F4F | Jesse Westwood Interview on Breaking Bethel

Fighting for the Faith

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Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Rosebro. I am your servant in Jesus Christ.

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This is the channel that compares what people are saying in the name of God to the Word of God. Now from time to time

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I like to do interviews. I like to interview people that are putting out interesting content or they have resources that are very valuable for the body of Christ and it's in that vein then

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I'm excited to to bring on to Fighting for the Faith, Jesse Westwood. Jesse, good to see you, sir.

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Good to see you again. So, all right, we're gonna talk about your new project. You're putting out a series of YouTube videos discussing your time at Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, which some of the folks there, they call it

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Hogwarts and this is what they call it. And so I want to walk through a few things and note here, if you do not subscribe to Jesse's channel, you need to subscribe to Jesse's channel.

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We're gonna put a link down below so that you can get to it. But I really think that this

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Breaking Bethel series, by the way, great name, Breaking Bethel. My wife tried to get me to watch the

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Breaking Bad television series and I couldn't get past the first episode because the good guy's a bad guy and I like have problems with that, you know.

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So, you know, but alas, maybe

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I'll take another run at it another day. But Breaking Bethel. Now you and I met over the summer when we were in Cleveland, Ohio, filming the

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American Gospel 3 and that was the first time I had ever a chance to get to meet you and talk with you and was very interested in the history that you have and the story that you tell because you were at Bethel not recently.

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How long ago was it that you were at Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry? Yeah, so I went right after high school.

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It was 2007 when I went out there. So I was at from 2008 to 2011 was kind of my year.

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Okay. So I did first or second year and I did third year interning under one of the head engineers and producers who had a studio called the

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Soundhouse. Okay. And I interned there and my internship entailed basically being part of production crew and engineering crew for about four or five

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Bethel albums and culture albums and then helping with live sound and engineering as well with those.

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So I got to work really closely to a lot of people there and really be in the thick of it. So yeah. Okay. So I mean, it's fair to say that you understand their culture, you were embedded in the projects that they were producing, you played a vital role in some of these things.

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So you're not an outsider, you're an insider. And as a result of that, you're pretty close then with some of the people who are presently leaders in Bethel and BSSM, are you not?

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Yeah, it's a kind of hard way. I don't know if close is the right word. I mean, I was close. That's the thing. There's a lot of people at Bethel that some have left

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Bethel since and they're doing other projects. But many of the people who are currently on staff at Bethel were people that were in my class when

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I was in first year. So people I know personally. And yeah, just I mean, a lot of the names that were bigger at Bethel were also in my class.

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Like Matt Stinton, Stephanie Gretzinger, Will Matthews, for instance.

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A lot of those guys I ran pretty close with. And like even like Will Matthews actually lived with me for a little bit at one point for like a week or so when he was looking for a place to stay there.

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And so it's like, yeah, I just I've ran with these people and I've known them. Yeah. Okay. Which always makes it difficult for the type of work that you're doing, because you have these relationships.

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I mean, even if you haven't spoken with them in years, you know these people personally, you have a history with them, and you know what they sound like, you know what foods they like, you know, you've laughed with them, you've cried with them and all this kind of stuff.

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Which means that going public with your story as a critical approach to raise concern about Bethel, have any of these people reached out to you to say, you know, listen, this is, you know, you're gone too far here.

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What you're doing is not right. Not yet. I mean, like, that's the thing. I had to clarify on the last video.

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Some people are like, why are you applying to Bethel right now? I'm like, no, no, this is like 12 years ago. We're telling a story.

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I know. Some of them are 17. I'm like, I'll take the compliment. I'm definitely not 17. But I mean, when

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I graduated from Bethel, I didn't leave on a bad note. I was very happy with my time at Bethel.

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I left to go chase a girl who ended up being my wife up north in Washington State.

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I would have stayed there longer probably if I didn't, you know, meet her. But I've been getting more responses from the churches and people that I ran with after Bethel.

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Because after leaving Bethel, I continued to work with other churches that are either Bethel affiliated, part of the

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Global Legacy Network, or just love Bethel. And so I made a lot more connections after that and then circled back to Bethel again.

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I even went back to Reading on tour with Sean Foyt at one point while still, you know, loving

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Bethel. So it was kind of a welcome home thing, which is cool. So most of the responses and reactions I'm getting from more of my friends circles from up north when

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I was doing that. I've got one or two, about two or three fellow alumni that are actually thankful for what

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I'm doing. And we're talking about potentially interviewing them later down the road and having a discussion. Right, okay.

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So I've watched two episodes now of Breaking Bethel. Episode two just launched today.

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Yeah, your application process and being accepted, and then week one.

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And you know, I, one of the things that struck me as I was watching your second episode was that, you know, that already in week one, they broke out a fire tunnel.

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And you didn't sit there and go, what is this? Where is this?

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You know, I mean, tell me what is your, how did you grow up that, you know, first week at Bethel, they break out a fire tunnel, and you're not sitting there looking in your

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Bible going, wait a second, this doesn't seem right. You know, what created the theology where fire tunnels in the first week at BSSM are okay?

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Well, I mean, it's in chapter two of Book of Hesitations. Right, of course. Right next to prayers to the

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Virgin Mary. I get it. Yes. Right, right, right. No, I grew up in a very charismatic church.

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I mean, so my background's a little, it's a mixed bag. We talked a little bit about it, but I mean, for specific viewers is, you know,

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I grew up, I went to a Mennonite private school. My grandmother was the choir director of a

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Methodist church. And then from like age eight and on, I was at a kind of a non -denominational charismatic church.

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And that's where I really cut my teeth in like doing worship and leading worship, being worship teams and prophetic worship.

