Getting wasted with the Holy Spirit at Bethel Redding

When I recently attended the Firestarters adult Sunday School class at Bethel Church in Redding, California, I was shocked by the teacher's announcement at the start of the class. "There are only three rules in this class. Rule 1: Get drunk. Rule 2: Stay drunk. Rule 3: Get other people drunk."

Those are not exactly words you expect to hear at a church. Yet the encouragement to "get drunk" was a theme that ran through the entire two-hour class.

“Let's get drunk. Let's enjoy ourselves," the teacher said. He also told the students, who were standing at the time, to hold out their hands in the air in front of their bodies to form the outline of imaginary, huge bottles of "heavenly wine," then pretend to chug from them. Many of the students responded gleefully to the teacher's directions. They acted as if they were actually drunk -- laughing uncontrollably, staggering, and some even falling down. One middle-aged woman, at a table near mine, lay back in her chair, as if passed out, for much of the class.

At a point later during the class -- between the testimony sharing time and instruction on learning to prophesy -- the teacher sensed it was time for another drink. He told the students, who were now seated, "Pick up a pitcher off the table and drink it down"-- to which many laughed again, and dutifully responded by forming more "air pitchers" with their hands and pretending to drink from them.

Participants in the class would describe their actions as "drinking from the Holy Spirit"--as would other participants in the New Apostolic Reformation. To defend this description, they would point, no doubt, to the verse in Scripture: “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:18).

But the point of being "filled" with the Holy Spirit is not to act like a fool. It's to be under the influence of the Holy Spirit. In the immediate context of this verse we learn that His influence results in praising God with song, expressing gratitude to Him, and living harmoniously with others (Ephesians 5:19-21). Elsewhere in Scripture, we see that the Holy Spirit's influence is also evidenced by the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). Take note, especially, that one of the fruits of the Spirit is self-control -- not usually a characteristic of a drunk person.

In observing the teachings about the Holy Spirit at the Bethel Firestarters class, one might wonder what happened to the Holy part?

This post is Part 3 in a series I've written about the Bethel Firestarters class. See Part 1 and Part 2.