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Bethel wouldn't stop him so his son and victims are going public.
02:19:09
Bethel knew and didn't warn... I believe that Bob Hartley is one of the key threads running through the past 40 years of the Charismatic church (Bethel, IHOPKC, Morningstar, etc.). If we pull on that thread, we will see the truth that there is a long-standing Cover-up Culture in the movement and some of the biggest names have participated in it. In this video, I interview the son of Bob Hartley, Jedidiah, who exposes his father's fake prophecy grift and how Bob used it to prey upon women. I also interview Michelle Seidler and let her talk about multiple witnesses that have come forward. The reason Jedidiah has gone forward, as well as Michelle, is because Bethel leadership didn't do the right thing years ago. From all appearances their actions are consistent with Cover-up Culture and self-protection. But it is the job of the leaders to protect the people, not themselves. 0:00 Intro: This is a big deal3:05 Bob's son, Jedidiah Hartley, interview 1:21:35 Michelle Seidler interview abo...
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- [00:02]
A
This is not my typical video, but I do believe this video is very important for the Charismatic Church and for churches in general. Bob Hartley is a shining example of the COVID up culture in the Charismatic Church. And so this video is going to draw light onto that situation. I've got two whistleblowers I'm interviewing in this video. One is his son, the son of a fake predatory prophet, and the other one, Michelle Seidler, that is wild. One of his victims and one of his lesser victims. She actually had access to many other victims of his and will share their testimonies as well. So this is going to be a detailed discussion of the timeline of events that from 2017, at least until now, Bethel did not protect people from Bob Hartley in a way that they should have. And nor did Mike Bickle, nor would you expect him to, because it turns out he was a predator too. Nor did any of these groups. So here are the details. It is a bit messy. There's a lot of information here. I'm not even in agreement with every single thing that my guests as I'm interviewing say I was letting them share their stories. But I do think the overall thread 100% real and the warning and the dangers that are there. This is cover up culture in the Charismatic church. Guys, I've been trying to help get this across, that there's something's going on here and it has been going on for literally generations. And it is in particularly bad in the Charismatic Church. What we can do about it is shine light on it and then ask the people to really change. And this is how they would change. Bethel, you guys need to expose all the people you know about, including if they're on your own staff, I don't care. That's what you have to do. Morningstar, you too, and fill in the blanks. All these other people, this cover up culture, these different groups, they. They multiply victims, they empower wickedness because of the review of prophecy, believe it or not. Okay, well, we're going to get into it here. The first interview is the Jedediah Hartley. The second one is Michelle Seidler. And listen into the whole story because it just gets crazier as you go. Jedediah will talk about how he discovered his dad's fake prophecy, then about how he found out about his dad victimizing women, how he tried to warn Bethel, and then they didn't respond in ways that were appropriate or enough. Michelle Seidler will tell a story about her experiences with Bob Hartley doing sick, icky things, and then how Other women came forward and told her, and they couldn't get a reaction or response that was appropriate and proper from within the charismatic community. And so they started blowing whistles. That's when the charismatic community responded. That's when IHOP put out a letter after the whistle was blown, not before. That's when Bethel did things.
- [02:36]
B
Is.
- [02:36]
A
Is after the fact with Sean Bowles in particular, which I know I'm getting into the weeds here, so I'm just gonna stop. This is Jedediah Hartley, son of Bob Hartley, the fake predatory prophet. And if. If anybody out there is a victim of Bob's, you don't need to watch this video. I mean, give. Give it thought whether you should even watch this video or not, to be honest. Like, if it's not good for you, just don't bother. But if Bob threatens you or if Bob is trying to intimidate you, please reach out to my ministry through BibleThinker.org and we will help protect you and defend you, including if he's threatening you with lawsuits. Jedediah, maybe you can tell us your story.
- [03:09]
B
Yeah, so, I mean, my story begins in Kansas City. I grew up in Kansas City, a part of the International House of Prayer. My family was among some of the core community that helped launch IHOP kc. And then my father, Bob Hartley, was a fairly prominent prophetic figure both in the IHOP KC and the Bethel in Redding, California, and Morningstar in North Carolina. He was a prophetic figure in that community. And so I used to travel around with him as he would teach at different prophetic conferences.
- [03:52]
A
And then you wrote in a Twitter post about this where you talked about how your perspective on your dad changed over time. But before we talk about that, maybe I could just ask how. What kind of enablement did your dad receive from other leaders within that movement or within Bethel or those other groups?
- [04:13]
B
Yeah. So I grew up supporting my father and believing in my father. I actually even wrote a book about him when I was in my early 20s. And in the process of writing that book, I really started seeing behind the scenes and seeing that his whole prophetic magic show was just that, a magic show, and that it was fraudulent. And I. It was hard. It took me a very long time to recognize what was going on with my own father, because it wasn't just him who was doing this. These practices he had. Every time we would go to a prophetic conference, he would be given a list of names by the pastors or some of the core people who we were going to speak at their church. And he would then use that name, those names, pretend that he got them from God and get specific information either off of Facebook or before Facebook. We would talk with like our, the host families that we were with to get specific information. And so there was this sort of like known process in which my father was kind of pretending to get all of this prophetic information. And he built his Persona on this magic show. And. But there was plenty of people sort of within the act. Whether all of them knew they were within the act or not, I'm not sure. But you had several different religious leaders who were helping supply him with the information that he would then need to pretend like he was getting all this divine revelation from God.
- [06:05]
A
Now you mentioned that in the course of doing research for the book, you were talking about how you were trailing your dad. You were, you were with him a lot. You were talking, you said you were traveling with him. But, but that in, in the course of that, you had, you caught him numerous times red handed. And how, tell me about that and how he responded when you called him out.
- [06:24]
B
Yeah, well, so I didn't, honestly, I didn't even call him out until I was in my mid-20s. I would sort of, I would ask questions because it just, it was so confusing. It was like a pot, you know, it's like the frog boiling in water where it's just. It wasn't like a. There wasn't a moment where I was like, oh, suddenly realized that this was all messed up. I always knew that he was getting some information. He would use me to do it. Like when I was even really little, we would go to churches and there was a couple of times where he sent me to get the church directory. Like they used to have church directories that were just like little printouts that you could get that had list of names and information and phone numbers and stuff. And there was a couple of times where I like got him the church directory and then he would then have a prophecy that's like, this is for someone on 418 Maple Street. Is there a Linda on 418 Maple Street? And Linda would pop up or. And it's just. He just had that specific information from whatever resources that he was given. So I always knew that he was doing some of that.
- [07:40]
A
But.
- [07:40]
B
But it was so condoned within the community that I was with that I didn't really think that I was wrong because, you know, it was for the glory of God. Like, if Linda felt encouraged by this message, then and sort of justify the means and whatnot. And the theory was that my dad was 90% prophetic, and then 20 or 10% was this hamburger Helper. That's what they used to call it, Hamburger Helper. That was a term Bob Jones used, Mike Bickle used. Other individuals used to talk about the sort of adding a little flavor to the meat to make it a more complete meal. That was the idea. And so my dad would. It didn't take me. It took me until I was like, in my mid-20s, before I grew, like, enough awareness to realize, no, the whole thing is fraudulent. It's not 90% God and 10% man. Just the whole thing is a gimmick. And be like, just because everyone is doing this in the community doesn't mean that it's okay or it's right.
- [08:53]
A
So this is the part that honestly got my attention the most when I read what you've written on this stuff is when you got to the part and said, I confronted my dad. And he said, everybody does it.
- [09:06]
B
Yeah.
- [09:06]
A
So tell me about that. Your dad confirms that this is like, can I have the details on that? Does he confirm that everybody makes mistakes or everybody guesses and some of their prophecies are wrong? And that's how I heard Mike use. Well, Mike use the term in that context. Hamburger. It doesn't make sense. The analogy doesn't make sense. That's not helping. Hamburger. Yeah. You know, but did your. Did your dad confirm in specific detail that, like, no, we. We all data mine. Is that what he meant? And can you explain that?