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And like the, I'm used to like the one or two hour worship sets and people coming up, giving words and like,

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I got a word about something or I got a tongues. And then like, I just, that's just what I grew up in. And that's all I knew of Christianity.

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And so when it came to Bethel, it was just like the cooler, more refined version of it with young people that wore skinny jeans.

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It was really what it come down to. So I wasn't like, I wasn't put off by it at all. I was very excited about it. So those were the days of the hipsters, you know, so.

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Oh yeah. Are hipsters still a thing or are they really outmoded? You know,

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I don't know. I buy my clothes from Walmart now, so I'm out of the scene. Right, exactly. Plus, you know,

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I saw you making sausage on one of your videos and those overall coveralls are kind of important when you're making sausage.

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Oh heck yeah. They're hip. Okay. So, you know, there's so many disconnects in my mind.

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I don't even know how to even approach it because from the whole idea of attending a school, paying a school a tuition in order to learn how to do quote, supernatural ministry.

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I mean, doesn't this just like immediately run a foul of like, you know, Simon the

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Sorcerer, Acts chapter eight kind of stuff? You know, may you perish with your money because you think you could buy the gift of the

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Holy Spirit? You know, if I read my Bible, I probably would have thought that. But I wasn't the best scholar.

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And that's the thing with most, I don't want to stereotype, but it is kind of a problem with the charismatics is there's a couple, you know, there's a handful verses that they stick to and they're not the most, charismatics don't tend to be the most scholarly to be honest.

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That's changing a little bit I think, but especially back when I was, my days in the charismatic camp, it wasn't the most scholarly.

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So, I would say that the big thing was like, when you're in those call, and that's kind of,

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I think it's part of the application process. What I want to talk about is that they want to make sure you're kind of lined up with their culture and what they're doing because like impartations was something my church was doing.

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And so, when I was, you know, the idea of going to Bethel was based on that of like, hey, you go to Bethel to get impartations from these teachers and these preachers that are practicing and doing all this stuff.

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And so, it made perfect sense to go there because they have all these big leaders, like they have like, you get the cornucopia of the bigwigs.

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Everyone from like, Georgie Winnie Banoff, Benjamin Dunn, Heidi Baker, like they all come there and you're at one spot where they're doing impartation services and all that stuff and that was a regular thing.

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And so, for me, it just made total sense at the time. So, impartations, activations, things like this.

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Okay. So, I'll just kind of throw a few things out. One of the big controversies, and you mentioned this in your second installment, is the theology of the canonic view of Christ.

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And one of the things I've noticed about Bill Johnson is he seems to be speaking out of both sides of his mouth.

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On the one hand, he'll sit there and say, Jesus did everything he did as a man yielded to the

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Holy Spirit. And then he even has in the past, a perfect relationship, as if Jesus is like the premier, the alpha model, the pinnacle model of what it looks like for a charismatic to be able to operate in signs and wonders because they're yielded to the

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Holy Spirit. And he's even used language of him laying aside his divinity in order to do this.

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Then when challenged in questions, he doesn't apologize. He doesn't apologize.

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He more or less accuses people of not understanding his position. And then he'll say that,

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I believe that Jesus was always fully man and fully God. And so, the thing is, is that you can't reconcile the two statements because there's no apology in between.

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So, it's as if he's speaking out of both sides of his mouth. And I remember when he spoke at Hillsong Conference, you know, this is, was it five, six years ago now?

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And he, just perfect canonic theology. You know, Jesus laid aside his divinity and you can still find this.

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Look for Bill Johnson speaking at Hillsong Conference. And he notes that if Jesus did everything he did by virtue of the fact that he was

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God, then he has no model to follow. He's impressed.

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Pete His line is, you're reduced to a spectator. That's what he says. You're reduced to a spectator.

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Yep. Pete Right. So, I mean, what are your thoughts on how Bethel has addressed the controversy as it relates to the statements made by Bill Johnson, which clearly are canonic, which then when he clears it up, he denies that he denies

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Christ's deity, but the two statements can't be reconciled. Yeah, and that's the thing.

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Like, I know the moment I publish that, I'm going to get people sending me links of like, well, here he recounted that and here's when he fixed that.

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And it's like, I know those are going to pop up. And the problem I see is that their theology and their, just everything they do falls apart without it.

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Because the way he talks about preaching a full gospel with signs and wonders, for him, that's interpreted that you have to perform miracles, you have to see signs and wonders.

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And so, there is this dance they have to do where you either have a healthy canonical understanding of Christ, and Christ is an example to us, absolutely.

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But he's not, there's no denying that. I think people will throw the baby out the bathwater sometimes.

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But to the extent of like the miracles he performed, it's like he's God. And so, we can't use the miracle standard as like, he's

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God and he's always miracles, so we should see the same thing. But without that option to Bethel, their whole theology falls apart if we can't have miracles as a standard.

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And so, they're almost forced in this position where they have to juggle the two. Because without it, well then, what's the point of everything else we're doing?

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Because that's why we believe in miracles is because we believe Jesus was a man in perfect relationship with God performing miracles.

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So, they have, they're kind of, they've put themselves in this corner where they have to juggle the two. And I don't know if we'll ever get a straight answer out of it.

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Pete Right. So, you know, okay. So, it's kind of like a political spin, you know, spin cycle where they're saying things that, you know, to keep their base in check and somewhat discredit the critics.

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That's kind of how I see his statements. And - Aaron Well, when the Bethel Revisited came out,

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I told Kaylee right away, I'm like, my wife, I'm like, the first episode I saw, I'm like, this is total damage control. This is total damage control.

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Because a lot of things, and I'm going to actually, I'm going to do a series eventually of me breaking down the Revisited. I know people have done it before, but like, there's so much

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I got to say about that. But long and short of it is a lot of things that they're denying and trying to correct. I was like,

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I was there. Like, I saw you do these things, or I saw you teach this. And it wasn't like an oopsie.

