone”. This phase of accountability has been a long time coming. It was also written about thousands of years ago in the Bible. That’s what all that “spotless bride of Christ” stuff was talking about.

There is a need for sincerity, honesty, and a sense that the shepherds at the top of this organization fundamentally understand that this situation is a matter of eternal importance.

Nobody will fake their way into heaven. What is missing in the modern church is the fear of the Lord. We don’t have that right now. We have cover up culture and fleecing grifters being called faithful shepherds.

The old ways aren’t good enough anymore.

They never were.

The church and the world need new ways that are good enough. We need a social contract that protects victims and exposes predators. We need standards and norms that encourage humanizing neighbors, instead of trenches that get dug deeper and deeper by the year. We need to stop worshipping money and power and start validating wisdom and love.

When I wrote my most recent blog about the difference between peacekeepers and peacemakers on January 21st, I had no idea about the Mike Winger video. The theme I was discussing in that post matches what he did, though. He is an example of a peacemaker. Probably the loudest and most viral recent example available. I hope that he inspires the complacent to readjust their priorities and accept the Fear of the Lord as a natural ingredient to healthy faith instead of something that can be left out.

Why should the world outside the church be expected to take God seriously if the world inside the church can’t be bothered?

Every life is a wildflower that blossoms and withers within a single year of the span of infinity. Jesus once asked, “what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and yet forfeits his soul?” The time has come for those at the top of the pile to take that question seriously.

There are more skeletons in the closet with Bethel and other churches in the network. It will take time to uproot and process. Pastor Dan said “you can’t have microwave solutions to crock pot problems” a couple of weeks ago. That is true, but it is also important for there to be a sense of urgency in leadership at Bethel and throughout the network, because a lot of victims have waited a long time to have the chance to share their side of the story.

I’d rather deal with a messy church that is working consistently to be pure than a picture perfect church that is rotten at the core. Jesus referred to those leaders and environments as white washed tombs filled with the bones of the dead. Gross. No thank you.