Bethel’s Worship Leader: God Is Like The GENIE From Aladdin!

Bethel Music, Jen Johnson, and the “Genie from Aladdin” Comment

Hey guys, Colin here, and welcome back to the channel where the Bible and critical thinking meet to give you real Christian commentary about the things that matter. Thanks so much for watching, let's get into the video.

So Bethel Church is a charismatic church in Redding, California led by prosperity teacher Bill Johnson. This church is widely known for their music group Bethel Music, they're very popular. And one of the founders of Bethel Music is Bill Johnson's daughter-in-law, Jen Johnson.

Now Jen seems to be taking up the family business, because in recent years she's joined Bill Johnson and the rest of the Bethel gang in their constant stream of false doctrine and blasphemy. I recently made a video about Jen Johnson in which I played a clip where she clearly talks about the throne room of God.

She claims that angels around God's throne probably have farting contests with each other. I'm not making this up, go watch the video, it's linked in the description. At the end of the clip, Jen made another wildly blasphemous comment that I knew I just had to make a separate video about.

Watch this. God to me, Jesus to me, and the Holy Spirit to me is like the genie from Aladdin. That's who he is to me, and he's funny, and he's sneaky, and he's silly.

Subjective Views of God Versus the God Revealed in Scripture

So let's talk about this using three biblical points, shall we? Number one, there is a very important observation to be made in this clip. She starts off her statement by saying, quote, God to me, Jesus to me, and the Holy Spirit to me.

Are you noticing a pattern here? Because you should be. Everything she said was to me, to me, to me. She doesn't say that God in Scripture, or Jesus in Scripture, or the Holy Spirit in Scripture are a certain way.

Rather, she makes it very clear that it's all about her subjective view of God. The objective description of God in his holy word, that isn't enough. You also have to use your own imagination to invent more aspects of his character and personality that just may not exist.

That's becoming all too common in hyper-charismatic circles these days. But the Bible makes it very clear that there is one God, and he has only one character as revealed in his word. Isaiah 44, 6 says the following, quote,.

Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts. I am the first, and I am the last. Besides me, there is no God, end quote. The Bible makes it very clear that there is one God, and he has only revealed himself on his own terms.

There is no me-God or you-God. There is just one eternal, objective Lord of the universe. He is the way that he is in reality, not the way that we imagine him in our minds. He actually exists externally to our minds.

Now if someone tells you, God to me is like X, or God to me is like Y, it's important to remember they may not always be speaking unbiblically. I just want to clarify that. They may say, God to me is like a loving father, and that would be an accurate statement, even if they said, to me.

Why? Well because this statement is thoroughly supported by Scripture, and therefore the problem with Jen Johnson's statement isn't the fact that she said the words, God to me is like, but rather the fact that those words were not followed by ideas from Scripture, but rather ideas about God from her own fleshly imagination.

Reverence, Awe, and the Holiness of God

And this brings me to point number two. Now there's another problem with this statement here, and that is the comparison being made between God and the genie from Aladdin. For those of you who have never watched Aladdin, the animated genie is voiced by Robin Williams.

He frequently makes jokes, grants wishes, and changes shapes into different humorous things. How on earth is the God of the universe, the God of the Bible, anything like an animated blue genie who makes jokes for comic relief in a children's movie?

Well I haven't the foggiest idea, but Jen Johnson obviously sees some sort of resemblance there. But this is an irreverent and inaccurate comparison. Hebrews 12, 28 says this, quote,. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.

And thus let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. End quote. True acceptable worship of God is offered with reverence and with awe. But there is no reverence in this comment made by Jen, who ironically is the leader of one of the most popular worship bands in the country.

That should tell you a little something about the state of the modern Christian music industry in these days. But I digress. The passage I read, and countless others in Scripture, clearly show us that the God of the Bible is the powerful, holy, almighty God of the universe.

You can't even look at his true form as a human being without literally dying. So comparing this God to an animated blue genie isn't just unwise, it's totally irreverent. Especially given the context of why Jen Johnson is comparing the two.

God Cannot Lie and Is Not Sneaky

And this brings me to point number three. The comparison between God and the genie from Aladdin is being used to illustrate how apparently silly and sneaky God is. So let's just focus in on that word sneaky for a second.

The word implies intentional deception. There's no getting around that. It's a lighthearted word sometimes. But there's no doubt that sneaky, it carries with it a negative connotation associated with lying and manipulating, at least to a certain degree.

And this is most certainly not a word that we should use with reference to the holy God himself. It implies that God is deceptive. Hebrews 6 .18 on the other hand says, quote, it is impossible for God to lie, end quote.

God is pure, holy, and he's perfect. He is not sneaky or deceptive in any way. And even if that's not what she meant by the word, it was still dreadfully irresponsible to use it in front of a church nonetheless.

A Call to Repentance and Biblical Worship

So in summary, Jen Johnson, who is the worship leader for Bethel Music and for Bethel Church, said that God is like a sneaky blue genie from a children's cartoon. She said this on stage in front of an entire church who reacted by laughing at this remark rather than being appalled by it.

And this comment not only encourages a subjective view of God, but it also misrepresents God's character. This statement is one of the most irreverent I've ever seen in anything that calls itself a church.

And because I love these confused people, I would really love to see them repent of this and turn in a more biblical direction. So let's pray for Jen Johnson and for her father-in-law Bill Johnson that they would repent of this and turn to the truth of God's word.

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