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It was like, this was part of the plan. And so, there's just a lot there where it's like, it's total damage control. Pete Yeah.

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And as a shout out to the upcoming American Gospel series, I would note that pay attention to the segments in the

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New American Gospel as it relates to grave soaking. I don't want to give too much away, but...

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I know, right? Yeah. But I want to whet your appetite. You're going to want to see this because I know that Jesse's going to weigh in on this.

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So, but we'll make sure not to upset Brandon Kimber by saying anything here.

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Watch American Gospel 3, that whole grave soaking thing will be brought up in depth.

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So, when we talk about then this idea that signs and wonders and miracles are absolutely, as a friend of mine used to say, mandatory.

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They are mandatory over at Bethel and everything's all about that. But are the miracles and the prophecies and the signs and the wonders that they are performing, are they even real?

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Because the stuff that I see coming out of Bethel reminds me of when I was five years old and I was flipping channels on a

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Saturday morning. We used to have to use these things called a dial. And this is back in the day when I grew up in Southern California.

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So, we had Channel 2, CBS, Channel 4, NBC, 5KTLA, 7ABC, over to 9 for,

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I forget what 9 was at the time. And then KKLA on 11.

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And then there was a 13 that didn't come in very well where I lived. But all that being said, I remember flipping channels.

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Saturday morning was the day I would watch Bugs Bunny and the Roadrunner and flip over.

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And then I noticed that on Channel 11 on Saturdays after cartoons, they would have professional wrestling.

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And I remember watching a few things of professional wrestling and as a five -year -old,

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I was asking myself, is this real? Are they really fighting?

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It doesn't seem real to me. And so, I was struggling as a five -year -old regarding the veracity of professional wrestling with Hulk Hogan and guys like that.

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And I have that same feeling that I had when I was a five -year -old when I look at the stories and the signs and wonders and the things that are supposedly supernatural coming out of Bethel.

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Is this really God, the Holy Spirit? Because it sure does seem flaky to me. Yeah. So, I have a hard time with that question in a couple of ways.

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So, there was a lot of miracles per se that happened.

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Sorry, my little one's just climbing. Hey, Eden. Eden. Thank you. Shut the door, babe. She's literally climbing the wall and turning on the light off and on.

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Okay. So, it's a couple of ways to answer that. So, we knew there for three years.

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There's a lot of prayer, a lot of words of knowledge, a lot of conferences, healing rooms. I participate in the healing rooms, all kinds of stuff.

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And here's the way I see it. If a real miracle happened,

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I feel like it would be so pressed upon me to not forget it. If there was something that was an actual miracle that was like, oh my gosh, that happened.

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I feel like I could pull it up out of nowhere and tell you. But every time I try to recount one, it usually is some sort of thing like, oh, back pain or oh,

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I had someone saying I couldn't hear well in one ear or something like that. And then they said they could hear.

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And it's something that's hard for me. So, I am still like, it's very raw and close to a lot of this.

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And so, it's like, I don't want to deny. I know there's a couple of times they prayed for deaf people and they said, hey, they can hear again.

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I'm like, that's amazing. But was there any actual scientific verifiable stuff that ever came out of it?

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No. And that's where the things I keep going back to. Here's where I don't want to go.

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I don't want to grieve and be a skeptic of the works of God to an extent where I discredit what

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He's done. But then in the same breath, I don't want to credit someone who has, even though they've done let's say one valid miracle, valid miracle, and there's a myriad of false prophecies and things behind it.

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So, there's this juxtaposition where I'm like, I so want to believe that that was a miracle that happened and God moved there.

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Because I know God in His sovereignty, I'm like a cessationist to the point where I don't think nothing can happen. I know that in His sovereignty,

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God can heal if He wants to. He can do that. He's allowed to do what He wants. But I also don't want to go as far as just because it looked like a miracle and smelled like a miracle doesn't mean it's a miracle when also there's a track record of false prophecy and so many questionable things behind it.

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So, it's like, just being honest, I have a hard time juggling that and where do I land on that?

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But for the most part, I'd say most miracles were like leg lengthening or back pain or I had a headache or stuff like that, which

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I don't make light of. I would love to say that it happened, but it's like, I'm not going to say that every day

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I saw blind eyes open and deaf ears open every single day because I didn't. Right. And so, this puts me in an awkward position because I'm a cessationist.

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And by cessationist, I'm not saying that all of the gifts have ceased. I'm saying that the apostolic sign gifts have.

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And so, I do not believe that we have prophets today. I do not believe that we have miracle workers today, but I believe that God performs miracles.

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So, in fact, I can legitimately say, I have seen miraculous answers to prayer as a pastor.

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I think back, maybe this is, so this is like 2016, 2017. One of the ladies in the congregation that I serve up in Oslo, Minnesota, she became very, very ill.

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She had sepsis and she, I mean, she was fine one day.

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Next day, she's like hanging on to life. And I went and visited her in the hospital thinking, this is it.

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She's not going to make it. And the doctors were not giving her a good prognosis either. I mean, this is the kind of stuff, it had been festering for a while and then just things exploded and it's like, she's,

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I'm thinking I gotta plan a funeral. And so, I offered a very humble, please

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God have mercy on her kind of prayer, and if it's your will, heal her. And the next day

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I get a phone call from her and she's made a complete 180. Wow. And the day after that, she's out of the hospital and it's like, what?

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Yeah. Yeah. Now, does that make me a miracle worker? No, not at all.

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And I can legit, and here's the thing, I can back it up with medical documentation too.

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But the thing is, is that I'm not a miracle worker. I just prayed and God answered prayer.

