Bethel Church Responds to Mike Winger  Hey everybody, welcome to Lord of Rimnet Radio. In this program, we're going to be talking about Mike Winger's video uh exposing Shawn BS. And it seems like Chris Valatin's response to that in a recent sermon. It's going to be interesting program. You guys stay tuned. Hey guys, lots of stuff going on here at Rim Radio. We've got conferences, we've got courses, we've got all kinds of cool stuff. If you want to stay up to date, best way to do that is go over to the rimradio.com, sign up for the newsletter. Uh, but I'll tell you, one of the coolest things coming up is going to be our conference in San Diego, California, February 5th through the 7th. Uh, we're going to be hanging out there with John Mark Baker, myself, Michael Miller, Michael Roundtree, Sam Storms. It's going to be a really cool time and give you an opportunity to see what the spiritual gifts are from the scriptures, understand how they work, see demonstrations of those things, and uh, how to practice those things in a decent and orderly way. So, if that's something that interests you, check out the website theradio.com. You can find out all that information there. Well, uh, here are my buddies. We just filmed a video. Not a whole lot of updates on, uh, things from the video we just filmed 10 seconds ago. Uh, so I won't ask too much about your life and what's going on. Uh, but anybody want to give any airbags or, uh, some preview of what we're going to be discussing today? Any kind of angle we want to tackle before we dive in? >> Uh, yeah. So, I I watched the whole Mike Winger six-hour video. I recommend it to you guys. He gives timestamps, too. You can listen to it in two times speed. But man, he does a great job. Uh, very professional in how he investigates and, uh, and just I think he deserves a big round of He's getting it. Mike, you're getting an applause from me. >> Absolutely. On the show. So, uh, great job. And I listened as well to Chris Valatin's, uh, speech, sermon, I guess, speech. So, um, anyway, >> calling it a sermon seems like a stretch. There wasn't a text he came from. >> It was clearly a speech. And and hey, I understand the need sometimes in in church settings to to respond to situations and speak to them. Although I definitely prefer to leave the pulpit for the preaching of God's word. That's a that's a whole another topic. But uh he very clearly is responding to Mike Winger specifically as well as online critics. And so uh and so I think it's important episode and uh and I think we're going to learn a lot from it. >> Yeah, that's good. Uh Miller, any thoughts? >> Yeah, I watched it as well. Um, you know, I had some insight about this coming out and I was super proud of Mike for being the guy who's really taking the bull by the horns on this and exposing what he calls and has coined uh coverup culture. And he is right. There is a massive culture of cover up in the charismatic world. And so then this morning after really just being pleased with the work Mike has done, I know it's going to upset a lot of people. I know it's disappointing, but I I also think about the victims that are out there that are going finally. you know, Elijah Stevens, who we all know, the amount that he has suffered because of this fake prophetic word that Shawn Bulls gave him, uh, Jubilee, whose story is out there, I mean, I I my heart goes out to her and I'm just thinking thinking to myself, finally, there's some vindication here. And so then to get Chris Valatin's sermon yesterday, which I'm sorry, there's there's no way that you can say that's not a response to what just got released. It absolutely is a response. He may deny that. Um, but it is absolutely respons. So to hear that this morning was deeply upsetting to me. Uh, it is a full case of Darvo. He equates anything on the internet with fake news. He equates uh, anybody who brings up any kinds of concerns or accusations. Uh, they're automatically the lynch mob out there. So he's already groomed his audience to never hear any kind of critique. And that is the problem with coverup culture. It's ubiquitous. So that's my first thoughts. Yeah. And and in case just for anyone who hasn't seen Mike Winger's video or hasn't been uh necessarily up to speed, uh so Jubilee was given a a fake prophetic word by uh Shawn Bulls that led to her getting married to a guy in obedience to the word of the Lord essentially. And uh I'm putting that in air quotes. And uh he strangled her and uh could have killed her. And so a terrible abusive situation there and then faked a prophetic word for Elijah Stevens led him to sacrifice his retirement to fulfill the call of God on his life. uh and uh and so just massive uh those are just two examples but uh but there are lots >> and when we're saying fake prophetic words what we mean is that this individual has jumped online and pulled information from Facebook white pages those sorts of things to glean information about individuals and then posit that information that he found by natural means under the claiming guise that it was actually the spirit of God that revealed it to him. Uh, and then these people who were receiving the word were like, "Oh my goodness, you knew my name and my, you know, my address and my date of birth and all this information that is publicly available for me uh on the internet." And then behind all that special information that you know specifically about me, oh, here's what you're supposed to do. Um, and likely uh, as I understand it, this word for Jubilee was, hey, you're supposed to marry this guy that she was dating and she felt like she had to marry this guy. And then after being married to this guy and having multiple uh physical violent sort of situations that she was uh entangled in uh felt she would be disobedient to God if she uh disobeyed that prophecy. Uh for those of you who don't have 5 hours uh each of us did go listen to it. In fact, I told Mike on Sunday um that I planned on listening to it this weekend, but uh Miller was like, "We've got to do a response video now." So I went and listened to the thing as well today along with Chris's sermon. Uh I'm going to give you some highlights, okay? If you want all the specific details, go listen to Mike Winger's video. Uh, but in 2006, Bill Johnson refers to Shawn BS as a spiritual son, and BS reportedly described Bethl as his mother church. Uh, yet by the leadership later denied having any authority or responsibility when discipline was needed. In 2015 and 2016, evidence of prophecy fraud of specifically data mining information from social media was already circulating publicly and privately, but the leadership did not uh interview or I'm sorry, did not intervene or warn congregants and allowed BS to continue ministering. in 2016 or earlier victims uh testimonies uh I'm sorry uh victim testimonies states that Bethl had information that BS was fraudulent while he was still platforming uh while he's still being platformed resulting in congregants uh trusting his prophecies and being armed. We mentioned a few of those just now. In April of 2020, an employee of BS ministry reported that uh Shawn BS had uh participated in sexual activity. If you have kids in the car, maybe mute this or come back to it at a later moment. I'll give you two or three seconds to change the channel. Um, but he uh, how do I say this? Uh, he uh, >> pleasured himself. >> Pleasur himself. Thank you so much, Miller, for rescuing me. I was like, I'm going to say something. I don't need to in uh, publicly or not publicly in the hotel room where he was with his traveling companions for his ministry. Uh, and that this happened repeatedly with multiple individuals uh, in 2020. Uh after being presented with evidence, Valatin uh and Bethl leadership became convinced that BS was in fact fraudulent uh and chose quietly to distance themselves. Uh they removed books, stopped having him at conferences without informing their congregation. In January 9th of 2021, Chris Valatin privately told a victim of BS uh that BS uh had to clean up his mess and instructed Bethl staff not to minister with him and informed Bethl uh music leadership team uh to ban him. Yet uh no public warnings were issued from the church. In 2020 and 2021, victims contacted Bethl leadership asking for help. Leadership declined responsibility and hey, this isn't our problem. Uh that's something for you to worry about. Uh in 2020, a recorded conversation uh from a prophet named Stacy Campbell uh stated that senior charismatic leaders, you can go find out which leaders those are on his video, including Bethl leadership, knew that BS was dangerous uh both in the prophetic words and in the sexual misconduct. In fact, when one of these whistleblowers that was a victim of the sexual misconduct went and told uh Chris Valaton in the text message, uh Chris says, "We've known about this for a while." So, we don't know when that h it definitely happened in 2020, but it might have even known, he might have even known it prior to that if other whistleblowers had come to him. Uh, and in 2022, oh, in 2023, Bill Johnson after all of this information was clearly known by Bill. Bill jumps publicly on a TBN broadcast and publicly endorses Shawn BS saying, "Hey, I really believe in this book." And when you know the character of the person behind the one who wrote this book, it's really it's really convincing. Uh, pretty disgusting stuff from Bethl Church. I I would tell everyone who watches this program, that is enough to mark and avoid every leader at Bethl Church. These guys are protecting a predator. And you're going to see in these videos, you're Chris seems much more concerned about the predator and they're extremely malicious activity. They're more concerned about them than they are about the victims and the congregants that they are leading. And that is deeply deeply troubling. Um, Roundry, you have something you want to add to that? I heard you. Yeah. >> Oh, I it was just really when I mean cuz 2023 is pretty recent and this stuff had been going on for years and Bill Johnson went out of his way not just to endorse the book, but to say, "But when you know the character of the man, Bill knew the character of the man was evil." And then he said that. So I just it it sickens me. That's it. >> Yeah. Okay. Miller, any other thoughts? Do you want to jump into these clips? >> Yes. Let me give you one more thought. And and I I don't know how else to stress this. Like the reason we do this video is is honestly I think from the outside looking in, Bethl's lost a ton of credibility. >> Um but for those who are on the inside of Bethl, this is my appeal to you. Um, for those who are leaders inside Bethl, those who attend Bethl, all of you, I I actually think by and large you got there because you are hungry and zealous for God, for his gifts, uh, for his kingdom to be advanced. Um, I genuinely believe that your motives in going there have been incredibly good. Um, I don't know how else to say this to you, but this sermon itself is him whitewashing this sin. And I'm begging you, do what is right. I'm appealing to your conscience to hold him accountable. Remember that that it's not just Chris Valatin who has authority. Um it's every member in the body of Christ. He says that you're seated in heavenly places above every rule, every authority, every power. Uh it's not just those who are elders in a local community that have authority to hold other believers accountable. It's every member in the body of Christ. And so for your own conscience, for the sake of those who are victims and those you care about uh even there who could be future victims, I'm begging you look into what we're saying. Take with at least some uh amount of sincerity and and um honesty, take a good honest look at what we're saying today and and consider how you might actually help victims first and foremost uh of Shambles and honestly of Chris. uh because I actually think he is now very very culpable and I hope that what we're doing here and and uh evaluating his most rec recent sermon is helping you to see what he's doing is really wicked. So please, for your sake, for the sake of the kingdom of God, for the sake of the gifts of the spirit that God has given us that are good, I'm appealing to your conscience to do something. And I hope this helps you >> that that's good, Michael, cuz there are a lot of really good people that go to that church. I feel confident of that. Uh but we just we just want to encourage you to use your discernment and to understand the difference between what you want to believe is true and what actually is true. And I think there's this strong leaning in to trying to believe the best about people. And I think that's a good impulse. 