- [09:43]
B
Yeah. So the first big conflict that I remember was in 2014, where I didn't catch my father, but someone else did. In fact, my. My mom was a part of it, and there was a whole group of individuals who. My dad gave a prophecy to someone. And it was just very clear that he had gotten the information that wasn't data mining. He had just gotten it from other. Asking around and pretending as if he got it from God. And he was confronted about it during that exact same time. We were. We were ministering in a church in Klamath Falls, Oregon. And so back at home in Kansas City, he's being confronted about something that he had done, like the previous month. And then he's kind of on edge and he kind of slips up and he confesses a little bit to the pastor that were speaking to. And the pastor we're speaking to is a pastor of a small church. He's not aware that this is the. This is what goes on behind the scenes. And so he kind of freaks out. And I remember that was the first time where my father was on the defensive and he had to defend what he did. And basically the defense of this sort of prophetic fraud, for lack of a better word, was that everyone did it. So his mentors, Paul Kane and Bob Jones, who were huge figures in the sort of prophetic movement, would do things like this. They would get information from non divine means, and then they would pretend like it was from God. This is before the age of Facebook. But specifically, Paul Kane had a genealogy program that he had installed on his computer that he was. Would look up people's genealogy. And so he would have specific prophecies about grandfathers and lines. Like if you just had the name, you could kind of find very specific information. Information. So. So one of the defenses that my dad gave was that everyone does it. The second was this Hamburger Helper defense, which was not to totally defend it, but it was to contextualize it. The idea was that it's not good, we shouldn't do it, but everyone does it a little bit. It's okay. It's just this idea of like, the meat is still God. Most of it is still God, but then we'll add some extra fabrication just to add a little sizzle. Prophecy is hard. It makes it more palatable for people. So when you're caught with it, it's like, you're right, I should stop doing it. But it's not like this invalidates my entire ministry. This is some huge thing. It's kind of like, you know, getting caught speeding or something like that. It's like, we shouldn't do it, but it's understandable and it makes sense. And Mike Bickle and Bob Jones would talk about it in the same way behind closed doors, in front of. In front of camera. Like, Mike talked about it and he used it in a slightly more. In a slightly different sense to be like, there's a lot of fakers out there. But I don't pay attention to the fakers. I just pay attention to the people who are genuine. But that's not how it was used. It was everyone has a little of the fake and everyone has a little. Little of the genuine. It wasn't this person's a false prophet and this one's a real prophet. It's that all of the prophets are a little bit false. And that's just how it happens.
- [13:46]
A
That's. So I've been a Christian for a very long time. Like, I wasn't raised in a Christian home, but. But I've been a Christian since junior high. First heard the Gospel. But, but never in my life have I ever seen that in the churches I've been in groups of different churches I've been in. Never have I seen this. I. Anyway, it's, it's the kind of thing that if everybody really did it, they wouldn't hide it that much. Well, if everybody was really cool with it, they wouldn't, it wouldn't be such a secret. But.
- [14:21]
B
And it's hard for me because I have never not seen it. You know, it's.
- [14:26]
A
Yeah.
- [14:27]
B
And I totally get what you're saying. And I think that even in the last 10 years I've come to terms with the fact that the expression of Christianity that I saw was so fundamentally different than the expression of Christianity in the rest of the United States and especially internationally. Like I started traveling internationally and saw a much different type of Christianity. But it was, it was so hard for me to, to realize that this wasn't normal. That these sort of small levels of deception, which of course now I realize were large levels of deception were not just kind of commonplace. And the first time I really had to confront that was when this pastor in Oregon, in Klamath Falls, Oregon was just so angry and upset with my dad. And I was, I understood it to an extent, but I was also like, why are you so mad? This just, this happens a lot. Like, of course this happens. And that was when I started, among other things, that's when I started being like, oh, I need to maybe think about this differently.
- [15:44]
A
Yeah, goodness gracious. So your, your dad also. Well, before we move on to that, let me, let me ask this. What other sort of firsthand knowledge or experience do you have that, that, that incriminates other leaders doing these same types of things, maybe conversations or anything like that that you've been privy to?
- [16:07]
B
Yeah, I mean, so, so I grew up in, in a, a very tight prophetic circle traveling with my dad and interacting with these different individuals like Bob Jones, Paul Kane, other prophets that came from Kansas City. There actually are quite a few major prophetic figures that have come from Kansas City, Mike Bickle as well. And I have seen all sorts of really, really nasty behavior from not just my father, but repeated through these different prophetic figures. And some of the first hand knowledge that I, or firsthand account that I had. Like I saw Mike Bickle, the way that prophecy was used, it was different. With Mike, there's different, there's different types of prophetic ministries and different types of type prophetic ministers, but Mike Bickle was less of the, like get very specific information about a person that they got online or something like that. He was very grand and would give these grand prophecies about the end of the world and all these different things. But I grew up listening to him and his prophecies, and they totally changed throughout the years. Like, there's a very famous prophecy that he had that Bob Jones had and that Mike Bickle had about. Mike Bickle had a brother who was paraplegic and who had, you know, from the neck down was completely paralyzed and couldn't move. And there was all of these prophecies that he was going to walk again. And that. That was the whole prophetic identity of the International House of Prayer is that that was linked. As the International House of Prayer got going, so too would Pat Bickle walk again. And it was so explicit. It wasn't this metaphor. It was very clear. This is the prophecy that we have. And then like 13 years after I'm third. Well, probably a little older, 15, 16, Pat Pickle dies. And I had been hearing all of these prophecies about his healing my entire life. And I saw how Mike Bickle switched and pretended like that was not what the prophecy was, that he. He's going to walk again in the millennial kingdom when God comes back, that he's going to walk again in heaven. And it's like that. That's not a prophecy. That's just. That's just, you know, our belief system.
- [18:42]
A
Yeah. He's going to do the thing that we all believe, all of us are going to do inevitably.
- [18:47]
B
Right. That's. That's not special. That's not the whole reason.
- [18:51]
A
Yeah, it's not what they were. Obviously. That's not what they meant. Do you know of any records of this prophecy or, like, written or recorded?
- [18:58]
B
Yeah, so there's a lot like you. There was this man named Ernie Gruen who in the 90s, filed an entire document. Phil. Or filled out an entire document about the practices of Kansas City Fellowship. So this is pre. International House of Prayer days. So this is before all of this got started. And it was just a list of all of these different offenses that Mike and Bob Jones specifically, and some John Paul Jackson and Paul Kane. But it was just basically like these men are lying about all of these different things. And in this document, he does a pretty good job of. Of keeping track of. This is what was said and. And this is what was different. There wasn't anything about Pat Bickle in that document because Pat Pickle was still alive at the time. But he. He also recorded and some of some of the. Mike Bickle has attempted to scrub a lot of the old prophecies that he gave and was very careful about what was recorded versus what wasn't. You know, like the. The conversations that were happening behind the scenes or even in small groups and stuff like that or within the community were much more radical than what was being said on pulpit because he basically, on pulpit, would make reference to the prophecies without really detailing them out. And everybody within there kind of knew. So there definitely is great documentation. And I've kind of gotten in the weeds with pulling some of these out. I could show you a few different things. There's other individuals, like other prophets who. There was a prophetic word that went out in 2015 by this man named Terry Bennett who talked about. Oh, sorry, I think it was 2010, but it was about the year 2015, and there was going to be solar flares that knocked out 80% of, you know, computer communication and that the world was going to start all of these tribulations. And. And I actually have the document and I could send it to you.
- [21:22]
A
Yeah.
- [21:23]
B
That details all of these.
- [21:24]
A
Why do these guys always think they're experts on astrophysics? They're always like, oh, they can explain to you the magnetic this and that. And it's just. I'm always like, oh, anyway, so this is 2010.
- [21:40]
B
This was in 2010, and it was being passed around IHOP circles. Mike Bickle was doing it. You weren't supposed to talk about it and share about it from the pulpit, but I was a part of that sort of inner circle that got it. So I have. I found it in my email that I have the actual document and the transcript between Mike Bickle and Terry Bennett where they're talking about this absolutely asinine, you know, end of the world prophecy. And then, of course, 2015 comes along. None of that happens. Literally none of it happens. And there's no apology. There's no, we got it wrong. Terry Bennett is still out there referencing the prophecy as if he got it right.
- [22:32]
A
Yeah. Because what these guys do is they're just like, well, the prophecy is true, but the timing. And then it becomes this indefinite thing. So any sniff of if it might be. Oh, I read a news report. Something about a big solar flare coming. See, guys, it's happening. Or they reinterpret it like they did with the pat one.
- [22:52]
B
Yeah, yeah. And they try to gaslight people who did know the true prophecies and pretend like it was something totally different. You know, like if you were talking With Terry Bennett. And he. I've seen him do this on, on mine. He'd be like, my prophecy was about there was going to be trials and tribulations that happened in 2015. And, and there was a start of something, I don't know, point to Black Lives Matter or something like that that was about, oh, see, the world is. You can look at any year and be like, there was crazy things going on in the world, but that's not what he prophesied. And I'm not being a doubting Thomas to be like, wait, hang on, this doesn't, this doesn't match up.