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So, I believe that God can answer prayer. Right, exactly. Humbly, that's the big thing.

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And that's the other thing is that it's the idea of formulating or, excuse me, making a formula out of how to see a miracle where it's like, you can't,

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I can rattle off the basic theology. It's like, you can't, it's not asking because when you ask for a miracle, you're already starting in a place of doubt and not faith.

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So, you have to declare, that's where it starts. That's one of the first things I talk about. It's like, you have to declare from a place of faith and knowing

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God's will. That's how we pray. We pray from a place of confidence and knowing God's will. And so, we know

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God's will is to heal everyone. And so, that's where we start from. Is it? I know, right? Is it though?

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And so, the prayer, and like Bill said multiple times, we don't pray if it is your will because that's already, that's bad theology because we know it's your will be done on earth as is in heaven.

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That's Jesus' prayer. So, they take that, take the Lord's prayer, your kingdom come, your will be done. And what's his will?

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His will is to heal everyone because if the kingdom of heaven has come unto earth, there's no sickness in heaven. So, bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth means bringing all health and no sickness.

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Does that make sense? I feel like you and I could have many conversations about this. We did a little bit of that at the thing where you would say, why do they think this?

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I'm like, I can tell you. Right. It's one thing to know what their theology is.

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And I'm a researcher, and I was in the latter rain movement in the late 80s, my wife and I both, but it's been so long since I've been out of it.

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And I never was really into kind of the third wave stuff that Bethel has been bringing in that I don't know how to think their thoughts.

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So, there's a ton of unthinkable thoughts. Petey Right. I liken it when we came out of the latter rain.

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The best analogy is that it's like trying to switch operating systems on a computer.

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You have to go from Windows to Macintosh because Macintosh is holy. But you have to completely change operating systems because the fundamental core assumptions of the theology of Bethel are very different than the fundamental core assumptions of biblical

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Christianity. And that's the distinction that I make. Now, one of the videos

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I saw, and this is a while ago, they would do these prophetic evangelistic treasure hunts.

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Did you ever participate in anything like that? Matthew So, I don't know if you remember the end of episode two, we'll sneak peek that.

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So, end of episode two, I talked about how I'm going to go over that. I actually participated and ran treasure hunts for two years at Bethel.

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Petey Really? Matthew Yeah. I read the book, Kevin Dedman's book. I went to the classes, and then

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I participated and ran them for people that were visiting Bethel and people that were coming to Bethel and wanted to do treasure hunts.

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I'd be the guy that would be on a Thursday night, I'd be at the church after the worship service, they'd come into the fireside room, and I'd get one ready, teach them what to do, fill out our cards, and we'd go do treasure hunts.

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Petey Wow. I remember the video that I saw, there was a person on there who was talking to an unbeliever and said that God told me to tell you that you're just amazing, that you're wonderful, and all of these words of affirmation, and I'm thinking, that ain't the

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God of the Bible. Is there a doctrine of original sin at all at Bethel?

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What is their view of the rank pagan who doesn't believe in Jesus? Matthew Yeah, and it's funny you say that, because that's one of the first videos that I watched of you.

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A friend of mine sent me the Wake Up Olive videos, and you kept saying, I think I told you this before, you kept saying, what faith is this, and what

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God is this? What religion is this? And that hit me. I was like, wait a minute, I'm a Christian. That hit me hard.

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So, to answer your question, though, that really isn't – so, the way prophecy – to answer that question, we have to kind of go at what is

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Bethel's view on prophecy, and how do we use prophecy? At the core, prophecy is taught at Bethel to use to call out the golden people.

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I can't give you an address for that in the Bible, but that's what – Petey The golden people?

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Matthew That is what we're taught. And so, okay, I'm going to – follow with me here. I'm going to give you a full picture. So, prophecy is used to bring out the golden people, to call out the golden people, and to see people the way

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God sees them. That's kind of the language they use. It's like, how does God see them? If you see them as a terrible person,

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God only makes good things. And so, we need to see the good in them that God has made. So, that's how treasure hunts come along, because treasure hunts is we're calling out the gold.

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We're finding the gold that's out on the street. So, that's the idea of a treasure hunt. They are the treasure. And so, when we find them, we're now then required – the idea is we're not here to tell them how terrible they are.

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We're not here to tell them what an awful person they are. We want to tell them that God sees them as a treasure, that God – the idea of a treasure hunt is once you get them, it's, hey, you have officially made it.

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Kind of the point of like, we have all coordinated together here and we have arrived to this location to where you are now the treasure and God has coordinated and lined this up and we found you.

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Like, you are the person with the jersey, with red hair. You're a guy in Starbucks with a foot pain.

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We hit all five of them. So, you are God's treasure and he lined this up to find you, to pray for you and tell you how amazing you are and that's what we're here to do.

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And like, that's the idea. A lot of times it'd be like, you'd start off with like, I hate God has lined this up or God has ordained this or God has sent us here to do this.

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Peter Okay, which kind of leads to this question. What did you do when you read biblical texts that contradicted like some of these core assumptions?

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So, you know, you want to bring out the golden people and you want to speak words to affirm to them the way

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God sees them. But what do you do in the Bethel context with like, the Gospel of John chapter 3 verse 36, which says, whoever believes in the

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Son has eternal life. Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

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You just don't read it, I guess. I don't know. Because we're taking like, we'll take all kinds like,

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I mean, a lot of the verses, like a great example of like, verses, I mean, to kind of give you an extent of how things are twisted and kind of, it's like,

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I look at it almost like two different worldviews that you're dealing with. And because like, you're both reading the same thing, but we're drawing completely different conclusions, which is,

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I mean, that's theology at the core of it. But one of the big ones we talk about is like,

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I think it's in Matthew where Jesus has the parable of the servant who was given the money and his debt was forgiven.