1 Corinthians 13, love believes all things. And I think that's what it means. Uh Paul warns Timothy about people with evil suspicions. And so there is such a thing as being hyper suspicious. And that's a really bad thing. Uh but you don't want the pendulum to swing all the way to the other side and be suspicious of nothing. and to just trust wolves uh are actually uh trust wolves are actually shepherds when they're not. And um and so we just have to be very very careful on this. And the other thing is I I'm not going to refer to this as a sermon. I'm going to refer to it as a speech. That's not me trying to be mean. I just I just uh really care about accurate words. And so uh that's why I'm going to call this a speech. >> That's fair. And uh I'll say one more thing on my end right before we jump into the program. Um, maybe I I can apologize to people who've been watching our show for a long time. For a while, we would say things like, uh, you know, I think Bethl is just really sloppy with language, but I think they're Christian brothers. Um, at other times, we have, you know, used language of, um, you know, they've got really good intentions. I just think that they're not really precise with their language. Um, if that has caused any, and I'm not I'm not trying to take any steps back from any of that. Again, as Michael and Michael both stated, I think there's probably good, godly Christian people who go to that church. I'm not making any claims about anyone's salvation here. However, um if those kinds of statements gave you confidence to I'm going to go get trained. I'm going to go get discipled and you got somehow got taken advantage of. Um I want to apologize for that. I I hate that if we have contributed to this in any way, we want to take responsibility for that. Um but this this puts Bethl in a very dangerous camp for me. Uh this is a serious mark and avoid and I think um we have to judge with the information that we've been given. I didn't know any of this stuff was going on when we made those videos. I think when uh Kenneth Copeland went to Bethl Church that was the the strongest kind of line in the sand for me like the these guys do not have discernment. This is a difficult thing. Um but now um I think that there's not only a lack of discernment um there's a lack of justice uh under hidden under the guise of mercy. So uh let's dive into these videos. Uh here's clip one. I have a a unique message tonight. I I don't know I ever preach a message like this and I may not get all the way through it. We'll see. But I I've been thinking about the complexities of shephering people in the 21st century and the different dynamics. And you see, you know, people all over the internet and social media. There's, you know, lots of people positive, negative, and talking about, you know, their experiences with the body of Christ or with leaders or obviously in the world. There's so much fake news, right? It's all mixed in there and it's really hard to even trust the story. You see a person that you know and uh and they're saying crazy stuff and you realize it's AI and it's nothing to do with what they said. And stories that people write are just sometimes crazy. But I I want to talk a little bit about the complexities that I see that we face every day and uh and talk through like what is it like shephering people in the 21st century with we're the first generation of fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters who live with the internet and social media and we live with you know I mean 20 maybe what 25 years ago if you had a complaint if you felt that you were abused or you had a story, you pretty much had to go find someone that had a media outlet, you know, a uh a Fox News or something to try to tell your story. And and there was maybe a little bit of vetting like, is this a credible story? Maybe there's some background. Somebody does a background to see if your story is actually credible. But what happened with the internet and then social media especially what in the last 12 15 years is everybody has really the same reach and you can tell your story if it could be credible could not be credible and uh and you could tell your side of the story without another side of the story and and then you know we as uh shepherds one of the tasks of shepherds is to shepherd the flock and protect the flock and protecting the flock flock 30 years ago when your flock was in your building is quite different than to how do you protect your flock when it's in you know 72 countries and it includes hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of people who are influenced by you and and and the so many of people I don't know sometimes maybe loosely you know call us father and mother and this is my family and I I can't even I mean there's not a week that goes by I I would probably be exaggerating to say not a day goes by but not a week goes by when two or three people don't email me, text me, call me, come to a conference and say you don't know me but you're my spiritual father or Bill's my spiritual father. This is my family. And I'm like and I'm like wow, you know the responsibility. Hebrews chapter 13 talks about leaders um and it it says it it it says uh it talks about the fact that leaders actually give an account for your soul. And then it says as a as a follower as a as a as a sheep. It says that you should actually you should actually honor your leaders in a way that that it's uh that it's that it's easy for them to shepherd you and to give an account for your soul. And I'm like, I don't know how this is going to work when we get to heaven. You know, is the Lord going to say, "Hey, those people in, you know, Pakistan who you were shephering and giving oversight for their souls, you didn't do a good job." I don't know. I'm like, "Lord, I didn't even know who those people are." And so, you know, and then the Bible, of course, is written in the agricultural age and and it it talks about shephering people and how do you deal with people who fail and how do you deal with wolves who come in and actually try to try to intentionally hurt the flock? And there's a big difference between broken people who are un kind of unsafe and somebody who's intentionally trying to lead people away. And and sometimes it's hard to know the difference between a broken person. And how many you know we want our churches to be full of broken people. We want the broken. And and we we want the broken. We want the sinner. We want the sick. We want the people who need a miracle. People we heard about tonight. Like we want them to feel welcome in our church. >> Oh people your your church is full of broken people. That is a beautiful compliment that broken people are looking for a place to find a family and get healed and and you know you choose your friends but you don't choose your family. Okay. Uh right off the bat I'll give a couple of thoughts. I don't want to take everything from everybody. I don't want to commit thunder theft. This isn't the biggest uh of the videos to respond to, but I'll mention right out the gate. He says he doesn't know how it works. Chris, I'll tell you right now that's not how it works. You're not going to be giving account for the souls of people of millions and thousands of people that you're the pastor of in some other country on some other place in the world. Um church membership is defined um certainly ecclesially those who attend your assembly. Those should be the individuals that you for sure uh are caring and pastoring shephering. I don't want to put beyond that that there's not some kind of moral responsibility or moral culpability for leading the masses astray. I I think that is also equally a problem. I think if you endorsed someone who has brought damage to the body of Christ who is in fact a wolf and not just a damaged person um well then yeah you've got a responsibility to publicly warn people because you have given that individual a platform. Uh I think that here what we see is an individual who doesn't know where his um where his influence versus his responsibility uh actually meets. And I and I think that's one of the reasons uh many of us here on this podcast have tried to limit our reach with our local church. We remind people who watch remnant radio, you need to be in a local church. This is not your church. Watching lectures, watching theology, this is not the Assembly of the Saints. Uh it's not. And if you watch Bethl Church from a thousand miles away and you're not plugged into small groups and you're not you're not being discipled by people who are there, you don't know the character and fruit of your leaders. Um you're not taking communion in the sacraments, you're not gathering together in the assembly of worship, that's not church. Um that can be something supplemental to your faith, but it is not your faith. It is not uh that is not the elder that God has given you to submit yourself to. If you're getting emails every week of people saying, "You're my spiritual father." you have a responsibility to reply, no, I'm not. Um, I'm sorry that that's just your charismatic language. And people who want to be a part of something that's bigger than themselves, and they see Bethl as that thing, and you need to encourage them. Hey, Bethl is not the thing. The thing is faithfully serving uh and being discipled in your local church, making disciples of the nations. Uh so, first and foremost, I think this is bad. Um the idea that he's starting off saying, "Hey, there's so many fake stories out there. There's fake news. There's AI stories. There's crazy articles that are written the right out the gate. It's like, hey, just because you heard something doesn't mean it's true, but but you're not going to hear him engage with whether the allegations specifically about him and Bethl Church are accurate. He's just going to juke and to reframe. He does that in almost every single video we're going to be visiting uh in these sermons. Um, okay guys, I've I've I've ranted a lot. Roundree Miller, you got any thoughts here? >> Uh, sure. So yeah, when he when he starts out, it's complex. It is complex, more complex shephering in the 21st century in some ways because of technology and uh internet, social media, all