How Bethel Church Leverages the Power of “Prophecy” To Influence Politics
The Northern California megachurch is part of a movement that’s become known as the New Apostolic Reformation. At the Church’s annual School of the Prophets conference, attendees paid hundreds of dollars for instructions on how to hear from God to create political change.
For one week in August, Bethel, one of the nation’s most influential megachurches, attracts thousands of “prophets” and “prophetic people” from every inhabited continent in search of direction from God.
Church leaders hope to build a global community of what they call “prophecy-minded people” that can change the world on both spiritual and governmental levels. The Church’s goal is bigger than growing its own congregation. As evidenced by the annual weeklong masterclass in prophecy, Bethel sees itself as part of the next ”Great Awakening”, encouraging attendees to export Bethel’s embrace of the “supernatural” back to their own ministries across the world.
Bethel’s leaders believe that with the proper training everyone can communicate directly with God–that often, thoughts and impulses are not really innate, but God speaking to us, dictating prophecy through a personal inner voice. If people learn to listen to God’s instructions in this way, Bethel teaches, they can carry out His will through both individual and societal action. God’s plan, the Church emphasizes, may range from how you conduct yourself as an individual to to carrying out a divinely-ordained political vision for humanity.
Known as “School of the Prophets” August’s annual conference is just a single part of Bethel teachings, an ongoing program of lectures, screenings, and courses that instruct Church followers on how to apply a Biblical framework to every aspect of one’s life, including politics.
In the Church’s cosmological view, political participation is itself a spiritual pursuit. And with November on the horizon, Bethel’s messaging on how to heed God’s politics, and bring God to the polls, seems especially urgent.
Part business summit and part spiritual crash course, this year’s prophetic conference was a who’s who of the emerging world of charismatic Christian industries. Two of the conference’s headliners were Bethany Hicks and Dan McCollam, co-founders of Prophetic Company, a program that offers online courses to officially become “a certified prophetic trainer in less than ten months.”
Bethel’s Prophetic Overseer Ben Armstrong presented a raffle for a consultation with Aqua Regia–a “spiritual intelligence” service that produces prophetic reports for clients in “spheres of influence,” details of which, he said, he wasn’t at liberty to name. While Bethel Senior Associate Leader Kris Vallotton and “Kingdom Entrepreneur” Keith Ferrante used the School of the Prophets (already priced at $425 for individual tuition and $810 for married couples, even for virtual attendees) as an opportunity to promote an upcoming sales pitch. The Emerging Prophets program, they assured conference participants, would provide a “$2000 value masterclass in the prophetic, priced at just $997.95.”
Bethel’s hands-on approach to steering politics is one of the features that aligns the Church with a growing and influential revivalist movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation. Churches identified by religious scholars as part of the NAR movement, share a common goal of uniting the nation under a religiously-motivated doctrine known as the Seven Mountains Mandate. Each “mountain” represents a pillar of society that observant Christians should take an active role in shaping, including the areas of government; religion; media; business; education; family; arts and entertainment.
While it qualifies as a church under tax law, Bethel is more than a religious institution. From Bethel’s educational institutes and media channels to its outsized role in city politics, the Church’s sprawling enterprise has already begun to create a blueprint for what a Seven Mountains future might look like.
Since establishing a modest location in 1964, the Bethel spiritual movement has grown exponentially. In the 1990s, under Senior Leader Bill Johnson, Bethel began developing an impressive campus in the north part of the city. It’s attracted thousands of ministry students from around the world.
To meet the capacity needs of its booming congregation, Bethel has expanded its footprint in Redding. In 2010, the church founded a nonprofit called “Advance Redding” and established a lease with Redding’s publicly-owned Civic Center. They positioned the move as a way to “establish [the city] as a leading cultural, educational, and economic center in the Northwest.” The facility also provides educational space for Bethel’s ministry students.
Shasta County locals hold disparate views on the Church. Some disparage it as a cult that’s taken over the city, while others show appreciation for Bethel’s ongoing efforts to revitalize Redding. Inarguably, Bethel is a force to be reckoned with and an integral part of local politics.