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And then he came back for the other guy and he didn't forgive his debt. And he says, you owe me my money after the king forgave the one servant's debt.

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Well, then he turns around and goes after the guy that owes him money and he doesn't forgive his debt. And then the king's like, well, what wicked servant are you?

30:27

I'm going to release you to the tormentors because you haven't forgiven them. So, that's the parable, right?

30:33

Yeah. So, how Bethel uses this is the reason why he was released to the tormentors is because he didn't forgive the debt of the other.

30:44

We can take that now and say, well, you are dealing with cancer because you have been released to the tormentors because you have not forgiven someone in your life.

30:55

You have opened a door to someone to allow sickness to last. I know,

31:00

I know. But that's how this is taught. And so, we're taught that when you're praying for someone and let's say you're not seeing a breakthrough in healing, you could say like, maybe you get a word of knowledge and you say like, and that's another thing, word of knowledge is, we can go down there too.

31:12

But he says, I feel like I had a word of knowledge about like, do you have like a bad relationship with your son? And like, oh,

31:17

I haven't spoken to my son in like 15 years. It's like, I think you should call your son and forgive him and then we can pray for you and we can see that breakthrough because I think that unforgiveness is what's letting that sickness hold on to you.

31:30

How is this any different than karma? I don't know. Okay.

31:40

And what do they then do with Benny Johnson? Because this is in the Bible. Yeah. Well, yeah, they're twisting that text in not rightly applying the meaning of it.

31:52

But what did they do then with Benny Johnson? She just died of breast cancer. Yeah, that's a hard one, man.

31:57

Was she released to the tormentors? I don't know, man. That's a hard one. And we talked about this a little bit and there's a lot there where like, that's a hard one because like, it's tough, man.

32:08

Like, I knew Benny. Like, I've sat with Benny. I've hugged Benny. I've worshipped with Benny.

32:14

I've been on ministry trips with Benny. It's like, she's a super sweet lady. She's incredibly nice, incredibly kind.

32:21

And that was hard to see that happen. And then one of the things that I told my wife,

32:27

I said, I guarantee they're going to use this to launch some sort of revival or next big wave thing.

32:35

And sure enough, within three days, Lou Engel is talking about the communion revival and how

32:41

Benny was the steward of the communion revival and he was imparted that mantle to take forward. I'm like, guys, come on.

32:47

Because Bill did the same thing with his dad. I told you about this, how when his dad died, that was the offering of that sweet sacrifice of praise, which there's beauty in that.

32:55

What Bill talks about is, I didn't see my dad healed and I'm not going to question it, but I also want to use this moment to worship

33:01

God for his goodness. And Bill talks about this, he told us multiple times about how that's when revival broke out at Bethel after that.

33:08

It's like, that was the seed that was sown to break out revival. And they did the same thing with Benny of like, okay, we're going to take

33:15

Benny's mantle and we're going to push this communion revival. And I'm like, guys, come on. I've been there, done that.

33:22

So I don't know what to say about that. How do you juggle that? I don't know, but it just sucks. You know, so we just did an episode.

33:30

In fact, it releases today, the day we're recording this. And we deal with the fact that Ken Copeland has a pacemaker.

33:44

And the word of faith guy, and we named the video,

33:50

Ken Copeland doesn't have enough faith. Because the fact that we have video of him talking about this conversation with his physician, him going through the procedure of getting a pacemaker, and then quote his theology from years past, and the two cannot be reconciled.

34:10

You know, it, and so one of the things I've noticed in, you know, when it comes to false teachers like this, that teach the importance and the necessity of miracles and signs and wonders and prosperity and things like this, that when it doesn't work for them, they always get a pass.

34:31

But when it doesn't work for the average person, it's their fault. Well, that's like, yeah, that's exactly it.

34:37

It's like, that's, like I said, when it doesn't work for them, there's some sort of unforgiveness or unbelief you're dealing with.

34:42

That's why you're not getting healed. And it's like, well, let's talk about that pacemaker, Mr. Copeland. Right.

34:48

It's like, what are you dealing with? Like, what? Yeah. You know, how come it's okay for him to get medical treatment, but not for others?

34:57

Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, there's a lot of double standards. It was kind of that death of a thousand cuts that kind of brought me out of it was when you start questioning these things and seeing these things, and you try to rationalize it and justify it.

35:09

It's like, you can't. You can't. Yeah. One of the things that stood out in your first episode, we were talking about when you first got to Bethel, all the people who were prophesying because your name is

35:21

Jesse that, you know, that we're just going to pull out David's father and prophesy things regarding, you know, you raising up Davids and nonsense like this.

35:31

How's that work? Oh, yeah. I've probably got that like five times. How many Davids have you raised up since then?

35:38

I mean, not too many. I mean, like, here's the other thing, though.

35:44

There's like a weird self -fulfillment in the prophecy because like I did operate as a worship pastor and help raise people up to be worship leaders.

35:52

So do you consider that a David? But it's also like that's kind of like, I don't know.

35:57

It's like, what do you what do you like that? And that's what they're talking about. David, you're going to raise up other worship leaders.

36:02

It's like, oh, like, OK, but I'm not going to raise literal giant slayers. But but in the same breath, it's like there's a whole bunch.

36:10

I have so much to unpack with Bethel. It's insane. But like a whole episode just on unpacking prophecies.

36:16

At one point, I still have some of my journals, at least I'm pretty sure I do, of like back when I was at Bethel and I wrote down all my prophecies.

36:24

And I'm going to try to do an episode where I read through them and see. Yeah, that's going to be frightening.

36:33

Yeah. Whoa. Yeah. That's like me wandering through the Bible I had when I was in Nazarene.