those kind of things. Yeah. Sure. But then how he qualifies that or where he is going with that directionally in terms of his argument is once upon a time there was a legacy media that was the gatekeeper of information and they would vet stories, but now we don't have that gatekeeper to vet stories. And so there's a subtext there and an implication that's no doubt intentional. And the implication is the things that you're hearing are not credible. Now, absolutely, somebody can make stuff up on the internet. They can give you the onestar review and they can make up a story that happened. People make up stories all the time. Of course, that's true. Mike Winger didn't make stuff up. I want to hear you respond to Mike Winger. uh and more importantly to the testimonies of person after person after person who has come forward and said that Shawn Bull's pleasured himself in front of me would sit around naked in front of me would send pictures of his genitalia to our uh to our our chat or whatever in the text like I I'm sorry but this is not just like somebody made it up when it's person after person after person and as Mike Winger said repeatedly two or three witnesses. Well, we have way more than two or three witnesses about uh uh Sean Bull's evil behavior. And so uh and so to suggest that this is a just just a media and pastoring thing, you're equivocating uh you're explaining away and you are subtly critiquing Mike without responding to Mike's critiques and uh I think it's gaslighting. >> Thank you, Roundree. Yeah, I I believe that this video says way more about Chris Valatin than it says about anything else. Like he gives you an insight into his own pathology and psychology here. Right off the very bat, he says everyone has the same reach today. Okay? And I get it. There was a time where that wasn't the case. And now that's the case. But what he's doing right there at the beginning is drawing on your sympathies for like, hey, I have to face God with all these people who are saying that I'm their pastor in 72 countries and I'm not their pastor. Well, I get it. Let's feel bad for you. But the fact is, Chris, we shouldn't because you know this and you still make the choice to get on that stage and speak to those 72 countries. And therefore, yes, when you face God, you're accountable. And you saying, "Well, I don't know that I'm accountable. I don't know what God's going to say to me when I face him with this online platform. I'm like, well then Chris, if you don't know what the replic repercussions and ramifications are of your actions and who you platform on that stage, then maybe you shouldn't get on that stage or platform anybody on that stage. See, the thing is every week when I get on here on Remnant Radio and I give my opinions on things or I share uh my, you know, various uh teachings that we have when it comes to various gifts of the spirit or we comment on things like your sermon, I know that I'm going to face God for every single word that comes out of my mouth, which means I want to make sure I have a very, very strong conviction on why I'm saying what I'm saying. Um, you and this is something I just don't get with you. You never mention the victims here. You only mention what it's like to be in your shoes. Um, you're you're drawing on all of us to to sympathize and empathize with you. Meanwhile, at the very same moment, you cast dispersions on the fact that everyone has a reach and that reach from everybody shouldn't be trusted. And it shouldn't be trusted because it could be AI, it could be false allegations. It's like, well, Chris, everything you're saying could be the same. You could be making false allegations. Um, the standard is the very same for you that it is for everybody else. Now, this is actually equaling the playing field. And that's a good thing, not a bad thing. >> That's right. >> Absolutely. And you know, the last statement about we want to be a place where broken people can come. Uh, if you really want to be that kind of place, then protect them. Don't lie to them by your omission by not telling them about a wolf in their midst who's taken from them like happened to Elijah Stevens in your congregation uh as well as others. So if you want to be a place where uh broken people feel safe, then you go after the abuser. You you confront them and you make public statements to protect them. So, uh, yeah, I I think they're more concerned about the broken abuser than they are about the people that the abusers break. >> Yeah. Okay, we've got six videos to get through and I know we've only got 30 minutes, so let's let's keep it moving. >> So, there is I don't even I'm trying to process externally with you. I never even thought about these things until a few weeks ago. I mean in this way like wow we are responsible for people we don't even know >> and then we're trying to apply principles like like we would at Weaverville like there's a wolf among us. I I can tell you that we've had three or four of those conversations in the 20 years we were in Weaverville. I I mean honestly in our elders meeting saying that person leads people astray specifically. I remember one and there was probably two or three who he would come into our church and he was known to do this in other churches and he would seduce our women. He'd end up in bed with some of our newest believers and they would fall away and so he had a reputation for that. So we like we were you know we marked him in that way. It's like hey he can come in but he needs to >> behave. >> That was a good way to say behave. other things came into my mind and and and you know and I remember that a couple of people got invited out because of their they're actually were um at that time hopefully they got converted but they were actually seducing people and so you know and so you know it's like and then and then we have on the internet we have people applying those principles that we live by keeping people safe? Are you a good shepherd? Are you warning people about wolves to a global audience? And I'm like, well, those are really good questions. Those are really good questions because the other thing that's happened in the 21st century is there's no more family talks. You don't you don't have a family talk. So, you know, we're where um where Jesus talked about in Matthew chapter 6 when he talked about forgiveness and he said that I if if you go to a person and he's sinned against you and then you take another person and then you take another person and that doesn't work, you tell it to the church. Well, there there's no such thing as telling it to the church without telling it to the world anymore. If you expose somebody from the podium within a day, people who you didn't plan to have that message sent to them, >> have that message sent to them. >> And you have to decide like, are you really, really, really, really, really, really sure that you want to publicly expose somebody who's in some form of the process? Are you ready for that? cuz cuz you don't know people like you did when you're in Weaverville. Like are you really sure that's the right thing to do? Because as soon as you say, you know, Henry is unsafe or say something like that, you just destroy that person's reputation. Yeah, >> you just better be very sure because >> putting something on the internet's like like the book of life. >> Like it doesn't get erased. >> Or what Jesus said, every word that you spoke on earth, you will give an account for. Like the internet's like that. You you can't take it back. You can delete it from the internet, but someone copied it and it's back up there again. So I'm pointing out that the process of how you deal with people and how well do you know that problem? How well do you know that person? Do you actually are you sure that that person is actually trying to be evil? Are you sure? Uh, you know, my kids uh uh several of my grandkids live in town and um several of them um went to school here and uh two or three Kathy can correct me. I think three of my grandkids who went to high school here, they went to BCS and then they went to high school. When they got to high school, three of them, I think two or three of them out of I have 11 grandkids and two great grandkids. when they got to high school, the whole Bethl stigma uh uh that happens in our our own community here. Um because of Bill and I leading this thing, my grandkids were constantly harassed for their grandfather's position and finally left school. I'm pointing out that what people say on the internet costs families. And if your father does something that feels wrong or whatever and your last name is, I don't know, let's say Jones just cuz it's a popular name or Smith and you're a Smith and your father did something or your mother did something and you publicly rebuke that person, you shamed the entire family line. Like, are you really ready to do that? because and and and I I'm asking myself the question when they come up like like are you are you ready to do that because you can't take that back and if you find out later like oh there's a lot of other circumstances or that person that that you thought was a woof is actually somebody and you hear their story and they're like they were raped when they were little they grew up on the street. Then there's then there's people who are in on the internet and they are the victims of some Christian maybe some Christian some Christian leader. It's all above, right? It's it's all over the place actually. And uh and maybe you know the leader and maybe you know the person and they're like this leader did this to me and they did this to me and they did this to me and you're like okay that okay first of all I know that guy. Wow that's shocking that he behaved like that. shocking. I didn't know that. And it's uh it's sad how destructive you can be and how hypocritical you can live and how you can build trust people people get to trust you because you are a spiritual leader. You walk in a powerful gift and yet you yourself are broken and you yourself you yourself are not a noble woman or a noble man. And you are leading people astray, not necessarily because you're a woof, but because you're broken. And people expect you to be well because of your artic how articulate you are articulate you are in the podium or how gifted you are in your amazing gift of healing or prophecy or whatever. And yet there's a big old broken piece in you that nobody knew about till people were got closer to you. But then also sometimes you know the other side of the story because you know the person that's making the complaint and you're like, "Oh yeah, I I know that this is a two there's two stories here." And of course if one person shares their story, then the other side of the story is not shared and it feels like there's only one side of the story. >> I just I just want to cuss. I have such a hard time watching that video. Um, okay. Th this is this is the worst for so many levels. You know, he's like, "I'm going to be judged for the things that I say." Yeah, you're also going to be judged for the things you don't say. You'll be judged for the things you cover up and you hide and you protect. Um, do I really want to go publicly before all these people and ruin this person's reputation? 