- [23:46]
A
So the prophecy, the source of the prophecy was who?
- [23:49]
B
Terry Bennett.
- [23:50]
A
Terry Bennett, yeah.
- [23:52]
B
Who's not, he's not a very famous. Or. There's a. There's all this whole community of prophets where some are more important publicly and some are more important privately. And it's all. It's very weird and it's very community club, sort of boys club behind the scenes.
- [24:20]
A
You can sniff it out from being on the outside looking at it. I can sniff it out and I can see when they name drop somebody and I'm like, this is clout. This is all about clout. And so this is why in his book, someone's like, oh, I went to so and so's church and I received an impartation.
- [24:41]
B
Yeah.
- [24:41]
A
You're like, ah, see, that's going to be your claim to fame and your claim to like, being. I'm in one of the spheres of glory here. Maybe it's the outer sphere, but maybe I can work my way in because, oh, there's a revival. I gotta get over there. I gotta try to get on stage. I gotta have a story that I can then tell in other places so I can be a little bit further into the sphere. That's how it reads to me as I look at the people doing these things. And you realize this is all just carnal, selfish, glory chasing garbage. It's just, it's repellent. And of course it attracts narcissists and abusers and people who. Normal people would feel uncomfortable being in any kind of sphere like that. They'd be like, this is weird, man. I don't.
- [25:29]
B
Yeah.
- [25:30]
A
None of us, none of us are this thing. None of us are this stuff. We're pretending this is gross. I don't. But so the people that do feel comfortable in it are just. It just inevitably like finds liars and scam artists. Oh, it makes me so mad.
- [25:45]
B
It does. And what, what has been personally heartbreaking for Me is that it doesn't just attract narcissists and abusers. It creates narcissists and abusers. You know, talking about the nature of my own father is, of course, beyond the scope of my understanding, but I have a pretty good grasp as his son and someone who's grown up. And my dad always had some narcissistic traits and had some abusive tendencies and very. He loved attention and adoration and affection. But if he had never gotten in this prophetic world, I would like to think, you know, maybe he would have found Hollywood and some other different narcissistic sort of machine. But I can't imagine him going on the path that he went down. And. And that was for the last 10, 20 years. That was really. My relationship with my father was like, begging him to not go and not be a prophetic evangelist. He was a good storyteller, and I was like, just tell stories and talk about the gospel and do that. You have a crazy world, and you can still have people love you and pay attention to you from the stage, but it doesn't have to be this sort of very grandiose. I am the messenger of God, because I saw how it transformed him. Like, every time he would go and speak at a prophetic conference, he would be the worst, absolute worst version of himself. I mean, angry, yelling, abusive, killing six packs of beers, you know, before he would go and speak between conferences, and then driving me home 100 hours, 100 miles per hour, like, killing beer like that. It just. It became so toxic. And all of my family had this desperation that he would get unhooked from it, but it was like a. It was like a drug. And so not only did it attract my father, but I feel like it helped create and contribute to his very rapid and dramatic descent.
- [28:09]
A
Wow. Can I deserve. If I ask about, like, your dad's financial situation, he seems. He seemed like he's pretty well off. Yeah. How much was. Was he making a lot of money through this thing?
- [28:26]
B
So, I mean, my dad is. My dad was a good entrepreneur. And, I mean, he. He was manic, which is like a pretty good trait for a entrepreneur to have. I get that he wouldn't stop. So most of his money was actually through a business that he had, which was a cleaning business that we clean theaters and carpets. And my uncle owned Dickinson Theaters at the time. And so he got a good gig through my uncle and was able to build a decent amount of wealth through that. I. I know that he made some money through the prophetic ministry. It's not where he. He grew his wealth. There were several people who made money off of him, though. There was a. So both Sean Bowles and my father were marketplace profits. And so. So they were prophets who talked about the marketplace and the business, and that made them hot commodities for business conferences. There's a man named Bob Frazier who was partnered with both my dad and Sean Bowles, who. He would have these conferences where he would bring a lot of business leaders, Christian business leaders, and he would have my dad as like the hot ticket item to come and be there. Because if you're a Christian and you're. You got a stock portfolio, you want to talk to the prophet who can see the future. Of course, you want to know what the instinct is going to be about where the nation is heading. And you have these. You have these other prophets who are more doom and gloom. But these marketplace prophets, they're not doom and gloom. They're. This is. This is what I see God doing. This is the good news of the gospel. And, and here's. But there were so many just ridiculous things. Like there was prophecies about the Iraqi dinar, and you should invest in this because it's going to hundred times your wealth. Of course, that never happens. There was. In 2013, it was, we have to buy gold and silver. And that was literally one of the worst times to buy gold and silver.
- [30:56]
A
So I've done some research on this because of a guy named Brandon Biggs.
- [31:00]
B
Okay. That name sounds familiar, actually.
- [31:01]
A
Oh, my goodness. So this is the guy who supposedly prophesied Trump's assassination attempt. And he did prophesy something that on the surface, people go, hey, that's pretty uncanny the way you'd. But its specific details are wrong. And he actually prophesied it multiple times. And then when you put all of his stuff together, you're like, you got like almost everything wrong. You just said something about his ear. He thought his eardrum would burst because a bullet would fly by and the sound waves would break the eardrum, which isn't even. Doesn't even happen.
- [31:31]
B
Yeah.
- [31:32]
A
When a bullet flies by, you. You just. That's it. Sound waves. There's no eardrums bursting. Yeah, I've been. I've been shot at. I know.
- [31:40]
B
Oh, really? Oh, wow. I want to hear that story.
- [31:43]
A
Oh, I was just a kid walking down the street and someone shot at me.
- [31:46]
B
Oh, my gosh.
- [31:47]
A
Yeah, but. But yeah, the. Yeah, the bullet wasn't very noisy at all. It was. It was actually hitting the wall. That told me it was a real bullet.
- [31:54]
B
Yeah, that makes sense.
- [31:55]
A
But the. This guy, he.
- [31:58]
B
Prof.
- [31:58]
A
He. In a now deleted video that I have footage of, he tells a story about how in years past he got kicked out of a church. Well, he was told, don't ever prophesy in this church again because he told people by the Iraqi dinar, buy silver. And then there was doomsday stuff. So you have to buy all these
- [32:22]
B
meal kits.
- [32:23]
A
Meal kits from Kenneth Hagen.
- [32:26]
B
Yeah, Jimmy Baker.
- [32:28]
A
Jimmy Baker. I just got the names mixed up from Jimmy Baker, all these Jimmy Baker meal kits. And so I did like a three hour video exposing Brandon Biggs and all his false prophecies and how, you know, demands skyrocketed in awareness. He was just on Alex Jones.
- [32:43]
B
Makes sense.
- [32:44]
A
He's a false prophet. In this video, he tells about how he got that wrong and people lost their homes and people. And then he complains like he's a victim. He's like, they get so mad when you touch people's money. You find out who they really are. And I was like, yeah, yeah, like, you should be in prison. There should be laws against people like you. You should be in prison. You should be in prison and trying to pay off the debt that you created for others with your false prophecies in the name of God or worse. So just insane. Anyway, I'm about to do another video on him because he still continues to grow in popularity and people don't realize he's just disastrous and evil. But, but, but I'm, I'm like, I have no chill about this. I'm, I'm totally over pretending that we're all just getting along or anything like that. I'm not, I'm, I'm, I'm not interested. I'm interested in picking fights with folk, false and fake prophets. I'm very much interested in doing that for the sake of the people that they hurt. So anyway, sooner than my heart on that, I don't really care about YouTube views. And as weird as that may sound, that's a genuine. They're a means to an end to me. Which, which, yeah, and from your perspective, which I understand, you know, you might go, I think Mike's wrong about this and that, but, but I'm genuine. If you're, if you're correct, I'm genuinely wrong. I'm not fabricating and fraudulently wr and that sort of thing. And to me, guys like, guys like the ones you're talking about do way more harm to genuine Christianity and the gospel than any atheist I've ever seen.