36:39

And like every single text that was highlighted was a law text. I didn't know what to do with the gospel.

36:48

And so here's the next question I have for you is that people will say something like, well, listen, just go to the

36:55

Bethel website. They have an orthodox Christian statement of faith. How can you say they're occult?

37:01

How can you say that they're aberrant? I mean, they believe in the deity of Christ. They believe that salvation is by grace through faith alone.

37:08

They believe in the doctrine of the Trinity. So therefore, ergo, they're not dangerous and you're just nitpicking and causing disunity in the body of Christ.

37:18

What do you say to folks like that? The fruit. I mean, it comes down to the fruit.

37:25

It's like you can have a great statement of faith, but you still have a guy who preached the little God's doctrine. Yeah. What do you do with that?

37:33

You can say that you have a great list out of your orthodoxy and what you believe in your,

37:38

I guess, liturgy in a sense, but you still are teaching people to sin. And I say that,

37:44

I can say that confidently based on my understanding now, thanks to you, of what it means to use the

37:50

Lord's name in vain. And so when you're teaching people to practice prophecy, you're literally teaching people to sin.

37:55

You're telling them keep… There's no way around it. There's no way around it. It's like you're telling them it's okay to get it wrong.

38:02

It's okay to assign the Lord's name to a promise you didn't keep and try and try again until you nail it. That's like saying, practice adultery until you find the right wife.

38:14

It's like it doesn't work. That's not going to work that way. No. It's not going to work. Yeah, practice adultery until you find your soulmate.

38:20

No, no, that ain't going to work. No, no. And now that I have a healthy catechized understanding of this is what it means to break the commandment, you can't…

38:34

There's no… You can't delineate the two. It's one and the same because there's a severity to assigning the

38:41

Lord's name to a promise because His word never returns void. And to just throw that out there and to make our

38:48

God a God that just gets things wrong and makes mistakes, how is He the all -knowing, omniscient, and all -powerful, beginning -to -the -end

38:54

God when He couldn't figure out what broke your leg when you're trying to get some sort of word of knowledge?

39:01

It doesn't work. This is why I created Vincent. Hi, this is the Holy Spirit. Vincent is a bumbling idiot.

39:10

He's incapable of lucid thought and he needs a lot of help with a lot of things. But that ain't the

39:17

Holy Spirit of Scripture. Now, one of the things I've noticed is,

39:22

I think I'm into self -harm here, is that, you know, I watch

39:29

Bethel sermons with regularity, especially if Bill Johnson is the one on stage.

39:35

And one of the things I can legitimately say in the more than a decade that I have been really keeping an eye on their sermons,

39:44

I have never heard Bill Johnson legitimately preach law and gospel, call sinners to repentance and faith in Christ, the one who was crucified, bled, and died for their sins.

39:58

I've never really heard a clear gospel presentation at all from this man.

40:04

Have you? I mean, for those of you who've seen the clip trailer

40:10

American Gospel, you'll know that I haven't. And that was one of the problems is that I was there for three years and I heard gospel affiliated things and gospel adjacent messages, but not really a full on Paul Washer gospel presentation.

40:30

Could you imagine Washer preaching at Bethel? I would pay money.

40:37

I would fly out. I would pay Bethel for them to do that. But it's like, that's the thing is like,

40:44

I never really heard a full on gospel presentation where I got to hear the full on, like you said, law and gospel.

40:55

There's always like this need, like your need for a savior. And they have this new evangelist guy that some people are pushing that, he has a great gospel message.

41:02

And I listened to it. I'm like, but even in his message, he's not even saying what you're being saved from.

41:09

He's like, it's like you're being saved. It's like, from what? Like, what am I being saved from?

41:16

The wrath of God. You're being saved from the wrath of God. It's like, but even then it's like, the assumption is you're being saved from sin.

41:26

No, it's like, you're being saved from hell. Okay. But who, who sends you to hell?

41:31

Who, who's the judge? It's like, there's all this stuff where it's like, it's almost there, but it's like, it's just, you know, close, but no cigar.

41:40

It's like, you know, it just, it's, you know, it's not a horseshoes and hand grenades thing. It's like, you got to nail it.

41:45

Like, you really have to explain what are you being saved from? And that's not, that doesn't happen.

41:51

It's like, cause that's, that's, that's too scary to say. That's kind of like, they don't say the mean things. So. Yeah.

41:58

One of the analogies I use, so when somebody has an orthodox statement of faith, but they don't preach the same doctrines from the pulpit,

42:06

I call that a filing cabinet orthodoxy. You know, we have an orthodox statement of faith.

42:13

It's in the filing cabinet. Let me see, we're orthodox. It's right here in the filing cabinet. But what's being preached from the pulpit is different.

42:21

But the other analogy I use from time to time is this idea of, even if you hold to sound doctrine, you can say you believe in the doctrine of the

42:29

Trinity and the deity of Christ and the vicarious penal substitutionary death on the cross by Christ for the forgiveness of our sins, so that we can be reconciled to God and not experience

42:40

His wrath. Even if you believe those things, if you don't preach it and you preach a bunch of other stuff, then what ends up happening is that the gospel itself gets papered over.

42:50

You remember that, maybe you don't, but back in the day they used to have bills that they would, it says post no bills, they'd have walls.

43:00

You know, you got a concert coming up and they put promo posters up, you know, so that people can go.

43:05

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I lived in Seattle for a while, so yeah, they still do that. Right, okay, so they still do that in Seattle.

43:11

Seattle still has a music scene. But you'll note that the posters that were there last week are papered over by the ones for this week, and then those get papered over and those get papered over.

43:23

So, at one point, you know, if you hang out in Roman Catholicism long enough, by accident, you're going to hear the gospel, okay?

43:31

Because it'll show up in the lectionary readings. So, they actually, they still follow a lectionary.