1 Timothy 5:19, "Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses." So, if you have two or three witnesses, what what are we supposed to do if they don't repent? Well, I'm so glad that verse 20 tells us, "As for those who persist on sin, as in aren't repenting, rebuke them in the presence of all so that the rest may stand in fear." Literally what it says to do. Well, but what if we're we're shaming them and their kids and their family? You're not the one shaming them in their family. They are they're the ones who did these horrible evil deeds that should be exposed, not hidden in darkness, but brought into the light and revealed. uh you know I happen to preach uh Ephesians uh what is it 5 uh I think it's 8-14 for Bert Miller that specific passage is talking about exposing the deeds that are done in darkness and the commentaries seem to agree on the fact that you become complicit in the sin if you don't expose the sin um I I'll tell you this is not this is not the the heart of Christ here over and over he wants you to empathize with the person who's committed the sin hey you know maybe this handled. They were they were, you know, sexually immoral with someone out there. What? Maybe they were, you know, assaulted as a child. What the heck does that have to do with anything? How is looking at evidence from their past going to get rid of the evidence in their present? And again, we can have empathy. We can have mercy for these people. We can say there's restitution and there's healing and I'm so sorry that happened to you in the past, but you still have to be accountable for your actions that you're doing in the present. You know, again, what are we talking about? We're talking about Chris Valatin. Not Chris Valatin. We're talking about Shawn BS. A guy who's pleasuring himself in front of multiple of his staff members, sending photos of himself naked, talking about his genitalia, walking around his hotel room naked regularly, trying to get people to give him massages. I mean, this is deeply depraved sort of stuff. A and you're saying, "Hey, you know, back in the day, we used to mark a wolf and we used to tell people, hey, you know, we had to excommunicate a guy one time." Well, well, great. I'm glad you did that back in the day, but why not now? this guy's checking all those boxes and and he's going to get into this thing in a moment where it's kind of like, oh, we don't have investigators and it's not this he said, she said thing. You have tons of witnesses and it seems like you knew about these allegations. You have multiple witnesses. So, I I don't I don't know, man. I This is this classic modern media thing where every bad guy has to be the hero. You know, the character Maleficent in their movie, you you've got to feel mercy and compassion for them. the Joker. Well, he was just bullied and he was picked on and that's why you have to have mercy for this guy trying to turn the abuser, the bad guy into this kind of empathetic like we should feel bad and sorrowful for them. We we should feel sorrow for the victim and not pretend like mercy is this thing that's counteractive to justice. Um this is disgusting. >> Yeah. Yeah. Totally agree. Um, you know, whenever uh whenever he talks about like, "Hey, we don't have family conversations anymore." Like, that's literally what he's doing in this speech. And I I he acts like it's so hard just to say make a statement about him. And and one of the things like he communicates that he's not really sure uh like, "Hey, there are two sides and uh you have to be really really sure before you expose someone." That actually is true. You definitely want to be sure before you expose somebody. Uh certainly you don't want to just willy-nilly throw stuff out there that you heard some gossip rumor about. You want to do your due diligence and find out the truth. But once you find the truth, you want to you want to say it. And the thing is in Mike Winger's episode, he revealed text messages where Chris Valatin knew and believed these things were true. And consequently, they started to not invite him anymore and take his books down and and quietly remove stuff. So, >> and tell other leaders. >> So, you see where this is dishonest where on one side in his speech he's saying, "Hey, you've got to really make sure you have the facts so that you can know." And subtext, that's why we didn't say anything because there was more to the story and we didn't know. And yet, the evidence actually says you did know. You did know. and that's why you took action and that's why you didn't have him coming anymore. So, the speech is actually dishonest. Chris knew Chris didn't take action. Chris didn't protect his sheep. Chris wants broken people at his church, but he doesn't protect broken people from the people who break them. So, those those are my basic thoughts. Miller, what about you? >> Yeah. Uh let me appeal again to the people at Bethl, leaders, members. Um, let me just I'm begging you to consider this thing. The person that Chris is concerned with is Shawn BS and hearing the other side of the story, which Chris claims to know. Um, you know who he's not asking you to consider? Elijah Stevens. You know, he's not asking you to consider Jubilee. Um, he doesn't mention them. He doesn't mention the harm that Shawn BS caused those people. Let me make this an implication here from this. When his primary sympathies lie with perpetrators and not with victims, then what do you think happens when you're the next victim? >> Mhm. >> Where are Chris's sympathies going to lie? I'm I'm begging you, don't overlook this. This is this is too This is like so bad. And what you're doing, what he's doing is he's propagating his value system on a global platform. He's already said he reaches 72 countries. What do you think all the other churches that watch his examples are then going to take away? What's the lesson that they're learning? Well, your sympathies need to lie with the perpetrator, the one that Chris knew was a perpetrator. Again, I something that Mike Winger did mention in his podcast was the fact that when the minor profits when they released their podcast showing that Shawn BS was data mining, they texted Chris. They said, "Hey, we want you to know that we're we're going to do a uh podcast on this. We'd like to invite you on to the podcast so that you can give uh a statement." And he his response back to them was, "If I want to do a podcast, I'd do it on my own podcast." or if I wanted to give a statement, I'd do it on my own podcast. And they're like, "Well, okay, but we think the world needs to know exactly how you feel about the fact that Shawn was doing these things." He basically just says, "I hope that Shawn repents." Well, Chris, if there's another side of the story, then why do you say you hope he repents? You know that he's in sin. And right now, what you're doing is damage control. And again for all of you at Bethl who are watching him do this damage control remember this is the example because they see themselves at Bethl as an example church of movement which other people should follow and emulate. He's now >> emulating for all of them that what you do when there's a problem when you have committed what's called a sin of omission which I don't think they realize that that is a sin a failure to act is a sin of omission he's now teaching them by example damage control >> that's it >> yeah the other thing I think that we have to be careful to notice is uh how much has he talked about how big we are how many millions we're reaching how many people are calling me spiritual father. So subtext, I'm really big and important. Okay. Um number two, he brings in family and I've seen abusive leaders do this. Look how hard this is for my family members. And so it tugs on the heartstrings of the congregation. Like this big important leader is having these hard hard struggles. And so our heart of empathy just goes out to this big important leader who who just has so much and such a big platform and it's so hard to manage. It's even hard on his family. And suddenly you have been manipulated into feeling bad for Chris when we should be feeling bad for Elijah and Jubilee and for uh Shawn BS's staff members and for all the people that Shawn lied to and that Bethl didn't warn about Shawn lying to them. Those are the people that we should be feeling bad about. But he is using manipulation. This is manipulative institutional save the institution, save the gatekeeper kind of language. And and it's bad. It's abusive. >> And we see that that is save the institution kind of language because Chris does tell his network of churches. He does tell uh leaders, "Hey guys, watch out. Don't network with this guy. Don't lock arms with him. He's a dangerous dude. stuff going on because he cares that their group informs his group. It their group validates his group, but that he doesn't care. He doesn't seem I want to be careful with my speech here. It doesn't seem he cares about the people in his church who are not as important. Um okay, let's let's hit clip three here. Oh, Miller, you got one more. Go ahead. >> Yes, sorry. Um a direct quote from him in this is, "Are you sure the person is trying to be evil?" Okay, that implies something here. Again, you're seeing in the pathology of Chris Valatin. What he really cares about is whether your motive was intentional to hurt somebody or uh and not about whether the action hurt somebody. Now, this reminds me of my my son and daughter having, you know, some sort of tiff. My son uh accidentally kicked my daughter and he goes, "But I didn't mean to." Well, buddy, you still you still have to take responsibility for what your action did, regardless of your motive. Yes, having a motive to do something harmful or evil to someone, that's really bad. But the motive to do evil only makes that bad worse. It doesn't change the fact that the action is still bad. But again, Chris is not talking about actions. He's not talking about facts. His concern is, are you sure about the motive? That's not good. >> Yeah. >> And he is sure about the motive. He is sure. He knows. He's warning other people. He's responding in text messages that this guy has to repent. He's he's responding in these text messages saying, "Oh, you know, it it's it's between him. I hope he cleans up his mess. He knows what he's done." Yeah. Which is it's so disingenuous. He's lying in this sermon, >> right? Speech. And then the other thing is when it comes when it comes to lying on a prophetic word, there's there's no good motive except you're committing evil. You're committing evil. Like to lie in the name of the Lord is one of the worst sins one can commit. To fake a prophetic word, it is blasphemy. It is horrible. And to say, "Oh, well, let me dissect your motive." No, your motive is self agrandisement. That is your only motive. you're you're attempting to rob glory from God. Like this this is a total minimization of the situation. And uh and when you are pleasuring yourself in front of your staff members, I'm sorry, there's no good motive for that. None. And so it's just so he talks around a situation in big generalities and draws out all your sympathies. He's not addressing this the the actual thing that's happening. So uh anyway, we should probably go to the next clip though cuz we got probably four more, three more. >> Yeah. at least. >> And I I'm just pointing out that there's so much stuff that happens on the internet. It's like Bethl doesn't protect people. BETHL DID THIS THING TO TELL ANYBODY. It's like, yeah, there's more to that story. Now, here's the other challenge. One of the things that happens in pastoral care and probably you when you counsel your friends is that you they tell