On the opening night of the prophetic conference, notable guests included Redding’s mayor Tenessa Audette. While Bethel leaders announced that supervisor-elect Matt Plummer and Redding City Council member Jack Munns would also both be present at the conference later in the week, Plummer told Shasta Scout he did not attend and Munns has not yet replied to a request to confirm his attendance.
Senior Associate Leader Vallotton used the first night of the conference to deliver a message about a “new era” to his acolytes.
“We need to consecrate ourselves,” Vallotton told in-person and virtual attendees, “because we’re coming into a new era… God’s about to pour out his power on us . . .”
Throughout the following four days of programming, Bethel leadership laid out a strategy for what this new era could look like for both the individual worshiper and the movement as a whole. While details are scarce, one thing is certain: striving toward Heaven on Earth must involve a role in politics. Even if Bethel refers to its vision as a “Kingdom movement,” the lion’s share of groundwork to accomplish that movement’s central mission is intended to begin in city halls around the nation–just as it has in Shasta County.
Prophecy 101
According to Bethel’s interpretation of the Bible, believers today are still bestowed with the gift of prophecy, the ability to receive direct communication from God via the Holy Spirit. God’s message may come as a voice, a vision, or a feeling. This democratization of divine instruction is one part of what sets NAR churches apart from mainstream evangelical Christianity, which relegates the power of prophets and apostles to a Biblical past.
During one of the opening sessions of the prophetic conference, Prophetic Company co-founder Hicks broke down the nuts and bolts of receiving a prophecy. Prophecy, Hicks explained, is like “a key that opens a door to a multiverse.” Challenging the doomsday image that many people associate with religious prophecies, Hicks sermonized that the purpose of modern-day prophecies are to encourage, not to condemn.
The tone of Hicks’ message was emblematic of Bethel’s positivity-focused approach to worship and sermonizing, which can alternatively evoke marketing pitches, motivational speaking, stand-up comedy, TED talks, personal confessionals, or real contemplations of Heaven and Earth.
The Church teaches that every believer, regardless of “spiritual pedigree,” can receive the Holy Spirit and prophetic instruction from God–but only those anointed by God are designated as prophets. Receiving a prophecy may be momentary, but the status of “prophet” is for life. God may anoint any faithful Christian to heed the call of the prophet, and once chosen, prophets are tasked with the unique obligation to catalyze the world toward God’s vision.
But what happens if a prophet gets things wrong? If prophecies are the unadulterated word of God, one might assume them to be infallible. On the contrary, Bethel leadership offered multiple explanations for why a prophecy may seem inaccurate at the time of its delivery. According to Hayley Braun, an Overseer in Bethel’s School of Supernatural Ministry, “A false prophet isn’t identified by an incorrect word, but an incorrect motive.”
One may deliver a prophecy in the vain pursuit to show off their connectedness with God, she said, rather than earnest communication with the Holy Spirit. Or perhaps a prophetic word may take years to reveal itself. A prophecy may come as a parable, the meaning of which isn’t immediately clear. But most importantly, delivering an inaccurate prophecy does not preclude someone from being a prophet. In any case, Prophetic Overseer Amstrong said later, “God wants to redeem false prophets.”
That message was important in part because of Vallotton’s own highly publicized inaccurate prophecy that Trump would win a second term in 2020 – a moment that rocked the church and community when Biden was declared the victor. There are of course many Americans who believe that Trump did win the 2020 election. Among them, Bethel’s Senior Leader Bill Johnson publicly called Biden’s victory “a fraud” in the days leading up to the January 6 insurrection.
During the recent prophetic conference, Vallotton reflected on his prophetic mistake, telling attendees that he was instructed by God to repent in the aftermath of his spiritual imbroglio.
“If you want to prophesy with the big dogs,” Vallotton told conference attendees, then “you have to take responsibility for your prophetic words.”
The cost of such false prophecies is apparent in Shasta County, where the specter of a “stolen election” continues to haunt the local electoral process. In 2023, a Shasta County Board majority attempted to mandate hand counting election ballots in response to debunked conspiracy theories about the safety of Dominion Voting Machines. Their action prompted a legislative showdown between the conservative board of supervisors and Governor Gavin Newsom’s administration, which eventually passed a bill limiting local governments’ ability to manually tabulate election results.