- [34:23]
B
Well, this is, this Was my biggest, like, your reaction this, your reaction of it makes me so angry to see these men doing these things. This cannot happen in the body of Christ. We cannot have these fraudulent people. Here is the only thing that rationally makes sense to me as a reaction. If you are a pastor or if you are someone who is involved in spreading the gospel in, especially in the United States and trying to have people become Christians, you want to be protective about the gospel and the culture. And when I, so I came forward first, not publicly, I first came forward about my father's prophetic abuse and, and prophetic manipulation to Bill Johnson of Bethel in Redding, California. And I told him explicitly, not just that my dad was faking prophecies and had been faking his entire life, but that he also was now preying sexually upon individuals by manipulating them, giving them into vulnerable positions, using his sort of power and authority to get women into, into vulnerable positions. And I knew that he was doing it in Redding, California. And so this was just like a year and a half ago. I contacted Bill and Chris and other leaders at Bethel and was like, this is happening. He's, I'm, I'm so sorry to say this. And I have, like, met with Bill and had conversations with him behind door. Like, he knows who I am. And I was like, I have to tell you, this is what's going on about my father, and you have to warn your community about this. And I expected the reaction that you just gave this sort of like, we're not playing around anymore. This is like, it, it, it's not Hamburger Helper anymore. It's not the, like, okay, if you're faking on one of these things, I, I, I expected it to flip, to be like, oh, he's preying on my community. Oh, he deceived me personally. And I expected him to be angry. And I was kind of like, apologetic on behalf of my father. And quite to the contrary, he was like, we love your father. We care about your father. Sorry to hear some of this. You know, I haven't really been covering for your father. I, what he does is kind of up to him sort of thing.
- [37:13]
A
And when you, when he said, haven't been covering, he means I don't have some sort of role in policing or controlling him. Is that what he meant?
- [37:23]
B
Yeah. So I had specifically, so I sent him an email because I couldn't get a hold of him on the phone. So I sent him an email and I had specifically said, hey, Bethel has been covering for my father. And I didn't mean in like the covering his tracks, but like in the spiritual covering sort of sense that they use it of just like you are under our banner. And my dad would talk about that all the time. And so I wasn't asking Bill whether or not he had been covering for my father. I was telling him. I was like, you guys have been sheltering him. And, and he was like, hey, you got that wrong. We haven't covered for your father. And I was like, I'm not, I'm not asking. I don't think you understand. I am telling you. I know that he goes to your church and feels this sense of COVID covering. He feels this protection. He feels that whatever accusations are made of him will fall off, that he has this sort of immunity, impunity, that he can do whatever he wants within this community and that no one's going to question him because he's a prophet of God and he's a hero within that community. And so I was trying to tell and warn Bill. I wasn't. I wasn't asking for his perspective on. On it. And so I, I stated it more clearly, like, no, this is what has been going on. I didn't hear back from him. And then that week, I mean, I contacted him on a Wednesday, that Sunday, there's a prophetic conference in Bethel. This is just 2000, summer of 2023, or. Or, sorry, winter of 2023. That. That Sunday, Bill invites my dad to come sit next to him at the prophetic conference. He doesn't put him up front or anything like that, but he welcomes him in and saves him a place right next to him. I mean, after I've told him my dad has literally been sexually assaulting members of your community through prophecy, like getting them into rooms where they think that he's going to prophesy over him. And then he literally sexually assaults them. This is what's going on. And that same week, Bill invites him to sit right next to him at the conference. And that was just. That shocked me. It absolutely shocked me. Even as someone who had been out of the charismatic world for a while and not really drinking the Kool Aid like I to see someone not care about outright fraud and outright sexual abuse of his own flock. It just didn't make any sense to me. And then I spoke out publicly. And then they eventually started. They eventually banned him and sent out a letter to their staff about my father. But it wasn't until I started putting external public pressure on them that they took it seriously.
- [40:30]
A
So they did not respond to credible reports Credible accounts of his faking the prophetic, his fraud there, or his intentional knowing fraud of the prophetic, or the abuse and targeting of women for sexual encounters that they would. They would consider, even if they were consensual, they would consider them immoral and should be disqualifying for. For him. But they weren't consensual. They were manipulative and they were deceitful. I even have this video of your dad filming himself in a bathroom and talking about a girl. He's got money here. And just come over and. And it's. It's. It is. It's probably hard for you to see that side of him like that. It would be hard for me. I have a dad too, you know, and. Yeah, and it's a complicated relationship. And so I get it. But to know that this is the reaction, because nobody in Bill's church would ever expect anything other than him to be a guard dog for their integrity and their safety. And to know that he did that, that. Not until you went public. This is the same thing with. Over and over again. So that they have this book, Physics of Heaven, which from a Christian perspective has very dangerous, bad teaching in it. They endorsed it. They brought the author over to teach their kids at the school of ministry, their supernatural school of ministry. And I made a video that became very well viewed where I reviewed the book and just show the problems, like, hey, you're a Christian. This doesn't work. And then they quietly removed it from their bookstore and that was it. No discussion. They said there were some things in it we didn't agree with. And I'm like, yeah, but your endorsements are all over the book. You were bringing the author to guide through spiritual experiences which were clearly fake. Your people, and you're just avoiding the heat. This is the pattern that I see, and I'm going to demonstrate it, I think over and over again that they just avoid the heat. Avoid the heat. And your dad is, unfortunately, his situation is a prime example of that.
- [42:40]
B
Yeah.
- [42:40]
A
Let me ask you some specific questions. Did, to your knowledge, did Bethel do anything to contact or look into or investigate the claims against your dad?
- [42:53]
B
So I believe so, yes. I believe that there are. There are more individuals who speak to this more specifically than me, but I do believe that there was. Chris Valatin, I know in 2017, investigated claims about my father having prophetic doing. Prophetic fraud. And they wouldn't. They wouldn't call it prophetic fraud, but they would call it, you know, cheating or something like that. And I know that in 2017, Chris sort of did enough investigation and, and realized that my dad was doing it to a large extent and Bethel, kind of unofficially, behind the scenes, distance, like he's. My dad stopped going to conferences with Bethel during that time.
- [43:53]
A
This was. This was before or after your conference public information went out?
- [43:59]
B
This is be. This was before. So my publication was 2023, this was 2017. But here's how it works, is that Chris investigated and I. I think there might have even been some sexual stuff going on during that time too, but I'm not aware of the specifics of any of that. But in 2017, Chris kind of went. Decides that Bob shouldn't be invited to prophetic conferences anymore because he's cheating. There's no information that's given out to indicate to anyone. In fact, I, as my father's son, I had no idea about this. My dad never told me. And I thought everything was great between my dad and Bethel. I kind of noticed that he stopped sharing at conferences anymore, but he would still go there and travel and he would speak to small groups and everything.
- [44:56]
A
So when you're. When you say he was not part of the conferences anymore, you mean on stage, you don't mean involved in the community, interacting with people and all that?
- [45:05]
B
Yeah, it. No, up front. He wasn't. His. His face was no longer being used. He wasn't on Bethel TV or anything like that. So it was. He wasn't given a platform. He was. Maybe that's the best way to say it, he was deplatformed from Bethel, but he still was a huge part of the community and not just in a friendship sense. He was. His prophetic words were still a huge part of the community. He was still giving prophecies to Bill Johnson all the time and to all of these different individuals. So I didn't realize that anything had really even happened. Um, and so I didn't know about that event in 2017 until. In 2023 when I. I thought I was the first one kind of breaking the news to Bill Johnson and Chris. And then I post publicly. Chris contacts me and he shares with me, hey, we knew about this, some of this stuff, what we knew, and we tried to distance ourselves already from your dad in 2017. And I believe to some extent they did know and they did distance. But in some senses it's worse because of that. Like, wait, you did know and you didn't warn anyone? And then five years later, he. He's sexually preying upon your community? Like, I don't think that he. Well, I don't know for sure, but I don't at that time, I think it was just prophetic manipulation. It wasn't. It hadn't extended to the more like devious sexual assault. And because with my father, my father is not mentally well and has had over the last five years, like has really fallen apart. Like, if you've seen that video,
- [47:07]
C
Hey, listen to me right now. I don't mean for a woman to be near me or be with me, but I'd love to bless and I've worked hard and I would do that, but I don't need this. I know everybody's had a hard life, everybody's been cheated, all that stuff. But when I said I'll meet you in the parking lot with money, go away, you know, but you know, I am tempted to say something beforehand because I just believe in your heart. But, you know, I worked hard all week. So I have just a relaxing night. I've got a fireplace over here, a beautiful, beautiful room. And pass I got to clean it up. But my back porch is the golf course. It's an unbelievable house. And there's. I don't have it on, but that's fireplace and that's ring Brant. And this is so cozy back here, baby. And with the fire on.
- [48:16]
D
So I just want to relax.