you things they've never told anyone else because they trust that you're going to be that you're going to be that you're going to keep confidentiality and you're not going to tell anyone and and you win people and people need to confess their sins, right? Because if you confess your sins first John then he's faithful to forgive your sin to to to forgive your sins and cleanse you from all righteousness, but it comes with confess right first. So you you one of the things that happens in counseling and pastoral care and just friendship is that after a while people get to trust you and they tell you things that they're ashamed of and you pray for them and you know things about them and you would never take that information and give it to anyone else. So when people are telling somebody's story that they were this or this happened to them or or there was you know all these things that happened and you like know the rest of that story and the only way you could defend yourself is to tell the rest of that story. Your life as a minister is over when you break confidence to defend yourself. Your life is over when that person sees their story that they told you in confidence on the internet. >> So you can say, "Well, let me tell you about Henry. Let me tell you about Josephine." Yeah, she said this. That's true. But let me tell you this backstory here. Because Proverbs says, "When the first person tells a story, it seems to be right till the second person tells a story." The problem is the second story can seldom be told when you're a pastor because you know things you better never share with anyone to defend yourself. And so you must stay silent in the midst of accusation because you are a shepherd of flock, not an attorney. And you have to navigate silence with grace or you get bitter. And I want to tell you why I know you get bitter. Cuz I've been bitter before. And I like to debate. My wife can tell you. And I am really good at it. I am really good at debating. I can win most debates. But this isn't about debating. This is about shephering of movement with grace and honor. So whole documentaries get made about Bill and I and our movement, hours of YouTube videos where someone makes thousands of dollars telling a story and people write me and like you did this and you should have and I'm like well yeah it's you know if I believed that story I would have quit the ministry a long time ago and you didn't you didn't confront evil. Nobody who knows me would ever accuse me of that. I have never been accused of being afraid to confront anyone. >> That's just stupid. I don't think that is actually the accusation. And the accusation is that you're not exposing evil. It's not that you won't confront it or won't talk about it or won't address it to Shawn BS. The question is that you haven't done what the Bible commands in Ephesians 5 or uh what the scriptures command in 1 Timothy 5 about rebuking this individual publicly before all so that the rest stand in fear. Um secondly, um he's saying uh I'm I'm going to toss it over to you guys. Uh who wants to go first? So, I don't want to I don't want to go first every time. That's a That's a bad Go ahead, Miller. You get to go. >> Yeah. He mentions that as a minister, you never break confidence. If you break confidence, your life as a minister is over. Um, yes, you do. There are times when you break confidence. If somebody tells me they murdered somebody, I'm going to break confidence. If they tell me that they abuse a child or an the elderly or a woman, I'm going to break confidence. There are times when you break confidence. You know the other times when your ministry is over is when you failed to break confidence because you commit a sin of omission which is what you are guilty of. You you have failed to break confidence in this situation when you should have because this person was sexually harassing people and this person was data mining to give prophetic words in the name of the Lord and blaspheming. Yeah. In this situation, you break confidence. Chris, >> no doubt. Round tree, you're muted. >> Uh, for me as a pastor, I don't promise front side like confidence. Like, if somebody says, "Hey, can I tell you something that you promise not to tell anyone?" I will say something like, "Well, I will probably not tell anyone unless it's a crime or something that I absolutely must tell somebody." Uh, and people don't even need to ask me like if they're just telling me, you know, I'm struggling in my marriage or what, like, okay, yeah, I'm not going to tell anybody. But, uh, it's very situ situational to Miller's point. And I also don't make front side blanket promises, uh, to prevent that kind of situation. Uh, you know, Chris pres presents himself as the hero here once again. Not only am I a father to millions and not only am I leading a movement that's giant, not only is my family having a really hard time and I'm having a really hard time despite my strength and glory, uh, I am righteous because I have kept confidence. And I could defend myself and I'm a super great debater, but I have kept confidence and I am your righteous leader. That's what has just been said. And and I don't really know what he means by kept confidence cuz you know like it if it was victims that were coming to him with their secret. He could have preserved their anonymity and warned people publicly like hey I have multiple witnesses. I think what he means though is that he knows more of the story of Shawn than the rest of us know and that uh and that he could defend himself because he knows more about Shawn. But that there are certain situations where knowing more actually doesn't help you. Like if somebody has done the things that we've been talking about, there's no context that helps it. There's none there there's no excuse. Like there's no world where that's ever okay to do the things that Shawn did. I don't care what the backstory is. I don't care what the Saab story is. I don't care what happened in his childhood. I mean, like, I'm not saying I don't care literally as in like, hey, if somebody suffers, I care. But I'm saying none of the context matters. And uh and and there are just certain things where it just doesn't matter. The other thing that he said is, you know, people are making thousands and all this kind of money on these podcasts and such. Uh, it's a veiled accusation that Mike Winger is profiting and making big bucks off of this. No, he's not. In fact, he says in his video that he doesn't have ads on, he's not making money on uh on the video. So, uh so that would be a false accusation. Now granted, Chris can just say, "Well, it was generally spoken about people generally," but it's very clear that this speech is a response to Mike Winger specific video. So when you cast a general aspirion upon internet people who are making thousands of dollars on stuff in your speech, that's a response to Mike Winger. The implication is Mike Winger's doing this for his own glory. But all I've heard you talk about so far is your own glory. So, uh, I I have problems with those things. >> No doubt. No doubt. I think that was a good response. I I think I'm going to keep pushing through these. We've got This is clip four. We've got six total. So, um, yeah, let's keep going. >> People are innocent till proven guilty in America, but not on social media. Social media has created a whole different dynamic in which you are guilty till you prove yourself innocent and then you are invited on to talk shows and podcasts to tell your case to a jury that has already determined you're guilty. Yeah. >> And if you're someone like me, I am blackmailed all the time. And if you don't tell your story, we're going to tell everybody that you did this thing. I'm like, only way I can tell my story is tell their story. And I can't tell you their story because that's what shepherds do. Are you with me? >> Yeah. >> And so we're in this really strange thing. And then there's the challenge like here's here's church discipline, right? Like if you if you um molest a child, we are mandatory reporters. >> And by the way, we've reported many many many many many over the 27 years I've been here. Some of some people who consider my friends, unfortunately. And you have to call CPS and you have to call the police and you need to do it swiftly. And by the way, you should do it swiftly because kids should not be in danger by their parents, their friends, their cousins, whoever. And we've done that many, many times. So what are mandatory reports? And and and and actually it's good because you turn the uh situation over uh child protection services. Am I boring you guys? >> And over to police. And these guys, this is what they do for a living. Like they have investigators. They they understand child molestations and rape. It's all they deal with all the time. They they they're they understand. They're experts in that area. And and we have a really good relationship with them in town. So they work with us, too. And they're not our enemies. They're not like, "Oh, we're going to turn them over to the system. We're like, "No, no, many of them are believers. We love them. They love us." And uh and it's good. And so, and then the the there's a process that the the victim and the victimizer have to go through. It's a legal process. And the and the and and the the people who are working with them have authority like to even put you in prison. So, it's not like, "Hey, if you don't repent, you can't come to our church." It's like you go to jail. you you might go to jail anyway. And so they're they're they're giving tools for people have to go through a process to make sure that they don't do it again or whatever or the the child hanging out of the home or whatever. When something happens in church that's wrong, but it's not illegal. People have this idea that if you're Bill Johnson or Chris Valatin and you confront somebody, they're like, "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm never going to do that again." And what what if you confront someone and they say, "I didn't do that. I don't have investigators. No, I don't have a a court that, you know, what they say everyone no one in prisons everyone in prisons innocent." I don't have a court system that figures out that the person that says they're innocent isn't innocent. I have no process. I have me talking to them and they go, "I didn't do it." Well, Joanne says you did. Well, I didn't. Okay. Now, what do I do? What do I do? Well, five people said you did it. They said I did it. like this isn't there's no I don't I don't I think there's like this idea that like leaders spiritual leaders have some sort of authority that they can press people into and you go you can't go to our church if you do that great there's 3,000 other churches I can go to are you following me and and there's just like this idea that when you confront somebody, they're going to repent. And then if they don't, you should tell everybody. And by the way, you can't just tell the church because you're going to tell the whole world that the church has this major flaw. The people you're trying to lead to Christ, you're going to say, "Don't trust churches because they are made up of really broken people." And you get to tell the whole world that churches are not safe when you interact and and defend yourself on social media because you're not just talking to the audience you want to talk to. You're talking to every unbeliever who wants to chime in on why they don't