43:37

So, you can actually hear the gospel because the verses that contain the gospel will be read from the lectern.

43:44

But the thing is, is that the gospel itself gets papered over with prayers to the saints and prayers to the

43:50

Virgin Mary and purgatory and all this kind of stuff, it gets papered over. It's in there somewhere, but you can't, you know, it's the least of the doctrines because no one really comments on it, no one can really communicate it correctly, because the most important stuff is all the other stuff.

44:07

Was that your experience at BSSM in Bethel that, you know, the focus on the other things kind of papered over the sound doctrine bits?

44:16

I think that's a good way to put it, because the school was there to help you, the idea of the school is like they want to make sure you have your stuff already figured out, like you're a

44:25

Christian, you know the basics, like, you know, you got that all figured out, because you're coming here to like,

44:31

I kind of equate it to like boot camp versus like SEAL training. It's like boot camp is like every other

44:39

Christian, like they got the basics, they can, you know, they can do all this stuff, they're in good shape, they have the basics figured out, and you can send them out and they can do it.

44:46

But if you want to be a Navy SEAL, you have a level of training to do. And so, that's kind of what

44:53

Bethel was like, you can be a Christian, but if you really want to learn how to do like all the other stuff, you come here.

44:59

And so, that's partially why the gospel isn't like presented or articulated, because you're not really going over that. Pete Right.

45:05

The fact that they would like even see themselves as like the elite Navy SEALs of Christianity is just laughable to me.

45:12

It's like, you know, and see, that's the thing, is that, you know, I think that they're laboring under a strong delusion, because you look at the

45:21

Olive incident, which is just tragic on so many levels, you know, including the fact that this little girl's corpse was sitting in the morgue, while they're trying to raise her from the dead, and it's sat there for more than a week, this is a mess.

45:37

And then, you know, you look at the fact that Bill Johnson's son, he's deaf, you know, and then you look at Benny Johnson, and then, you know, you start looking, and then one of my favorites was when

45:50

Bethel shut down their healing rooms because of COVID. Pete I mean, COVID. Yep.

45:56

Pete I mean, how can you say that you're the elite Navy SEALs of Christianity, when the elite

46:02

Navy SEAL level fight comes to your backyard, and you guys aren't on the front line valiantly fighting it, you're like capitulating and getting the snot kicked out of you.

46:13

It's like a fire truck on fire. What fire? It's like, well, should we put the fire out?

46:21

I don't know how we put the fire out. With the water. Put it out already, come on.

46:27

It's like, we deal with COVID how? With your healing ministry, deal with it, like get rid of it. Yeah, I mean, yeah,

46:34

Kozar made the point that, you know, that these guys, these faith healers, including

46:39

BSSM folks, they should have been on the front line fighting COVID. Yeah. No, I agree.

46:44

I agree. Like, I remember when I was, I just left Washington when I got back to Washington, that was the first thing

46:52

I was curious about. And then when I started seeing everyone pop up on Zoom meetings and Bethel canceling, I was like, man, guys, like you gotta know this is a bad look.

47:01

Like, there's no way they're getting around that, like such a bad look. But it's still, they didn't put a dent on them, it seems like.

47:07

And then they had like an outbreak of COVID at BSSM among the students, and they had to shut the in -person classes down for a while.

47:19

So, the supernatural Navy SEAL glow -in -the -dark Christians weren't even able to put an end to COVID among them.

47:27

No, no. And, okay. Jesse, I get the feeling

47:34

I'm just gonna have to ask you to come back on, because the reality is... There's so much, like that's partially why

47:40

I started my channel, because like, every time I'd see someone talk about stuff, and I'm like, because I was like, there's a lot of people have commented on Bethel, but I don't, and I'm not trying to toot my own horn,

47:50

I just don't feel like there's anyone who's talked about or commented on Bethel that like was there for so long.

47:57

And there's just so many things where it's like, you're getting close to it, but you're missing so much. And there's just so many things to talk about and like to just, for lack of a better term, spill the beans on where it's like, oh, guys, if you only knew, if you only knew the half of it, but I would love nothing more to come back, that's for sure.

48:13

Yeah, we're gonna have to do that. But let me ask you, this will be my last question for this interview, because I reserve the right to ask you back, especially as your

48:22

Breaking Bethel series develops. And I know the answer to this in part, but of the people that you went to BSSM with, the people you graduated with, what percentage of your graduating class are still

48:37

Christians to this day? So, I can't put a percentage on it, but I can say that the ones

48:44

I'm able to see and keep tabs on, based on those numbers, if I were to extrapolate that to a grander scale, it wouldn't look good.

48:51

Okay. Just because like based on the small pool of people that I have that I keep in touch with or keep tabs on, and if I just took those numbers and then extrapolate it to the whole graduating class, it couldn't be good.

49:03

Like I would say majority of the people that I've kept in touch with have either left the faith, have gone to Eastern religions, or are like universalists.

49:14

Wow. Like everything from, I mentioned a little bit, but I have some friends that were, that basically went straight on to, first they came out as homosexuals, and then it went further than that, and then it went to like Wiccans, and then just like, and like, and they might even watch this, and if you see this,

49:37

I love you guys. You know, I've, yeah, if they see this, you know who you are, I love you.

49:44

But they even went as far as, I think one of them was like a youth pastor while practicing Wiccan, and then another one was, and then on top of that, it was like, just how do you go from there?

49:56

Like how do you, I just don't understand, like partially I do, I take it back, partially I do understand, because I went down that road a little bit myself.