- [48:18]
C
You know, I'm not a flips around. I think I'm not a sex fan. Well, okay, I'm pulling in. But I am a love to where I love that intimacy comes from my heart. That's what I'm into. Yes. How do I turn this around? I know, but I need to hear from you and I need to hear, okay, I'll meet at this place, you know, and I'll send you the money for, you know, a little bit of travel you're doing. And then I just never had to pay for somebody to respond to me. And I just don't mind blessing somebody who has financial need and they just feel like, I'm not paying for this. I don't know how to turn this around. I'm sorry. I'm paying for intimacy. And I just want to bless you. So let me know how you feel. Let me know. Okay, this is what it's going to cost. And I just, I pay for a lot of people in a lot of situations. And so I just get to know. But also know that you want to partner with me. You want to bless the world more blessing, which is an awesome world. You know, I can explain it to you later, but I don't spend much on Me, I get a beautiful home and $13 million properties that are B and Bs that are unbelievable. I'm going to travel, but I do want to get my business in a place where it just flows and get our body healthy and be with somebody that understands to write up wondrous things together. So respond to that, and we'll see if something can work out tonight. Bye.
- [50:15]
B
That's not like a sane man. And that's what's very heartbreaking for me to see, is that, you know, it's not that it's totally different. There were seeds of that always, but it just became the total final of my father's spiral. And it. It could have been prevented. It could have. Or at least it could have been lessened if the people who were platforming him actually cared about truth, actually cared about victims and. And abusers.
- [50:46]
A
You know, the text messages you talk about is. Are those that. Those are the text messages that have been leaked online that are. That are where Chris talks about how he distanced himself. They distance themselves.
- [50:57]
B
And those text messages aren't with me or. And in reference to my cat. That's. That's in reference.
- [51:04]
A
Those are only the Sean Bowles ones
- [51:05]
B
that are Sean Bowles. Yeah. I have. I have an email back and forth, and I have the whole recording of my phone conversation with Chris. I didn't tell him I was recording it, but I had suspicion. So I haven't ever released that, nor do I totally want to, because I don't know that that feels like an ethical gray area for me. But. But I could certainly I could send you the email back and forth between Bill Johnson and I, but everything that Chris said to me, he said to me on the phone. And it echoes what he said about the Sean Bowles, what he said in those text messages. It's very similar to what he said about Sean Bowles.
- [51:55]
A
Yeah. Which. Which to me seems more like trying to stop the spread of a disease as opposed to addressing the real problem. It's like an amputation. Like, hey, let's separate our official ministry from this guy's behavior. And then down the road, if anything happens, it's not on us.
- [52:15]
B
It's the way that you see HR handle things in big corporate businesses. It's. It's not, you know, it's. It's. Let's address the problem so that we limit liability and that's it. There's not. There's not a measure of who is affected by this. Who among our even very flock was affected by this, and how can we make it right. And furthermore, more importantly, how. How do we make sure that we don't get conned again? You know, my. My father came in, did all of his stuff in 2013, 14, 15, supposedly 2017. Chris gets wise to it and deep platforms him. Well, then you have Sean Bowles coming and doing the same thing. You have Chris Reed coming and doing the same thing. I don't know if you've spoken about Chris Reed at all, but they, both Sean Bulls and Chris Reed were very much proteges of my father, and I don't know if proteges, but they. They followed in the footsteps of my father. Sean Bowles even came from Kansas City and used to travel with my dad. I'm sure he picked up all of much of his own tactics from my dad. And so.
- [53:38]
A
But.
- [53:38]
B
But Bethel is not doing anything to prevent these future charlatans from being platformed. There's no system to test these individuals before they're given a platform.
- [53:59]
A
Let me ask you a question. When, when on the timeline did you become aware that there were like, there were sexual allegations or sexual. There's. There was a side of prophetic manipulation to achieve intercourse with women and even forceful like, when, when. When did you become aware of that?
- [54:18]
B
In 2023, I heard a story from my father. The summer of 2023, I heard a story from my father about Bob Jones that I had always known. Bob Jones, who was a prophetic mentor to my father and who is a huge prophetic figure in the founding of the International House Prayer, the founding of Morning Star, and the founding of Bethel, like absolutely critical to those three mega churches. He's not super well known because he wasn't a public figure, but behind the scenes, he probably was the most significant prophet in this contemporary prophetic movement of the last four decades or six decades even. I knew in the 90s, something happened where I thought he had an affair. And there was a. There was a period of time where he was removed from his. He was removed, deplatformed and. And was removed from his sort of place of authority. Authority. I never heard the actual story behind what happened until the summer of 2023 when I found out that my father was actually the person who was put in charge of the Bob Jones disciplinary team. Like, my dad was responsible for making sure that Bob Jones was disciplined for this action. And the specifics of this story, which are a bit horrific just to give a trigger warning or just weird too, he went in and he was prophesying to a family and he would do this sort of Individual prophecies where he would go into different families and he would give them prophetic words. And so he traveled to this family and he gave a prophetic word about how the women in the family, the mother and the daughter, were going to be like Abraham, and that the children of Israel were going to be nursed in their bosom. And in an act of prophetic symbolism, he had both women remove their shirts. So both the mother and the daughter. The daughter who was, I know, under 18, but I don't know how old she was. He had them both remove their shirts and he sucked on their breasts as an act of, like, prophetic symbolism to. To indicate this prophetic word that was supposed to come out. This was the sexual indiscretion that got Bob Jones removed. And then he later came back five years later and was still involved Morningstar and doing all of these prophecies. So hearing that story in 2023 about someone who I considered a spiritual father of mine absolutely changed something in me. It stopped being just problematic and started becoming deeply insidious. And during the exact same year, the scandal of Mike Bickle came out that Mike Bickle was prophesying to young women that they were going to be his. Like, he was grooming young women, teenagers, and that those women were going to then be married to him and that his wife was going to die in a earthquake. I don't know if you've heard about any of this.
- [57:53]
A
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Mike Bickle was doing another version of the same thing, which you've heard Bob Jones did. Yeah. Saying, God showed me this. And by the way, this results in me getting to have sex with you.
- [58:07]
B
Exactly. And so using. So it's not their prophetic abusers and their sexual abusers. They're prophetic abusers who use their prophetic abuse for sexual abuse.
- [58:17]
A
This is what Joseph Smith did. This is what Muhammad did. This is what so often happens with cult leaders. They're sleeping with a horde of women and stuff like that. Like, it's just.
- [58:27]
B
It's cult.
- [58:28]
A
Yeah, yeah. This. This happens over and over again. It always happens. Yeah.
- [58:33]
B
And then what was just so heartbreaking is that this information starts coming out about Mike Bickle. Not everyone knows this, but my mom was actually one of the victims of Mike Bickle that he was. Fortunately, she didn't get too involved, but he gave one of those prophecies to her when she was just a young woman. And so I knew for a fact that it was all true, because my own mother is of the people testifying about this. She was one of the Jane do that came forward in the story and sense. No, this is, this is, this is, this is now public information because she doesn't, I'm never sharing her name because she doesn't want it to come up. Every time her name is googled is this information. But yeah, yeah, she's come forward and actually film some stuff about it and stuff. So she has no problem sharing her story and cooperating. The story of Jane Doe and Tammy woods and the other women who have come forward.
- [59:37]
A
Do you know how old your mom was when he gave her this false prophecy?
- [59:40]
B
So she first was in. She was 15 and he was 20 when they first were in a relationship. But that was before he married Diane and he was.
- [59:52]
A
This is. You're talking about your mom right now.
- [59:54]
B
I'm talking about my mom.
- [59:55]
A
She was the 15 year old then.
- [59:57]
B
She was the 15 year old.
- [59:58]
A
That's the one.
- [59:59]
B
She wasn't. Okay, there's. Tammy woods was the 14 year old. So there's two different teenagers. Tammy's story is a little bit more dramatic than my mom, but my mom, my mom was basically the first president that Mike Bickles started. So.
- [60:17]
A
Yeah, and guys like this, they, they, they do it way more than anybody ever finds out and they, they do it and they feel the waters. They have a girl who, they test her out, they tell her a little thing, they see how she responds. They're like, right, okay, I can push her a little further. Maybe they hit a wall at a certain point they go, okay, not her, I'll try someone else. This is way. Anyway, it's just so please, sorry, please go on.
- [60:39]
B
Yeah, so. So yeah, when she was 15 they had a relationship but my grandmother was like he's too old and shut that down. And he was his, her youth pastor too. So there was, there was even from, for back then, it was, it was gray at best. But then he goes, he gets married to.
- [61:06]
A
Yeah, I was youth pastor for 13 years.
- [61:10]
B
Yeah.
- [61:10]
A
15 year old girl.
- [61:12]
B
Yeah.
- [61:12]
A
Yeah.