go to church because those people are insane. >> I can't see how this isn't a playbook for Mike Pickle. I'm sorry. Like I don't mean to conflate the two, but this idea that we don't speak out against people who say things about us and make accusations against us, we're not going to do that because it might hurt the prophetic movement or the prayer movement or the whatever movement. Uh I'm sorry. That's just a load of crap. Uh the fact that unbelievers are look looking at us and saying, "Oh, look at all the sin that's in their church." Uh when the unbelievers look at the church and say, "Oh, look at these institutions that are hiding and concealing sin that God is clearly revealing." Certainly they're going to say, "That's exactly like the world." But when the people who have positions of power and those people who have those positions of pl power and platform and influence and money, those individuals are the ones that are being exposed by the church, the world looks at it and goes, "Wow, that's very different than what's going on in the world. Uh they're not they're not being consumed by favor. They're not being consumed by this person's glory. It's actually something substantively different." And you know, he makes the case like, "Oh, it's just he said, she said. We don't know. We're not investigators. We don't know how to handle this situation." Why does Paul tell Timothy on the evidence of two or three witnesses? Because he's actually expecting the elders of the church to be able to weigh evidence. So, so yeah, you're not an investigator, but if you can't do this responsibly, you shouldn't be an elder. You shouldn't be a leader of any church. It is your responsibility. If five people tell you that Miller went to a baseball game, got drunk, and beat someone, uh, and he says, "No, I didn't do that." And you have eight people who said, "Yes, he did." That is evidence Miller's lying. You know what I mean? Like it's one of those situations where you can't just you can't just say, "Oh, because some person said they didn't do it. Oh, I have a giant question mark. Maybe they didn't." No. No. You have corroborated witnesses at different times telling their story and they all line up. It's the reason that we can go, you know what, I think Mike Pickle's a predator. Why? Well, not because one woman said that there was, you know, a sexual misconnect that was taking place, but multiple women uh came forward and each of them independently of one another, not knowing each other's story, said he promised me that one day uh I was going to be his wife when his wife died. Like you you have a consistent story. I can believe these stories are true because of the consistent patterning of those stories. police officers when they go onto the scene of a crime, what they do is they separate all of the victims, all of the witnesses, and they begin to take witness accounts individually, separate, and when they find out that all of the accounts line up, they go, "That dude's guilty." And they arrest that joker. It is your responsibility before God to do this in your church. And the fact that he's just kind of sidestepping the whole thing to say, "Well, you know, we can't really know what truth is." It goes back to his first video. Oh, there's a lot of false information and fake news that's out there. If you're telling me you you just admitted publicly, if five people came to you and and and one person said, "No, I didn't do it." Well, then you just don't know what to do. I'm sorry. That is that is a gross mis misconduct. That's gross injustice. It's clearly seen in the law of Moses. It's clearly seen in the New Testament. This is just sideskirting the problem. Pretending it like it's not your problem. It is your problem. Um, you know, you want to say that you want to take responsibility for all these people who are calling you a spiritual father. Well, Sean BS said that Bethl Church was his mother church. You said, "Hey, I've got a responsibility for these people." Well, uh, at one point in time, you called him a spiritual son. Maybe not you directly, but Bill Johnson certainly did. So, in all of these accounts, how can you say, "I don't have authority over this individual because they can just go down the road somewhere else." Yeah. and make damage in that church there. Be a predator in those churches of all those other thousands of churches. You should warn publicly, not only for your own congregation, but for that joker who wants to go down the road. This is bad. Um I'm my volume's up here. I don't I don't need it to be roundry. You don't need to be an investigator when you have eyes, when you have ears. Like that's all you need in this scenario. Like Josh said, the evidence was as plain as day. And this was just uh this was just a big uh a big fat denial. And uh and Jesus doesn't need us to do PR for his church. He doesn't need us being like, "Oh, well, let me just cover up the bad stuff so that the world can't see." Actually, the better way is to expose the bad stuff so that bad stuff doesn't multiply. Uh, and instead like so your cover up PR of this problem because you didn't want to quote tell the world what was going on. This cover up PR actually ended up making the problem worse because when you cover up darkness, darkness spreads. And that's exactly what happened. And so uh and so yeah, I want to be the light of the world just just like you do. But the way to do that is not by hiding darkness. It's by exposing darkness. And you know what? If the world finds out that the church has some mess, so be it. We've got to tell people, uh, put a statement out there. Just put a statement. That's all you got to do. Just put a public statement that says, uh, yes, Sean Bols did these things and it was really bad and, uh, he's disqualified from ministry. Something to that effect is all you needed to do. And you and you make it into this big thing. Uh, all the evidence was right there. Miller, do you have anything else? >> Yeah. He starts off by saying in this clip, uh, in the world it's innocent until proven guilty, but on social media it's guilty until proven innocent. Um, Bethl Church, listen to me, he's grooming you. He's grooming you not to trust any report that comes out on social media. He's already deacto disqualified it. I said this earlier in the podcast. I'm saying it again. He's just caused you not to trust what Mike Winger uh has said, the evidence that he's brought forward. He's grooming you to distrust anybody else but him and Bethl Church. Um, also notice here that he paints himself as the hero again. Look, we've reported number of sexual abuse cases. Now, and then he goes on to say that uh they're not going to investigate u because it's not a legal matter. They they need real investigators and when it's a legal matter, they're going to do that. Guys, did you hear what he just said? All of you who are Bethl students, if somebody spiritually abuses you, guess what? You're not going to get any kind of investigation because he can't do it. All you parents out there that send your kids to Bethl's Supernatural School of Ministry, uh, did you hear what he just said? He's not going to investigate you. He's not equipped to do so. So, if your kid gets harmed, it's not their job. That's what he just said. He just admitted that publicly. Uh he's not qualified to do that. That's why you need professional investigators. Uh because the elders of that church aren't going to do the job. And uh they clearly didn't already. >> And he's clearly talking about the minor prophets when he's like, "Hey, uh" and he's completely refraraming it like they're giving him an opportunity to to tell the story. They're giving him an opportunity to come forward and talk about this issue that is going to go public one way or the other. and he has an opportunity to get out there and go, "Hey, this is wrong. Maybe we should have spoken up earlier. We can own that." Like he had an opportunity to do it, but he frames it as you you come on our podcast and give an account for this or we're going to tell the world. They were going to tell the world either way because they feel that is what the scriptures command us to do, which is good and right and we've already gone through them. Um, okay. Do you guys want to hit clip five? You got anything else you want to add on this one? Clip five. And the other thing is when someone fails, was their ministry bad? I was thinking about Jesus chose 12 guys and one of them was Judas and he was a thief and Jesus made him the treasurer. Now, if I know that Richard is a thief, which he is, and he's a godly man, I'm not going to put him over the finances of Bethl Church, even if he's a reformed thief. I'm not going to put him in his weakness. If I have a person who was once an alcoholic, I'm not going to have them have bar ministry. Not unless I know for a fact that they've really proven that area in their life. But Jesus makes the guy who's a a thief, he puts him over the money box. I mean, why not Matthew? >> He's a tax collector. He probably knows something about money. But here's the crazy thing. Jesus sends them out by twos. So, we don't know who, you know, we know Peter and John pretty popular. We know that James and John pretty popular. But I don't know who went with Judas. But you can't hide when you're in a group of two. And Jesus sends you out like, "Heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons. I'll meet you over here." Can you imagine if Judas got there? And every time they get in a a ministry situation, he has to go for a smoke. I mean, the guy that's with him is going to go when Jesus goes, "One of you betrayed me." He's go, "It's got to be Judas." And I'm pointing out that Jesus didn't have any problem with putting someone who was really broken on the ministry to him. And he didn't go, "Well, Judas's ministry is not good." I wonder if when Judas finally betrayed Jesus, if people like, "Hey, he gave me a prophetic word. It must not be right. Would Jesus send Judas out if he knew he's given fake words?" And I'm pointing out that Romans 11 says, "The gifts and callings of God are irrevocable." When God gives you a gift, he doesn't take it back. So people who are really broken sometimes do great ministry. And some of these people that are on the internet, the ones the few that I know that people talk about, they have a great ministry. Well, some of them are like they use social media to get words of knowledge. I'm like, yeah. And I don't know why they did that because the ones that I know, I brought them in rooms many times when there was there no way they could have known who was in that room. And they called out people's names, called out people's phone numbers. When I was in in on the couch for six months, one of those leaders who is famously infamous right now, it it called me all the time, gave me great words, knew things about me that no one could know. So I'm like, great ministry doesn't mean you have that you have great character. >> And bare character doesn't mean you don't have great ministry. Gosh, I hate to say that. I wish it did. Are you Are you with me? And then we have people like Solomon, you know, Solomon started well. Like he God said in a dream, "You can have anything you want." And he said, "Man, God, you've given me these people." And then he here's what he said. I feel like a little child. Like I don't know what to do. I don't know how to go in and come out. I need wisdom. And God said, "Wow, not only am I going to give