Bethel Church says it’s remaining ‘respectfully quiet’ amid investigation into alleged clergy abuse

After allegations of clergy sexual abuse and grooming were made publicly against Bethel Church leader Ben Armstrong earlier this year, the church said it would be regularly updating the public about “safeguards and processes” to ensure accountability, safety and oversight.

That was more than a month ago, but Bethel leaders still haven’t announced who will be investigating the allegations or responded to questions about the church’s new abuse and harassment reporting process, called Safe Church. Meanwhile, online content about an “affair” between Armstrong and a former intern has been removed in a variety of places online.

Bethel Church is a Redding-based megachurch with an estimated attendance of about 8,500 people, according to its 2025 annual report, making up around 9% of Redding’s population. The church also has considerable international influence — Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry serves thousands of students a year with enrollment from almost 90 different countries, the report stated. 

In a series of public notices on its site over the last several weeks, Bethel originally said updates would be shared regularly about “what is being evaluated and new safeguards being put into place to ensure the safety of the congregation and biblical oversight.”

But little information has been released on the church’s website since then. The latest update, released on Feb. 27, said that a “smaller team of senior leaders” has been meeting almost daily to decide on future action. The update stated that an investigative team was expected to be chosen within a week, and that the church would be staying “respectfully quiet” while an investigation takes place.

Shasta Scout reached out to Bethel at the beginning of March asking the church to confirm if a third-party investigator had been hired and requesting specifics about how the church will ensure such an investigator is independent and objective. After multiple follow-up emails, the church still hasn’t responded. 

Allegations emerged publicly toward the beginning of February when a former Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry student appeared on a podcast to speak about how Armstrong, who was a revival group pastor at the time, allegedly sexually abused and groomed her while she was his intern more than 15 years ago. She was 23 at the time.

Bethel currently labels the incident as a “moral failure.” According to the church, Armstrong was temporarily removed from ministry after the incident came to light. After he publicly confessed to what he and other leaders have referred to as an “affair,” he went through a “multi-year healing and restoration process” and was later hired as the overseer of Prophetic Ministry. He was placed on administrative leave on Feb. 15.

The woman accusing Armstrong said she experienced sexual abuse, not an affair. Her public statements in February followed allegations made a couple weeks prior by a different former BSSM student, who said Armstrong allegedly touched her inappropriately and groomed her while she was a student. Those allegations became public around the same time that the church admitted to not taking appropriate action in 2019 after allegations were brought forward of sexual misconduct by Christian ministry leader Shawn Bolz, who Bethel had regularly platformed.

In Bethel’s most recent update, leaders explained that reports of abuse or harassment have already been submitted to and reviewed by the Safe Church team, Bethel’s newly-established process to report inappropriate behavior or misconduct. Reports are submitted online through a third-party organization called Mitratech, which turns them over to the Bethel Safe Church team where they’re internally investigated. After investigations into the reports are concluded, Safe Church reports the findings to Bethel’s senior leadership, according to the site.

Shasta Scout asked Bethel to respond to several questions about Safe Church, including how Safe Church is objective given that reports are investigated by an internal church team and findings are provided to senior leaders. The church was also asked what steps it will take in the future to ensure its leaders are held accountable and that allegations are taken seriously. Bethel did not respond to these questions.

Online content is removed from various platforms

In late February, the church reportedly shut down its Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry alumni Facebook page, a forum that was being used at the time by alumni to discuss the Armstrong allegations and share concerns about personal experiences at BSSM. Shasta Scout could not independently verify that the private page has been shut down because it was only open to BSSM alumni, but multiple alumni have been sharing a shutdown announcement that they said was posted on the Facebook page last month. 

“While this page may feel like a place to be heard, it is not a space where concerns can be properly reviewed, investigated, or responded to with the care they deserve,” the page’s administrator said in the announcement of the page’s temporary pause, according to screenshots shared by alumni in public spaces. “We are concerned that meaningful experiences and important feedback could unintentionally get lost in the recent increase in the volume of conversation here.” 

Screenshots shared by alumni also indicated that the administrator had said on Facebook that the page was being placed on a temporary pause “so we can honor the integrity of the investigation and ensure that nothing significant is missed.” They added that if anyone has a concern or experience to share, it should be reported to the church via the Safe Church process.

Some BSSM alumni have criticized Bethel’s move to shut down the Facebook page, including alum Jesse Westwood, who said in a podcast that the church is “controlling the narrative.” 

“They don’t want other victims to talk to each other,” he said in the podcast. “They don’t want to have an open forum where people can talk about their hurt or what happened to them and highlight failures in leadership.” 

Bethel did not respond to a request for comment about why the alumni page was shut down.

Videos about Armstrong talking about his “affair” in podcasts affiliated with Bethel’s leaders also appear to have been taken down in recent weeks. 

In 2018, Bethel senior leader Danny Silk interviewed Armstrong and his wife, Heather, on the podcast Loving on Purpose, where they discussed how Armstrong was involved in an affair with his intern. The video, which Shasta Scout mentioned in prior reporting, has since been removed from public view. 

Multiple other videos that platform Armstrong and his claimed experience with redemption after infidelity have also been removed, including two from the podcast BraveCo, which is hosted by Jason Vallotton, Bethel’s overseer of Pastoral Care. The first video, posted in May of 2023, was titled “Overcoming Infidelity with Ben Armstrong,” while the second video, titled “My Emotional Affair Turned Physical // How I Saved My Marriage After Infidelity – Ben Armstrong,” aired last June. 

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