Local elections officials continue to face ongoing verbal assaults from community members who believe (without verifiable evidence) that election fraud is ongoing.
Atom and Adam
The prophetic conference’s more mystical programming reiterated one of Bethel’s important ideals–that the power of prophets is best harnessed en masse, rather than through individual worship. Dan McCollam delivered a detailed lecture that grounded the power of group prayer in quantum physics.
Just as all matter in the universe has a vibrational frequency at an atomic level, McCollam likened the holy spirit to a divine frequency that prophetic people can access through the act of prophesying. If enough believers synchronize their frequencies, McCollam said, they can literally alter the universe. “Can I propose to you,” McCollam asked, “that we are more than heralds of reality, that we are co-creators of reality?”
McCollam’s message, that the power of a global prophetic community is not just spiritual or political but subatomic, underscores Bethel’s intention of creating a network of prophetic people working toward a “Kingdom movement.” The traditional metaphor of the good shepherd leading his flock is only part of Bethel’s doctrine. The lessons taught at Bethel put the prophetic sheep and shepherd on more equal footing, as partners in a divine mission.
The power of groupthink, as described by McCollam, is a framework that can be applied to other aspects of Bethel’s strategy. The notion that every worshiper can bend reality, and that their extrasensory ability is strengthened with numbers acting in unity, is exactly how the Church focuses its clout toward both financial and political ends.
Bringing the Kingdom to Capitol
A hallmark of Bethel–and other churches within the same lineage–is their worshipers’ direct involvement in the political process. In contrast to other megachurch leaders known for their zealous evangelizing of Trump as the ordained figurehead a Christian nationalist vision, Bethel has been far more measured in its approach.
On the second and third days of the prophetic conference Vallotton hosted a special program called “Government and Leadership.” He began the session with a preamble.
“I don’t want Bethel to become a Republican or Democrat movement–I want it to be a Kingdom movement,” Vallotton said.
Then, speaking from his own experience of “working with the government behind the scenes for 18 years,” he offered some practical advice to those who hope to meet and prophesy over their own political leaders someday:
Scrub your social media. Dress modestly. Always be early and cognizant that you’ll only ever have 30 minutes with any given politician. Never ask for pictures, because “a politician’s association with you could ruin their campaign.” These are some of the tricks of the trade Vallotton says he has learned from prophesying over politicians from around the world, although the exact details of who he’s spoken to were never elaborated on.
Vallotton explained that he rarely has a clear idea of what his prophecy will look like before meeting these individuals, but when he’s in close proximity the Holy Spirit starts to speak to him. When he’s able to land a meeting with a mayor in Romania or an American political candidate, Vallotton said, they sometimes ask if he’s a psychic. “I never say no… I go ‘well, something like that.’” Over the course of the conference, Vallotton told stories related to meetings with leaders from the UK, an unidentified “African country,” Mexico, and of course, the United States.
He also talked big picture about what Christians should hope to accomplish in a theocratic society. According to Vallotton, “God leads the church differently than he leads the world,” meaning that we shouldn’t hold the police or army to the same moral standards that we would an individual. Vallotton believes that the righteous cannot forcibly eradicate sinful behavior through the law, and that people should have the right to choose immorality–so long as their choices don’t negatively impact other citizens.
On the topic of theocratic governments, he referred to “Muslim countries” (suggesting Islamic republics and kingdoms such as Iran or Saudi Arabia) as a negative example of how religion can shape law, even if Bethel might share some of the same goals. “They have no abortion, they have no homosexuality,” he lauded, before posing the question to the audience: “but would you rather live in a country that kills people for being homosexual?” The audience answered in a scattered chorus of “no’s.”