you wisdom, but because you didn't ask for long life, you didn't ask for the head of your enemies, you didn't ask for wealth, I'm going to give you long life, wealth, and you're going to be the wealthiest king who ever lived. And I'm going to give you wisdom." And it says this, "And Solomon was loved by God." And it says that Solomon loved God, and he wrote Proverbs. But it goes on to say, and I'm not going to read it because it's too long and I've already gone long. It goes on to say in first kings 11 that Solomon loved foreign wives and they stole his heart. It goes on to say that he built temples to their gods and he sacrificed children on those temples. Solomon made Solomon made Hugh Hefner Playboy Mansion look like kindergarten. He created a cult from seven nations of women, built temples to all of them, and sacrificed children on the sex cult in a sex cult. At the end of his life, he built a herum with thousands of women in it, all for sex. And we still read his books. No one says, "Well, Solomon was terrible person at the end of his life." I'm not reading Proverbs. We still read his books. Let me say this. We still read Ecclesiastes. And he wrote Ecclesiastes when he didn't have relationship with God. But he still had a gift of wisdom on his life. I I pointed out that people can do really good ministry. Jesus encountered a guy. Remember this? He said, "Didn't I cast out demons? Didn't I prophesy? Didn't I didn't did didn't I do miracles?" And he said, "Get away from me. I never knew you." He didn't go, "No, you didn't." He just said, "I never knew you." And I'm pointing out that people that are being accused, not all of them. I don't know all of them, but the, you know, the two two or three I know that are kind of always in this thing, like they have really good ministry. Some of them we had here many times. And people like, "He gave me a word and now I know it was fake." I'm like, "How you know that's fake?" Judas was a fake the whole time. And he did pretty good ministry. Judas never even got in trouble. It was Peter and John were like, "We'll call down fire." It wasn't Judas. I mean, I I don't know why the defense, it seems like the defense is, "Hey, I've empowered some bad guys. Therefore, and I'm going to point to Solomon. I'm going to point to Judas. And I'm going to point I'm going to point to these really bad characters as examples of why that's okay. That seems a little beyond me. I'm I I've taken the the front end of a couple of these videos. I'm going to punt it off to one of you guys. Uh Miller went first last time. Roundry, go for it. >> Yeah, I guess I'm struggling to understand the argument because I like could he really be making the argument that hey, because God used bad guys in the Bible, we should appoint bad guys? I don't He couldn't be saying that. I mean, maybe he is. Is he trying to say God used bad guys in the Bible, so we should have more grace for bad in leaders? Maybe that's the point that he's saying. But man, when if that is the point that he's making, I mean, Paul goes Paul lists a lot of character traits for what like for somebody to just be an elder. And this would include just being an elder in a house church. I mean, how much more uh should you know, if an elder should be blameless and above reproach and the husband of one wife and uh not given to drunkenness and all all the list of character traits in uh 1 Timothy 3, Titus chapter 1. If that's true of a shepherd of a house church, certainly it's true of a prophet who's speaking to millions of people. So, could he be saying, you know what, just have a little grace. Sometimes prophets pleasure themselves in front of their staff. Could he really be making the argument, you know what, have a little grace. Sometimes prophets blaspheme. Sometimes prophets lie in the name of the Lord. They cheat. I mean, I I guess I'm so flabbergasted because I think that actually is his argument. I'm I'm actually just speechless. Just repeating the argument out loud is my commentary. Like there's nothing else that needs to be said. This is so wild. Am I missing something? Is there is there some angle he's taking that I'm missing? Miller, do you want to make a comment? I I think he is uh babbling here and I don't even think he realizes he's he's actually contradicting himself. uh this is like incoherence and this is somebody who's backed up and on the defense because he knows that he's been exposed for failing to do what he should have done. Um that's my take. I'm guessing this is some conject conjecture here, but let me just give you one of the things he he mentioned is sort of his logic. Solomon sacrificed children uh to other gods and created a cult. Should we throw the book of Ecclesiastes out? Like nobody's saying that you should throw every action that Shawn BS ever did out. We're saying you should warn people about Shawn BS. Uh same thing would be true of Solomon. If he's sacrificing children, I would be like, "Hey, don't let your kids go anywhere near that man." Like, that's not that hard to do. That seems like a logical good thing to do. You're inconsistent. You say you report sexual predators. I just I'm like I'm like kind of shocked here. Look, there's some theologians that I think have gone off the reservation like Pete Ends. I wouldn't trust that guy's theology today. Uh however, his Old Testament commentaries, they're pretty good. I think he's left uh uh Orthodoxy. Um but those books were orthodox uh those Old Testament commentaries. And so I'm never going to recommend that people follow the teachings of Pete Ends. And if I ever do recommend his Old Testament commentary, I'm gonna let them know, just so you know, this guy left Orthodoxy. Uh, but this commentary was really good. Like, it's not hard to nuance these things. Uh, you can very much say Shawn BS was sexually harassing his staff, clergy, sexual harassment. Uh, Shawn BS was data mining prophecy. Does that mean that every prophetic word he ever gave was false? No, I can't say that. But I can say that there were some that he did that were false. It's really not that hard to nuance this. I I don't know what you think you're doing here. Again, you're trying to minimize, you're trying to escape your own guilt, your sin of omission. >> I also think they're trying to save face because there were prophetic words given by these individuals that are crucial to their movement. It's very similar to um again the IHOP prophetic history. I think that they're clinging to some of these prophetic words because they're so instrumental and important in the movement's history. Um and and I'm I've got zero problem just saying, "Hey, uh if we have an individual who is uh extremely sexually immoral, uh person who has stood in front of stages countless times and lied to individuals because he stole information off of the internet and pretended it was from God, I have zero problem saying, "Yeah, you shouldn't believe any of those prophetic words." Yeah, but but what about the ones he couldn't have known? I go, "Uh, that just means that you don't know how he knew them. It's well within the realm of possibility that every single time he ever gave a prophetic word, uh, you know, Mike Winger does a good job about this on Sean Bolts in particular, he mentions the date that Sean was like, "Oh, around this time my prophetic gift just exploded." Turns out it was the same time that Facebook had a search feature. Crazy how those two things seem to coincide. I've got zero problem saying, "Hey, uh, we should mark and avoid this ministry." And then he uses the example, many of people come to me saying,"Lord, Lord, did I not know you?" Jesus says, "No, I didn't know you." Oh, but they they performed miracles. And Jesus didn't say anything about that. They also weren't believers. Like, what are you what are we talking about here? You know, God is clearly using Solomon, right? He's clearly inspiring him to write scripture. He's clearly using David to be this Davidic king on this line. We see God's decree through the mouth of Nathan in those situations. We see Jesus interpreting what's happening with Judas, right? We we understand these things are are bad and they're disciplined for these things and there's justice for these things. And Chris Valatin is actually hiding behind it saying, "Well, because this guy did something bad, I refuse to act on justice. David was penalized. Solomon was penalized. Judas was penalized." All of those individuals received a a reaction of justice from God. And the justice that God demands for Shawn BS and others is commanded in scripture. And Chris is using these examples to say, I don't have to hold this guy to an account. That that's that's not righteous. You guys want to watch clip six? Wrap this thing up. Revelation 2:20. I have this against you that you tolerate the woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetus and she teaches and leads my bond servants astray. So they commit acts of immorality and eat sacrifi things sacrificed idols. Listen to this the second part. I gave her time to repent and she does not want to repent of her immorality. I I don't know if you noticed this. Like this is Jezebel famous for taking God's bondervants and drawing them into immoral sex. And what's Jesus's response? I gave her some time to repent. And worse yet, in the church, here's what I have against her. You not that you did it, that you tolerated it. And by the way, you and I both gave her time to repent. You gave her way too much time to repent. You let her stay too long. I was going to leave her in for a while. You let her in too long. Are you with me? But my point is God's response to people who are even doing evil is I want to make sure that I make sure that I make sure that they don't want to repent. Then I would say this that Bethl's mistakes shortcomings is that we're always a little late. Like why didn't you do it then? Because we're trying hard to see people redeemed. Why didn't you do it when you heard the first thing? I don't know. We're trying really hard to make sure that we're not the church of the Pharisees who have forgotten where we've come from. >> Wow. >> You know, when the woman was caught in adultery and the Pharisees and came to Jesus and said, "Hey, the law says we should stone. What do you say?" I like his ultimate response. He said, "Yeah, it's probably a good idea. He who's he who's never sinned. Get us started. Isn't it interesting he didn't say he who's never committed adultery. See, we have relative righteousness. >> See, when I see somebody that sinned in the likeness of the adulteress, I go, "Well, I can make a judgment about her. I could talk about her on my YouTube channel because I have never done that. >> And Jesus said, "Great. If you've never sinned, get us started." And I'd like to point out that we end up with relative righteousness because I think as long as I'm better than you, then I have a place to say something about it. And I like to point out that Galatians, Paul said, "Make sure you who are spiritual that you restore people with a spirit of gentleness. Look into yourselves to make sure you don't fall into the same temptation. When we get the idea that someone we see on the internet, maybe who's well known or famous or not, did something really terrible and we think, I would have never done that. You don't know cuz you haven't been there. Prayerfully, you wouldn't. But we have become in the last 20 years a global community that spends a lot of time telling people