- [61:13]
B
It's not, it's just explicitly as a hanging fake.
- [61:17]
A
Yeah, exactly what it was that he said to her.
- [61:21]
B
Well, so when, when he was young, when, when they were both younger, it was more typical love bombing. Just you're the one. Because he wasn't married at that time and so it was very, just all affection towards her.
- [61:37]
A
Yeah. Made her feel special.
- [61:39]
B
Made her feel. And he lived in Kansas City at the time but that he moved from Kansas City to St. Louis and my mom then went to Tennessee for college for, for A little bit. And so that there was like a eight year period where they kind of didn't connect. And that's. He got married during that time. He started grooming Tammy woods during that time. And then my mom came back to Kansas City and Mike Bickle was back in Kansas City. And Mike got my mom to be involved in Kansas City Fellowship. And then that's when he gave the prophecy. So she was in her 20s at this time, but that's when he gave her the prophecy of, I think that, you know, you and I have something special and essentially just like tried to sort of get her to consecrate herself unto him. And that one day the Lord was going to open up a door for them to be together. And that was going to happen because he saw that Diane was going to die in an earthquake. And it was very. The bridal paradigm of like one day the bridegroom and the groom can be together and God will open this up to happen. And so he gave her that prophecy. And she kind of, she was a little weirded out by it. She told a few people and she kind of distanced herself, at least emotionally from Mike during that time. And then very shortly after married my father and told my father about that instance. And she thought she. He was the only one because they had dated when she was 15. She thought he was just caught up on her and couldn't figure, you know, she had no idea that it was a pattern of this. And then Jane Doe's story comes forward where he was this, this is later, but the 19 year old when he was in his 40s and he did the same thing with Jane Doe. And then Tammy woods comes forward and basically all of these women cooperate each other's story of all of these similar grooming, pet practices, these love brahming practices, and specifically this prophetic practice of prophesying the death of his own wife as a means of getting these women to conquer, con. Consecrate themselves unto him. So yeah, I'll let you jump in. That's a lot.
- [64:21]
A
Yeah. Okay, so in 2023 you found out about Bob Jones situation, you found out about this Mike Bickle stuff that was going on. And then how did you find out about your dad and what he was doing with women?
- [64:34]
B
So my, so my dad rushes to the defense of Mike during this time, Mike is being accused of these things. I literally was on the phone with my father and I had never heard the story about my own mom about the prophecy. And I started talking to Dad. I was like, hey, do you know, anything at the time, I was, like, still kind of close with my father. He was supposedly going to get back on the straight and narrow. He was gonna go get help for addiction issues and stuff like that. So I am on the phone with him, and I'm like, hey, have you heard about this stuff that's coming out about Mike Bickle? And he confirmed. He's like, oh, yeah, when your mom was young, Mike prophesied to her that Diane was going to die. And I was like, what? And similar to the Bob Jones sucker punch, this is like, oh, that was also a significant, in fact, more significant, spiritual father to me, and he did that to my own mother. And then all of this information comes out, and I expected my dad to be furious at Mike. Again, the same thing of, like, when blatant evil is going on within the community that you love, how are you not angry if you care about that community? So I naively expect my dad to get angry, but he rushes to Mike's defense and is saying, we don't know what happened. Due process. We got it. You know, these women are just after him. And I'm like, I know you know that this is true. So what are you talking about? Turns out that were several women who were coming forward at the same time accusing him. And so he really identified with Mike. And it was this sort of like, you know, I'm gonna. I'm gonna protect this other abuser because they're doing the same thing that I'm doing. And a few women came forward and started telling stories, and they weren't actually. People weren't actually taking them seriously at first, because my dad was really harshly. He was saying that he was going to come after them with lawyers and that they were just coming for his money and all this sort of stuff. But I heard the story, and the way that I say it is that if you've ever been in, like, a public area and you have a family member and say it's dark, you know, at dusk at Disneyland or whatever, you know, like, in a big public place, and you see them from a far way off, and you see their shadow, and you don't actually have to see their face to know it's them, because you can just recognize how they move. And, like, you're like, oh, yeah, that's my dad, or that's my, you know, friend, or something like that, because that's how they walk, and that's their cadence, and that's their. The way they move. And when I heard the testimonies that these Other women had given. I didn't know for sure it was true, but I recognized my father in it. Like, I recognized the ways that he did these things. So I reached out to them, got more information. Basically, I ended up having several women come forward to me sharing testimonies of how my dad had sexually abused them. And I then went publicly and was like, this is all true. And. And then after that, it kind of. Once. Once I sort of came to it, too, unfortunately, like, I don't think this should be the way that it is. But a lot of these women weren't being believed. But then when. When I came in and. And added my voice to it, which, like, I'm not saying that to. I'm saying that to criticize the community, not to be like, oh, I. I needed to come forward, or anything like that, but.
- [68:24]
A
Right. You have multiple. Multiple women coming forward is all you need.
- [68:27]
B
Yeah.
- [68:28]
A
And then you don't need more. But more is obviously helpful for people. But. So when they were coming forward, in what form were they coming forward? Were they telling leaders in some movement? Were they like, how did you. Before they talked to you, who were they talking to?
- [68:44]
B
So there was a woman named Michelle Seidler. And I'm sure, oh, this is so
- [68:48]
A
Michelle Seidler and her. The Facebook posts and stuff that she was putting up.
- [68:52]
B
Yeah.
- [68:52]
A
Oh, okay.
- [68:53]
B
And I had kind of talked to her. So Michelle Seidler starts posting on Facebook. There was another woman who. I don't want to say her name, but she had been in what she thought was a relationship. It was long distance, but she was, like, dating my father three years previously, and I had really liked her. She had been a great woman and everything like that, but she did experience some abuse from my father and had seen him then cheat on her and do all of these different things. And so I got some of her story as well. And she just. The sweetest woman, too, who just got caught up in a world that she didn't understand. And I felt so bad for her.
- [69:39]
A
I'm going to be interviewing her within the next week, so.
- [69:42]
B
Oh, really?
- [69:42]
A
Yeah.
- [69:43]
B
Oh, cool. Wait, you know who. Who, Who? I'm talking about Michelle.
- [69:47]
A
Michelle Seidler. Michelle Seidler. I'm sorry, I'm talking about Michelle Seidler.
- [69:50]
B
Yeah. With the other woman that I was talking about is. That's who I was saying.
- [69:57]
A
Who.
- [69:57]
B
I just, like, felt so far. But I also felt I didn't really know Michelle as well. But then I spoke with her, got some of the information, got enough to realize, hey, this is. This is true. And then, of course, she had all these pictures that made it pretty obvious that he was, like, doing a bunch of sexual harassment stuff at the very least, you know, and so it became pretty. It became pretty cut and dry very quickly.
- [70:28]
A
So you've got multiple women that are coming out, and Michelle Seidler's kind of being, you know, an amplification for their voices, and she's posting stuff on social media. But before she did that, and I'll talk to her about this, I think she went to them privately and tried to. Just like you did.
- [70:46]
B
Yeah, I think so. I think that it would be an excellent conversation to have with her more explicitly.
- [70:51]
A
Yeah, I'll find out. I'll find out. Now these women are coming out. This stuff's becoming public. Do you know if Bethel leadership reached out to. To interview and discuss and learn from these women what their stories were?
- [71:04]
B
No. No, I don't think that Bethel. I think they investigated things. The prophetic abuse. I am not aware of any of the. At least any of the abuse victims who were on the Kansas City side. I don't think that they ever reached out to any of them. They may have. Michelle would be good to ask about their response. I don't think they cared a whole lot. I don't think that it was in their interests to. To get to the bottom. In no sense was there an investigation. No one ever contacted me. No one ever asked me about what was going. I had to insert myself with them.
- [71:48]
A
Yeah. And did. Were any of these women that came forward, were they Bethel members or people who go to Bethel?
- [71:57]
B
I believe that Michelle herself is. Maybe she's not. I don't know, but I think that she is in. I can't remember. But I will say that I know that several of the women were at least a part of the Bethel community. They might not have been on staff, but they were locals to Reading, California, who would regularly go to Bethel Church.
- [72:23]
A
They're in this. In the social circle of Bethel, and any decent pastor would consider them someone that they should have regard for and be making sure that they're safe. Yeah, especially when there's a guy that they've previously put on stage who's then faking prophecy, and they know about it. Now he's doing this. And I know his yellow house. I checked that. I did some research on this. His yellow house is, like, only just miles from Bethel. It's also in Reading, and he was inviting people off over to that house, and he sort of. When he was cut off from the stage, he just sort of kept going privately. And you could tell. I could sort of sense, okay, I'm putting two and two together here, call this conjecture, but that he was just trying to continue his prophetic ministry what he would call probably to individuals and as an entity that could justifiably be called separate from Bethel, so that Bethel is sanitized from whatever he does, and yet he can keep going. That's how. That's how it came off.