Despite Vallotton’s claims that Queer people should have a legal “right to sin,” Bethel does not believe Queer Americans are entitled to the same legal protections as straight and cisgendered ones. In 2021, the church encouraged its followers to campaign against the “Equality Act,” which bans discrimination based on sexual orientation. Bethel also works closely with the Changed Movement, an organization that is “creating a growing international network of people who left LGBTQ identity behind” in pursuit of Christian ideals. On their website, the Changed Movement is openly critical of advocates of AB 2943, a California law that designates conversion therapy as consumer fraud. The American Psychiatric Association recently released a statement declaring their opposition to conversion therapy and experts at the United Nations have likened it to torture.
Instilling Bethel’s moral values is the job of the church, not the law, according to Vallotton. “Let’s not put that on the governor to Christianize California,” he said.
But by the second session of his “Government and Leadership” course, Vallotton had taken a different tenor. Rather than respecting the so-called “right to sin,” Vallotton urged his pupils to politically mobilize when it comes to evolving legislation enshrining rights for transgender people and children–whether that be simply voting or galvanizing constituencies to pressure politicians. Throughout the conversation, he perpetuated sensationalized claims that parents of transgender children will lose custody if they don’t comply with their child’s choice to transition.
He advised his students to look toward an unexpected source for inspiration on how to change the legal landscape: “LGBT activists.” Vallotton acknowledged the historical successes of Queer organizers who advocated for their rights in California. If Christians appropriate some of these same methods, he suggested, they might just meet their ideological goals.
“They went from legalizing homosexuality to gay marriage, now we’re trangendering our children, and that all happened really quickly… it can reverse really quickly,” Vallotton reassured the audience. “Laws are meant to be changed, so we just have to stay involved.”
He also cited Bethel’s own successes in informing the politics of Redding–a city with a vastly different political makeup than California’s coastal cities. “Rarely does someone run for office here and not show up in my office,” Vallotton boasted.
Such is the power of grassroots movements. The tides of change start small. With the proper time and resources, what may seem granular has the potential to change the world.
Have a correction to share? Email us: editor@shastascout.org.
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Only one way to rock Vallotton’s homophobic boat…help elect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz on Nov. 5. Then we’ll see what the Bethel leader has to say about divine intervention.
I was reading this NY Times column, found myself thinking about Bethel and then — oh! hey! — the “Christian thought leader” I only personally know because the peddles Gold IRA’s on talk-radio adds also co-wrote a boom with Bill Johnson. I also saw a video the other day where he called Tim Walz’s church a “synagogue of Satan” while Sean Feucht nodded approvingly.
Small world.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/06/opinion/jd-vance-lance-wallnau-seven-mountains.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Qk4.2-0m.vK2f6BCDCYgo&smid=url-share
Seven Mountains, etc. in a New York Times opinion piece yesterday. Bethel/Bill Johnson get a mention:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/06/opinion/jd-vance-lance-wallnau-seven-mountains.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Man, I know and like a lot of Bethel members, but the masterclass in prophecy for $997.95 — a $2,000 value! — is just such an amazing and transparent scam.
We really need better sources of meaning in our lives.
The Universal Life Church is much less expensive: PhD for $99. https://store.ulc.net/product-p/hq-doctor-of-philosophy.htm
And much nicer church folks. Just sayin’🤣
Please A MUST WATCH! Diaper Man- Bethel Church Cult – Norway
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsFkJoFxFxQ
BILL JOHNSON, BETHEL & the NEW AGE – Shocking – Kundalini Warning – False spirits – Andrew Strom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wKPjf1mjb8
I will never forget as a baby Christian going into Bethel, lining up, and a person or persons would come by and lays hands on you to “slay you in the spirit” The first guy said it was not working because I had not repented of my sins. I said I asked God already and He keeps my sins as far as the east from the west…. He then said he rebuked my false religious spirit. Then they asked me to fall back as an act of repentance and I said if God wants to he will drop me where I stand. Out came his hand on me again saying “I rebuke this false religious spirit.” So I sat down on the floor mad as heck then Kris Valaton came up to me and put his hands on me saying Im not being slayed in the spirit because im a witch into witchcraft.
Imagine being a baby Christian hearing this shit….
SHOCKING Documentary 3- Bethel Church – False spirits Invade the Church- KUNDALINI WARNING- Andrew Strom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WILS3KSFgQQ
I do not think Jesus was shooting for this kind of worshiping God. He would want it way more organic.