well they're wrong. You can post Jesus is amazing. I love Jesus. Jesus loves you. And somebody will write a negative comment. I did an experiment. I wrote I I was telling my friend, watch this. And I wrote, "Jesus loves you." And somebody wrote, "Well, the Bible says, "Jacob I loved and Esau hated." I like you can't win. Someone's got to tell you like there is one verse in the Bible where God said he hated somebody and you just missed that one. And I'm just pointing out we've become a we we we live in a culture of faultf finding and judgment and we we hear half the story and we and we have a lynch mob and we create there is a lynch mob society on social media that hears the story and for some reason they think if I really love God I will rise up and create justice for this person and they don't even know the person. >> My text this Sunday was the woman caught in the act of adultery. I didn't preach the text. I just spent an hour talking about textual variance. So, I'll take a stab at that here in a moment, but I'll let you guys wrestle through some of this other stuff. Uh Miller, you want to go first? >> Yeah. You know, he says in there, if we default anywhere, it's that we come in a little bit too late. Uh or a little late. A little late is what he said. I'm like, is it really that is that just a little late? Um cuz it looked like to me it's deliberately late and that you were never going to say something. It's more than just a little late. The only reason you ever said anything at all was because the minor prophets beat you to it. Uh they forced your hand. you weren't going to say anything. And then after the minor prophets publicly said something, even after they invited you to come on to their show and give a statement, they said, "This is going to happen." It wasn't until it happened and actually gained a ton of traction that then you finally said something. And when you say a little late, I wonder how Jubilee feels about that statement. I wonder how Elijah Stevens feels about that statement. Was it just a little late for them? and how many others like the amount of words that he faked is a massive this is no small number was a little late for the potential other sexual harassment cases. Um man this is not a little late. This is a massive failure. If you think that your value or your default, your little blind spot is just to be a little late, you really need to re-evaluate what that what the consequences of that are. But again, I I just Chris, I'm going to say this to you. I don't think you think of the victims. You barely mention them in this entire you call sermon. I call defense. Um you you commit daro all throughout it. You deny any kind of responsibility. You cast dispersions on those who bring forward accusations to cause everybody to question their reliability. And you do everything you can to cause anybody question anything that comes out on the social uh social media platforms which all the while you're using social media to defend yourself. Should we question you for the same reason? So you've denied, you've accused, and then you reverse the victim offender. You know who's the real victim in this story? Chris Ballatin. He's the real victim in this story. And the offender, oh, it's Mike Winger for pointing it out. For pointing out Chris's failure that caused other people to get abused and harmed. That's what's just taken place here. That's probably my closing thought, too. >> Yeah, I have a few thoughts. Uh, you know, he goes to the John 8 story of the the woman caught in adultery and essentially leveling the playing field. And we're we're all sinners, guys. And here's what I want to say. We are all sinners. We are not all abusers. We do not all pleasure ourselves in front of our staff members and sexually coerc them uh to watch us. Uh we we don't uh all send nude photos of ourselves to our team that we're leading in religious contexts. Uh we don't all cheat on prophetic words. These are all gross abuses and blasphemies. Uh the the John 8 story is is no, that's not it. Yes, we're all sinners. We are not all abusers. That's my first thought. Uh second thought, he mentions once again that we're a global community. He seems to think a whole lot about his global community. Would like for him to think a lot more about victims. Uh number three, he talks about the hyperritical lynch mob of social media. Uh that actually is true. Social media is a hyperritical lynch mob. Social media is uh torch and pitchfork. Uh yes, that that's definitely true. People are out there shouting all kinds of crazy stuff. It's a cesspool when you go out there. Yes, that's definitely true. And in some ways, it does adversely affect the church. In other ways, it actually makes the church better. Uh because these stories would have never come out in an age of not social media. Mike Bickl would still be in power. And uh in the last giant communication shift that happened 500 years ago with the printing press, the reason papal abuses came to light was because of the printing press and they were able to spread information and there were no longer these gatekeepers that Chris Valatin so laments uh the loss of. No, this is actually a good thing that information is getting out. It's good. And uh and I would also say while it is true that social media is a cesspool uh and while it is true that social media also does do some good things, I will also say this that has nothing to do with Mike because Mike is not part of the lynch mob. That's not what Mike is. This is very The reason it's six hours is because he did his research. If all he was doing was repeating a few rumors, he could have done that video in 10 minutes. No, he's presenting evidence and Chris responded to none of it. Um, the last thing that I'll say is I find it really ironic that he quoted Revelation 2 to say, uh, hey, look, God let Jezebel, that wicked teacher, uh, that he let her remain in the church because he was giving her time to repent. And he was presenting this as a model for churches. This is what we should do. We should give people time to repent. But notice what Jesus calls the church of Thotyra to repent of themselves tolerating the wicked women Jezebel. And this is where Chris has egg on his face because this is their actual sin. They tolerate the wicked woman Jezebel. In this case, Shawn BS, they tolerate her. So there's a very big difference between how God administers mercy and justice from heaven. He gets to make those calls. He got to decide that David kept living after his affair. uh for a time he got to decide that just as David was a home wrecker, God was going to wreck his home. God got to decide how he meated out punishment and how much time he gave people to repent. But that's not the model. That's not that's never in scripture presented as the model for church governance. The model for church governance is set out plainly in scripture. And in that very passage, the church is rebuked strongly rebuked strongly for tolerating the wicked woman Jezebel. And that's exactly what Chris has done. >> That's right. And I think that that you should frame it that way. This is sin. This is why Jesus had a problem with Ephesus and he has a problem with Bethl Church in Reading. Uh is because this is sinful. Uh still this is not a response. It's not a response. Like certainly he is responding to Mike Winger, but but he's not giving any evidence or justification for his actions. Um, I I'll I'll land on the plane again talking about the textual variant of John 8. Augustine suggested that John 8 was removed. I'm not saying that's what I agree with the text, but he was said that he believed it was removed from the text because people who were weak in faith reading that passage of scripture came to it and said, uh, oh, people are going to use this to justify sin. Um, what's funny is that Augustine said those people were weak in faith. Uh, because Jesus clearly says go and sin no more. What she did was wrong. What Valatin is doing here is even worse than the people that Augustine thought were weak in faith. He's saying we should use this passage to just like not throw a stone. We should never we should never raise our voice or or be uh be disgruntled or or say, "Hey, this is an injustice." Because we're all sinners, too. That is not what we're commanded to do in scripture. It's not. Uh as Michael said, yeah, all of those guys, yeah, the Lord let them stay in, but he still disciplined them. And there was no public uh uh uh you know statement for what Israel was supposed to do when the king practiced in this kind of sexual immorality. Were they to go and remove him by force? No. God God disciplined him. But the church does have a an ecclesial body that holds its leaders accountable. Um this is a this is a giant bummer. Uh I tell you, I want to be in Bethl's corner. I I do. I want to I I want to say, "Man, the music you're making, it's it's changing the world. I want to I want to hang out in your corner and be like, "Man, you guys are really trying to pursue the supernatural. Uh you're hungry for prophecy and legitimate healings and those kinds of things." Like, I want to I I want to champion these guys, but but every time we turn around, it's promoting another false teacher. It's promoting false doctrine. Every time we turn around, it's it's hiding sexual sin and then justifying why we had it. Because, you know, who knows who is just in this situation? If Mike Winger and not an a an investigator, um not someone who's got judicial authority. If he can listen to these stories and provide the evidence in such a clear and convincing way that forces you to respond with this talk, uh with this lecture, um with this kind of gaslighting, if if Mike Winger can do that, that means you can do that. Um and and I just I think that there is a a huge willful negligence to the body of Christ in this that is that is very similar to what's taking place in Ephesus. Guys, that closes out our video. Um, give me give me any closing thoughts. You guys are good. Y'all are happy with the way that ended. >> Happy. No. Uh, thankful for the opportunity to to air what we think was wrong about this. And again, appeal to Bethl. Please people there, pay attention to what just happened to you. >> You were just gas lit. >> Yeah, that's right. Roundree, you're muted. It's okay. He's shaking his head like, "No, I don't have thoughts." >> Uh, it I feel like it's pilot washing his hands, just pretending this is not my fault. And presenting a word salad of a speech of all these various, you know, we're super great and we're having a really hard time and uh just have compassion on us and we're trying our best and we haven't really done anything wrong. Uh, and I I don't buy it. So, yeah, I I don't really have anything else to say. I just uh it makes me really sad. Guys, I I'd encourage you. I I know I said at the front, I I want to support these guys. Mark in the void. This this stuff is insane. Um we shouldn't tolerate it. Um hope that our next video can be a little bit more encouraging and edifying uh to you guys. Uh but in the meantime, I'd say spread the word. Doesn't mean share this video. That doesn't mean um you know, but but the body of Christ does need to know this is happening. Uh get Mike Winger's content out there. help people see um that that this is a problem that needs to be fixed. Guys, thank you so much for tuning in. Uh we'll see you next time., Bethel Church Responds to Mike Winger, YouTube, 01kfk8f5az4ds2zqdh6s0tqbve.