- [73:24]
B
I mean, that is explicitly. Like, your intuition on that is explicitly true. Like, that is exactly what was happening. And that's why I contacted Bethel, because during that time, I'm getting calls from Bethel staff members and Bethel, you know, people who are within the Bethel community who are like, I just saw your father at this location. Or one crazy story was that he went to the singles meeting at Bethel and he was telling everyone that he had been divorced and that he was single, ready to mingle, and that he, like, he was. He literally went to the Bethel single meeting trying to, like, invite young women to his. To his small groups. And that's what he was doing. He was. He was hosting small groups and
- [74:20]
A
at
- [74:20]
B
his house that was really not that far from Bethel Church. And that's where I was like, I felt a sense of desperation because I was like, I have to make sure that this stops, that he isn't able to do this. Because, I mean, he's an.
- [74:37]
D
He.
- [74:37]
B
He. He's not young. He's an older. Like, he's in his mid late 60s. He doesn't have the charm that he once had. So the only way that he's really going to be able to entice people into these settings is through spiritual heroism. Like, if. If he is considered a spiritual hero, people will come, but otherwise he's not going to be able to do the things. Like, he's going to invite people. He's going to invite young women to his house, and they're going to be like, no, that's weird and creepy, and they're going to leave. You know, so this was that sort of desperation that I had is like, I have to make sure that Bethel doesn't keep covering for him or he is going to abuse more people. And fortunately, I do think that enough was in the. Because I spoke up and other. And Michelle and other individuals spoke up, and eventually Bethel even sent out the email. I think that enough of the information got out there that it became known that he's not a safe person. And he's still. I mean, he still has money and he's still able to bring people into his sort of circle. But I would like to hope, I'm not positive. I would like to hope that the like sexual predation has stopped. But it's hard. It's. You don't know.
- [76:04]
A
I guess one question that I'd have for you is why, what do you think the right response for Bethel would have been? Like, with, with the information they had, the timeline they had, what should they have done?
- [76:20]
B
I mean, you have to, if I'm being honest, the whole structure of the way the community works is just flawed. You know, just that they have a, this culture of honor where they're bringing in these spiritual magicians, putting them on pedestals. So many of them have been abusers and they just have this system in which these men are always going to be protected, they're always going to be covered. It's always going to be. It's framed in this like culture of grace way of like, we will never attack or hurt anyone. It's always going to be good, good, good, good, good. And that just doesn't work. It doesn't work in a, in a, especially in a denomination and community that is like pretty ripe with just con artist. I mean, ever since the beginning of the Pentecostal community and the Charismatic community in general, you have had snake oil salesmen. Since the beginning, you've had people who get up there and say whatever they want to sell whatever they want. And if they can deceive people, they do. And like that. That's just explicitly been the history of, of the Charismatic church. And, and Bethel is just both doors wide open to anybody who has a platform or anybody who has a good magic show. So fundamentally the community itself has to change and restructure. Secondly, even if it isn't that large of a criticism, like if it's just what should Bethel have done once they knew about what was going on with my father? My father would not have had the platform that he did if it was not for Bethel, that they were the people who. The reason he became prophetic famous was because of Bethel. It wasn't the International House Prayer, it wasn't Morning Star, it was Bethel. And they had a responsibility to share. But even back in 2017, that a. Someone had gotten up in the midst of their, you know, community and used their platform and had deceived people like these prophetic people treat prophetic deception just so unseriously in that community. But like the, the community, so many individuals faith have been built on just false teachings like so many people At Bethel used to come up to me and be like, you have no idea how much your father's prophecy changed my life. And, like, hopefully it's, you know, for the good, but even if it's for the good, it's inherently deceptive and untrue. And for every story that was good, you have a lot of stories where people uprooted their lives because of a prophecy, married someone, or had, you know, changed the entire makeup of. Of their life because of false prophecy. Those people deserve to know. They deserve to know what happened. And Bethel had a responsibility, even before the sexual abuse cases to be honest with their community about what was happening.
- [79:50]
A
And, oh, gosh, let me just think of what, what else we should do before we. Before we finish here. In your opinion, did Bethel take reasonable steps to respond to the information that they were getting that your dad was not only fraudulently prophesying, but also abusing. Abusing women and spiritually abusing women for his own gratification?
- [80:20]
B
No. Yeah. I mean, explicitly. No. Like, they're. They took enough steps to, like, cover some sense of liability, but they didn't take any sense of responsibility for my father or for. For giving him a platform or any sort of responsibility for their flock. It just was so explicitly clear. It's like if you found out that you had a corrosive, terrible mold and in your kitchen and it was causing you and your family to get sick, right? You have a responsibility to, like, if you have to tear apart the whole kitchen to get the mold out, you will do that because for the sake of your family, even if it costs money and even if it's, you know, bad for your pocketbook, if you're a landlord who's just trying to, like, turn people out or something like that, you might scrape it off and then put paint over it to make sure that you don't have as much liability. But you're going to try to cut costs and save image.
- [81:18]
A
And.
- [81:19]
B
And what. What Bethel did was cut cost and save image. Like, they were not, like, they were in image control. They weren't in damage prevention or any sense of, like, comforting their flock or community.
- [81:36]
A
All right, the next interview is with Michelle Seidler, and she'll tell. It takes a little bit for us to get fully into the details, but basically how her experiences went a certain way. And then she got connected to other victims of Bob's, including rape, including all sorts of things. So this story needs to be told because of how it connects to the broader charismatic culture and the culture of COVID up, because Cover up culture is real. It's real and it needs to be taken down. And the only way to take it down is ripping that band aid off and exposing all the people that you guys know about. You charismatic leaders that are not just. They don't just have sins in their lives. They're not just leaders with sins. They are predators, wolves preying upon the people, the sheep maybe. Catch me up. If I have no idea who you are and why you're involved in any of this stuff, maybe you could explain that.
- [82:24]
B
Yeah.
- [82:24]
D
Okay, so I'm going to start with IHOP. I moved to Kansas City in 2004 and became part of an internship there. By 2006, I was a leader in the prophetic department. By 2007, I was running the prophetic department and training and equipping teams, building the prophetic teams and the department.
- [82:51]
A
And this is in Kansas City. That ihop?
- [82:54]
D
Yes.
- [82:55]
A
The mothership.
- [82:56]
D
Yes. And that was where I got introduced to Bob. He would come to the leadership team and meet with us and that kind of thing. So I didn't really know him very well at that time. I left in, well, let's just say this. I got, starting around 2010, became much more involved with Bob. I had my own ministry at the time in the city and him and I would do things together, our ministries would do things together. So we became friends. And a lot of my team would help his team, his team would help my team with different things that were going on. Events, conferences, you know, that kind of thing. So I got to see a little bit behind the scenes and I knew a little bit that was going on, but I really just stayed out of it. You know, I just had my own stuff to worry about. And then he. After his divorce, I had. I'm trying to remember the timing because I had went, I would just say in 2005 or. Sorry, 15. I. So let me just say during that time we were not. We were pretty. We were closer and we were just doing things together. Right. In 2015, I knew it's 15, 16, something like that. He had gotten a divorce. It had been several months since his divorce. And I received a voxer from him. He was in Asia somewhere. And he was just saying, hey, Michelle. It was a different kind of message than I ever gotten from him before. You know, I've always thought about you and that, you know, I don't remember the exact wording, but it was kind of in a romantic, romantic sense, threw me off. I just couldn't let myself see that Bob that way, you Know. So I just kind of.
- [85:16]
A
Were you married at this time or.
- [85:18]
D
No, no, I've never been married.
- [85:19]
A
Okay. Okay.
- [85:22]
D
And then in. I kind of just blew him off and didn't say anything. Didn't hear from him for a while until maybe another year. I don't know how he knew. Maybe I put something on social media that I was coming to Kansas City, and. Oh, by the way, I moved. Sorry. I moved to Reading 2016. My daughter was doing Bethel, the school there, BSSM. And I moved. I plan to move out there for a year just to kind of help her get settled and help her through some difficult stuff while she was, you know, making that transition. And so, as you know, I'm sure, you know, Bob has houses out there also.