Vallotton, Johnson and Bethel leaders are not the first charlatans to arrive in Redding with their followers. Go back to the 1970s/80s and we have Royal Blue and the North Valley Baptist Church on Hartnell Ave. They too seemed to have a fixation with ‘loving the homo, but hating the sin’…translate anyway you wish. Thank Goddess for visionary’s like Willie Brown, who introduced a bill to outlaw being a homosexual; saving countless lives from suicide and ostracization.
Whatever happened to Vallotton and his prayer group trying to save Baby Olive, and the tons of money asked for on a donor site ? Prayers to save Bill Johnson’s wife from cancer ? Prayers to resurrect all those dead individuals located in local cemetery’s ? {I think it’s called ‘grave sucking’…should be outlawed}. Just askin’ ?
When is Bethel going to remove its Conversion Therapy course from its website ?
If they truly love the human then they should release themselves from being so obsessed with this part of humanity called LGBTQ+ lifestyle.
PS 10+% of Bethel Church is LGBTQ+…what are ya gonna do about that ?
I’m running for Redding city council and I have never been to his office.
Which your lack of spiritual knowledge is yet another reason why you have no business running for Redding City Council
Proving, once again, that PT Barnum was right…
Man, I’ve been scrimping and saving for a new bike. But now that I realize I can be well on my way to becoming a prophet for $997.95 (a $2000 value!), I think the bike is going on the back burner. Local King of the Mountain on Strava vs. King of the Seven Mountains – for that price there’s really no choice.
As Ronald Regan once said, “ Deep Subject For Such” prophetic shallow minds….
I suppose in a world where Godless ideals are becoming the norm, Such a s full term abortion. Child trafficking, drugs, male dominance in women’s sports, denying parental rights, it is befitting to have some equal footing in Christianity and the word of God.
Cornered, you have a good list started. It is just 10% of the reasons why Americans are angry at the Democrat party. A Democrat party in name only. The Democrats used lawfare to fight FRK jr. every step of the way as well as all manner of censoring his messages. The party has no vision, no uplifting message. Every opportunity they get they weaken the sanctity of the vote, like Gavin Newsome signing a new law not requiring ID to vote because Orange county wants that. Wake up Democrats. Your party has been stolen from you. They will run things with their puppets like they have done since 2021. Oh, and since liberals are smarter than us conservatives how come we knew Biden was a shell of a president for years and the liberals just figured it out? Of course the cabinet knew and they kept it secret. So much for respect for
Democracy.
Hi Stewart, Little do you know that in CA the Democratic Party is the vast majority, in real life and the legislature at the Capitol. That’s why we have such Progressive voter laws to keep voters free from election deniers. When you register to vote you have to give your CA Drivers ID, your social security last 4 numbers and state that you are a citizen under penalty of law and fine.
Stewart, smh. Biden will rate well in the positivity of presidency. It seems like you do not want to confront the truth.
Well said, thanks for sane thoughts.
Thank you Nevin, very excellent writing trying to explain the unexplainable to us. I can’t figure out why Bethel members cannot find a place for themselves in more mainstream Christian sects i.e. Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian etc. My theory is they are a subset of the population very susceptible to being scammed. Rich or poor, educated or not, these people do exist and always have. Almost fully half of the US population seems to have fallen for the MAGA scam. I’m glad I’m old.
Amen Christian! The freedom we need in Shasta County is the one Ron Reagan junior talked about. The freedom from religion.
Freedom of religion.
And then there’s the Trump/ Opus Dei connection,.
I’m thinking Shasta Scout (SS) should constrain itself to actual news rather than try to describe the belief system of a particular church. I haven’t seen articles SS about the political motivations of any other church, large or small, and I think it naive to believe that the various churches don’t have them. This sort of reporting is not what I’m paying for every month to help support you folks.
Hi Harlin: Of course all churches have belief systems. Bethel’s belief system involves infiltrating the government to bring heaven to earth. Sixty percent of our current Redding City Council are either Bethel leaders/teachers or attendees so the beliefs taught at this particular church actually could play a pretty significant role in local politics. We certainly consider this news worth reading.
