#351 Repentance or Damage Control? Testing Bethel Against the Scripture
The Alisa Childers Podcast
Alisa Childers
4.9 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 29 January 2026
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Was that biblical repentance...or something else?
In this episode, I take a hard look at the recent controversy surrounding Bethel Church and the public response from its leaders, including Kris Vallotton and Bill Johnson, following the exposure of false prophecy and abuse connected to Shawn Bolz. Many Christians celebrated what they called repentance. Others weren’t so sure.
Instead of reacting emotionally or choosing sides online, we’re going to Scripture. What does the Bible actually say repentance looks like? How do we tell the difference between godly sorrow and regret over being exposed? And does public confession automatically mean restoration to leadership?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey everyone. Welcome to the Elisa Childers podcast. I'm Alisa Childers, and today we're going to be talking about |
| 0:15.2 | the controversy surrounding Bethel Church and the things that have been exposed and then the repentance of its leaders. |
| 0:23.3 | But more specifically, we're going to zero in on what biblical repentance is, what it looks like, |
| 0:28.7 | and then we're going to compare what Bethel has said with the biblical standard for that. |
| 0:33.2 | Now, I got to be honest with you guys, I feel a lot of heaviness about this. This is something that's been weighing on me. I've been praying a lot about it, thinking a lot about it. And I know for many of you, it feels like that for you as well. Maybe you're watching, and it doesn't feel particularly heavy to you because you're not all that familiar with what's going on. Maybe you've seen posts here and there |
| 0:54.6 | and it just feels convoluted. Well, hopefully my goal for today is to fill you in on the general |
| 0:59.9 | points of what's going on with the controversy, but ultimately to point all of us to scripture, |
| 1:05.5 | because as Christians, we have everything we need in the Word of God. So before we get into it, though, I want to let you know |
| 1:12.0 | that today's episode is brought to you by Brave Books, which is a wonderful Christian Children's |
| 1:17.1 | Entertainment Company that my husband and I love. They have a streaming platform and children's books, |
| 1:22.3 | and you can get a discount by going to Bravebooks.com slash Childers for 20% off. |
| 1:28.8 | Okay, before we get into the Bethel stuff, though, I want to swing out just a little bit |
| 1:33.4 | and talk about the general cultural moment that we're in right now. |
| 1:38.6 | I'm sure many of you feel the tension, the strain, the fatigue of all of the fighting, you feel exhausted from |
| 1:48.8 | the pressure to post the thing you're supposed to post and don't take too much time and the |
| 1:55.2 | pressure to comment on everything in real time as it's happening. And by the way, that pressure is a surefire way to get us to |
| 2:05.3 | bypass our critical thinking and jump on bandwagon. I want to encourage everybody listening to me |
| 2:10.5 | right now that it's okay to take a moment, take a breath, examine claims. You don't have to jump on a tribalistic bandwagon. |
| 2:21.9 | Go to scripture. We have what we need in scripture as Christians. And one of the things |
| 2:27.6 | that I've been really reflecting on all week is the book of Job. So I shared last year that I'm not |
| 2:33.6 | going to be trying to read through the Bible |
| 2:34.9 | in a year this year. I'm going to take my time. So I've just finished reading Job. I've read Job |
... |
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