Violence for church?
The beginning of July saw a large march in London against knife crime, following the murder of Ben Kinsella, 16-year-old half-brother to an actress from the TV soap EastEnders.
One cannot but sympathise deeply with the family, but the killing brought home what was pointed out in this column last month. I am sure there are some redeeming features and portrayals of humanity in the series, but EastEnders often glamorises drinking, casual sex, aggression, petty crime and thuggery. If our TVs pour out violence, we must not be surprised when it invades our streets.
Kick in the face
However, not only do we have violence in society, but evidently the new ‘revival’ coming out of Florida under preacher Todd Bentley (see article on page 16) is advocating violence in church too. On one video* Bentley describes incidents where God supposedly told him to hit people. ‘I am thinking why is the power of God not moving and he said, “It is because you haven’t kicked that woman in the face”…Bam(!) and as my boot made contact with her nose she fell under the power of God’.
The re-emergence of heavy shepherds
What would you think if you received a letter from your church leaders that read like this? ‘Are church members …