Well said.
Facts are facts! The reason you haven’t seen any other local churches written about, is because the other churches don’t mix politics with religion, nor do they want to take full control of our public schools, real estate, government or financial institutions! Northern valley Catholic social services, actually helps locals, bethel only helps themselves by “preying” on suckers money! If you support a cult that failed at raising a dead 2 year old bethel members child from the county morgue, you’re part of the problem.
Stunning work, Mr. Kallepalli, Thank You! Bethel’s leadership, liars they are, has a well-documented history of supporting fascist criminals like their beloved adjudicated rapist and convicted felon, Trump. But, hey, it’s okay to lie, be unmoral, or be a racist-sexist supporter of Trump because God says it’s OK to sin for the right reasons, namely assuring the 7 Mountian Christo-Fascist Kindom into government and all other civic theaters of American life. But the Bethal ignorance is not new.
Redding was ripe for Bethel, filled with low-hanging ultra-conservative (Pre MAGA) fruit. It’s documented that empirical evidence supports the view that a link between cognitive abilities and political attitudes exists (e.g., Kanazawa, 2010; Meisenberg, 2015). Specifically, most studies indicate that lower cognitive abilities are linked to endorsing conservative political views (see Onraet et al., 2015; Van Hiel et al., 2010). Basically, the argument is that the psychological makeup of MAGA is different than many others in the social world, and this enables a stronger propensity (and psychological need) for believing in proven false conspiracies, fairytale realities, and “supernatural” over natural- empirically based science, lies over factual based truth, and intentional ignorance over open-public and fact-based education. Thus, Bethal gives a permission structure for committing sins for God, money, and power in the name of some holly ghost, glitter, and chicken feathers, all needed to believe in false idols like Trump. After all, the hocus-pocus makes the leaders powerful and very, very rich.
Of course, there were a few hard-core witch-burning type “Christians” who were called Founders, and yes, mainstream Christianity was prevalent. However, many founding fathers—Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, and Monroe—practiced Deism. “Deism is a philosophical belief in human reason as a reliable means of solving social and political problems. Deists believe in a supreme being who created the universe to operate solely by natural laws and is absent from the world after creation.” And they established the separation clause, “essentially guaranteeing freedom of religion by preventing the government from Establishing A State Religion (like the 7 Mt. Mandate) and yes, prohibiting laws that interfere with individuals practicing their religion.” Bethal, on the other hand, says to hell with that; government should be based on hocus-pocus voodoo, especially the “religion” of their anti-medical witch doctor faith-healers like Johnson and Vallotton. However, politically, Johnson and Vallottonare aren’t much different than Charles Coughlin (1891–1979), a founding father of the original MAGA (pro-Hitler) Christo-fascism movement that swept America right before WW-11.
There is a psychological difference in the mental makeup between MAGA Bethnal conservative Trumpers and the rest of America. “Research evidence is telling from a cultural neuroscience perspective because self-reported liberals and conservatives report that their brains react differently to information.” That’s why Bethel is UN-American and why Bethel wants to take over education and government. It’s a psychological difference that Bethel CULTivates, and it is very dangerous.
Well said! They need to determine if their goal is spreading the word; or being a political arm for MAGA! People keep saying they’re doing great things for Redding, well I would like someone to explain what they’ve done. They do not appear to be spreading the gospel, therefore I believe they should lose tax exempt status!!
Just another SCAM. Another opiate of the people. God is everywhere and you don’t need any of these people to get you to him. They are just selling their wares. If they are selling for profit, they should definitely being paying taxes.
I am frightened by Bethel’s intention to dominate local politics.
I am frightened by their insinuation that the USA is a christian nation and by their use of the term theocracy.
Bethel’s clear co-joining of church and state should be cause to revoke their tax exempt status and any other benefits that they receive as a religious organization!
If churches turn political then they should pay taxes and there tax exempt status should be Void.
They will cease to be a non profit religious institution and more like a for profit government campaign business
Oy! Break out the Jewish Space Lasers!!!