50:03

Like I was an atheist for a little bit after Bethel, and for those of you that don't know, like if you haven't read the article,

50:09

Andreas Wojtyl, he's an awesome guy. I think Thinking Deeper is his YouTube, I forget, but he put out on his blog, that was kind of the first, my first kind of coming out was my article with him, and I talked a little bit about that with how

50:22

I was in the atheist camp for a while, because you just, once you kind of realize what everything you, the current theology you have is just in shambles, you then like, and you really don't have another place to go, you kind of just think, well, was any of this real?

50:36

And it is hard work, like it is work to redo your theology.

50:43

Like it just is. There's no, it's just, theology is not light. It's like, there's a lot to it, which is why

50:50

I have such respect for people like you and other pastors and ministers and theologians that have put the work in to help us understand, because there's so much to it, and you have to be willing to just say,

51:01

I was wrong, and just take a gut punch after gut punch of like, oh, I can't believe I did that, I believe that. And for me,

51:07

I almost didn't want to put in the work, but the only, the driving force for me was my kids, and wanting to give them,

51:14

I just couldn't see them raising them in the atheistic world view. I didn't know how to do it, and so rebuilding my faith was my only option.

51:21

And I had to literally approach it like a child. I did Sunday school with my kids, and that was like, and I was weeping over Sunday school lessons, because I'm just like,

51:31

I never heard this like this. It wrecked me. So, as far as alumni that are still in the faith, there's a lot of fallout, and it's tough to see.

51:41

It's everything all over from, it's rough. It's rough. So, yeah.

51:47

Pete Yeah. For my wife and I, I always tell people who are coming out of these bad churches that it took

51:56

Barb and I a good 10 years to work through all of this.

52:03

And even after 10 years, there would still be the occasional, oh, wait,

52:09

I used to believe this, but that's not what this text says. It says the opposite of it, and it's a little easier to clean.

52:15

You're cleaning up smaller bits, but there were some big blocks that had to move, and it took a long time.

52:22

Jared I was scared to even read my Bible, because I couldn't read it, like to take your turn, the Narcissus.

52:28

Like, I couldn't, everything I read was a Narcissus extrapolation. Like, I didn't know how to read the

52:34

Bible without doing that. Like, I just didn't. I didn't know where to start, and it just made it impossible for me.

52:41

Like, that alone was like, how do I jump back into this? I can't, if I'm gonna do it, I'm just gonna screw this up again. Pete Yeah. No, and it sounds like we were kind of on a similar track, because when

52:50

Barb and I came out of the latter rain, my wife looked at me and she says, who can we trust? And I said,

52:56

I don't think we can trust anybody at the moment. And she said, well, what are we supposed to do?

53:02

What's the truth? And this was the most profound thing I said at the time.

53:07

I said, I think the Bible is true, but I don't think we know what it means. And that was the best

53:12

I could come up with at the time. Jared And that's scary. Pete Yeah, absolutely terrifying.

53:18

And, you know, but then began really a lifelong journey of studying the Word and having to change some pretty big things along the way.

53:29

So let's just say you continue to be in my prayers, because you have been in my prayers.

53:37

And I'm watching your journey with joy and hope.

53:43

So, you know, because I know the road that you're on, and there's parts of it that are just hard and dark.

53:50

And I don't envy you having to go through all of it. But let me say this.

53:55

So, those of you who want to follow Jesse Westwood on his

54:01

YouTube channel as he unpacks his time at the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, the name of the series is

54:08

Breaking Bethel. What's the name of your channel again, Jesse? Jesse It's just The Westwood Home. Pete The Westwood Home.

54:14

Jesse The Westwood Home. Yeah, we're doing a couple things. We're doing the Breaking Bethel. And just for clarity, the name

54:20

Breaking Bethel, my wife was so hesitant about that name. She's like, sounds like you're just breaking them, like you're breaking them apart.

54:26

I'm like, no, no, no. It's a play on of breaking down my experience there. I'm not going into any animosity of wanting to destroy

54:35

Bethel. But if it's a product of it, okay, cool. But I'm not going in there trying to destroy

54:42

Bethel. It's breaking down my time, hence the name Breaking Bethel. But we're also doing, along with that, we have a homestead.

54:49

And so we love raising animals and food and gardening. And so we're doing that as well.

54:55

And kind of the parallels and reform theology with homesteading that we're finding. That's been fun. Pete Nice.

55:00

All right. So The Westwood Home is the YouTube channel. Again, we'll put a link down to the first and second episode of the

55:08

Breaking Bethel series that you're putting out. I think it's going to be important and I'm looking forward to seeing each new installment.

55:16

And I should let everybody know that as soon as we're done with the interview, we're going to record the next installment of Prophecy Bingo, and you're going to be our special guest for that.

55:26

I don't know how you're going to survive, sir. I don't know either. I'm worried.

55:33

I already gave you a small taste of what it is that's in store for us. So, but yeah, so and hopefully we'll get that out next week.

55:42

I think we're planning on releasing the Prophecy Bingo on a week from Friday.

55:48

So keep that in mind. Because people always want to know, when's the next Prophecy Bingo? Well, we're recording it today.

55:55

It'll come out a little more than a week from today. And if we don't have to call 911 for Jesse while we're recording it, we'll consider that to be a plus.

56:05

Die of cringe. Die of cringe. What'd he die from? The first known case of cringe mortality.

56:11

Oh, no, it could become an epidemic. So, well,

56:17

Jesse, thank you for your time. And I pray the best for you and your family and that the videos that you're putting out will absolutely be a benefit for the body of Christ as they wrestle with the same issues that you're bringing up.

56:33

So let me sign off here and then we'll join together again for Prophecy Bingo shortly.

56:39

Hang on a second here. So if you found this interview with Jesse Westwood helpful, all the information on how you can share this video is down below, as well as the links to the first two installments of Jesse's Breaking Bethel series.

56:55

And until next time, may God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and His vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.