- [86:11]
A
Oh, yeah, I've done. When I got information from Jedi, I was like, looking up Bob's stuff. I see his yellow house thing, and I'm looking at the address, and I'm seeing how I'm on Google Maps. Like, how far is this from Reading? And it's just like a couple miles or something. It's really close.
- [86:26]
D
Yeah. So, yeah, it wasn't just that he had a house in the area. He was very connected and.
- [86:32]
A
Yeah. And he has. You said houses, though. He has other. Other homes. His son said he made pretty good money doing real estate.
- [86:37]
D
So, absolutely. I would say he probably has close to a dozen houses in Kansas City, and then probably back last I knew, four in Reading. So, yeah. And so I. I think I had probably said something on social media like I was coming to Kansas City. And he called me and he said, you know, I know you're coming to Kansas City. Why don't you come stay in one of my houses? So what he was doing was Airbnb out his homes at that time. He's like, I have a home available. Why don't you stay at my house? And I'm like, okay, great. You know, no problem. And so I did. Well, let me say this. He even. He said, I'll have. Oh, I can't remember who his assistant was at the time. Come and get you. And I was like, no, no, no. I'm getting a car. You know, So I had already kind of felt like, oh, Bob has some. A little bit of an agenda, but I'm not, you know, here to do my. My thing. And when I got. Or no, he said, meet me at my house, and then we'll get you settled. So I showed up at his house where he lives, only to find out that he has me staying at his house. Not one of the other houses, like he had told me.
- [88:16]
B
Wow.
- [88:18]
D
And I was like, okay, all right, Bob. I see. You know, I see what you're doing. I'm like, I'm only here two nights. I'll stay. He had several other people staying there. He had roommates, and he stayed in the bottom half of the house, and the upper half of the house he, like, had people stay at. So I'm like, it's fine. He has his own little apartment, you know, down there. So that night, we were kind of hanging out with everybody in the living room, and everybody started to go to bed, and he's like, can I just talk to you? And I'm like, yeah. He proceeds to heavily come on physically strong with me. And I'm like, whoa, Bob. Like, what is going on? Like, you have to understand, like, my relationship with Bob was so. I never. I couldn't even imagine ever him doing something like that ever. Even being a prophetic person myself. Like I said, I couldn't even let myself see that. So it. And even though I was discerning things, I never would have thought he'd do that. And he's like, I. And he's so. He's coming on strong, and he says, I want to pursue you. And I'm like, I don't know, Bob. I don't know about this. You know, And I have meetings to go to, and that was kind of the end of that. And I go back to Reading, and he flies to Reading after me. Several couple days, he flies there. And at this time, I'm kind of considering, okay, maybe there is. Maybe I could have something with Bob. I was open to it. Um, and. Oh, my goodness, where do I start? You would have thought that I was, like, dating the guy for years, the way he was acting with me. He was dragging me to every meeting that was going on, dinners, you know, stuff with the church, and. And I started to see a lot of weird behaviors. And so I was like, no, Bob, I don't want to. I don't want to do this. You know, like, this isn't a good idea. So I start to back away, and he, you know, he keeps pursuing me, and he's like, no, let's just, you know, let's just try to, you know, da, da, da, da. I'm like, okay. So I, you know, stay in it just a little bit. And then I start to just discern and pick stuff up. And I. I was at his house one day with him and a bunch of other people, and I left his house And I heard the Holy Spirit say, or no, sorry, he calls me first and he says, did I leave my iPad at your house? And I'm like, I have no idea. You know, he said, will you look? I said, sure. So when I. I go on my way home and I hear the Holy Spirit say, I want you to look at his iPad. So I go home immediately. I go right to it.
- [91:58]
C
I.
- [91:59]
D
All I do is open it up. And I see these messages between him and his assistant Caitlyn that were. It was very clear that they were in a relationship. And she wasn't in Reading. She was living in California, Southern California somewhere. And so immediately I called him, I said, bob, I'm done. Don't call me. You know, I don't want anything to do with this. That night he. He came to my house, and I lived with my daughter. He came to my house like one o' clock in the morning, so drunk, I hope, you know, I open the door, he's totally drunk. He pushes himself in and he literally is chasing, takes his clothes off, bare, naked, starts chasing me around the house. I'm like, bob, you need to leave. You need to leave. You need. Finally, I get him to leave. And I talked to. The next day, I talked to one of his assistants that was in Reading, who was actually a friend of mine too.
- [93:21]
B
You.
- [93:23]
D
And I told her. Now, a few people knew what was going on with us, but mostly it wasn't. No one knew, you know, like they,
- [93:33]
A
they knew you guys were. You were kind of connecting and stuff and in a relationship, but they probably didn't know. Red flags you were seeing and stuff.
- [93:40]
D
Yeah, exactly. And this probably was like a few months. I'm speeding it up really quickly. Long story short, she. I tell her a little bit, and she says, michelle, I have to tell you this. This. I saw this not too long ago, but I just didn't know what to do. And this is typical of so many women in different situations. They just clamor up, you know, and they're like, I don't know what to do. I don't want to start trouble. Who will believe me? You know? And she says, I saw these emails from Bob and Caitlin, his current assistant, the one I told you about, that I saw the emails.
- [94:27]
A
Is she still his assistant now?
- [94:28]
D
I think she very recently, from what I heard, left, but that had happened several times over the year.
- [94:37]
A
Okay.
- [94:38]
D
So I think she's been his assistant for maybe 10 years.
- [94:42]
A
Okay.
- [94:44]
D
And she shows me the emails and it's essentially Bob saying, you're not going to get paid. And I'm saying this in a polite way until you have sex with me. And. But it was much more vulgar than that. And I said, we have got to tell Bill. Bill, Chris, like, they need to know about this. This is not okay. Because for me, during that time when I found this out, I found a lot of other things out. Right. But I had no. Nothing substantial, no kind of proof. And so when I saw these emails, I was like, here it is. You know, that's.
- [95:31]
A
That's insane. That's. I'm trying not to interrupt you because
- [95:33]
D
I know much worse.
- [95:34]
A
I know with zoom, if I talk while you're talking, it will, like, make it hard to hear the audio later. So I'm trying to be. Not be responsive like I normally would, but. But that's insane. Yeah. So appreciate you sharing me this, though, because this is. That's criminal behavior. Right? That is like go to jail, call the police kind of behavior, isn't it?
- [95:54]
D
Absolutely. Had I called the police that night, I would have. He would have went to jail, you know, when he came over to my house.
- [96:03]
A
Do you still have those emails?
- [96:05]
D
Well, I never had them.
- [96:07]
A
Or you never had a physical. Yeah. You just got to see them. Yeah.
- [96:11]
D
And I was the one who was like, we've got to tell Bill. We've got to tell Chris. We've got to let people know. She really did not want to be involved at all. Me, I was like, I'm. I'm a justice truth person. I'm like, no, this needs to come out. And it's not safe. My big thing is it's not safe for other women in the body. That's been my. My stance all along. It's about the safety of the. Of the body.
- [96:41]
A
You're right.
- [96:42]
D
And so I saw these emails and Jed and I have talked about this, but I. He did not know about this one. Or he found out about it shortly afterwards from Bill. I'm not exactly sure. The email went to Bill and Chris and Benny. Benny Johnson. And they were told about this and basically.
- [97:15]
A
Sorry, this is an email you sent.
- [97:18]
D
This is. And you sent it to them from his. The one about if. If you don't have sex with me, you're not getting paid.
- [97:28]
A
Okay.
- [97:29]
D
Yeah.
- [97:30]
A
So it was the other assistant who you. She can remain unnamed.
- [97:33]
B
That's.
- [97:33]
A
However, you know, whatever is best. She sent an email with the receipts.
- [97:38]
B
Okay.
- [97:39]
A
Here's what he said to Bill.
- [97:42]
D
Chris and Benny.
- [97:44]
A
And Benny Johnson.
- [97:46]
D
Yeah.
- [97:48]
A
And that was. That was about when. That was in 2016. Still
- [97:53]
D
17 at this point, I believe.
- [97:57]
A
Okay.
- [97:58]
D
End of 16, 17. And so essentially what they did was they sent an email out to their leadership team and said, no one can, you know, we advise no one to have Bob in their homes leading meetings. And they told Bob that he could not have these kind of yellow house prayer meetings that he used to have at his house. He could no longer, you know, do those and invite the community, which was normally leadership. It will, you know, some. Sometimes it was other people, but it was mainly leadership. Different people in different positions of leadership.
- [98:51]
A
Okay, so let me. Let me back up to this email they send it and who did they send it to?
- [98:55]
D
They sent it to their leaderships or their staff at Bethel. Only their staff.
- [99:04]
A
Only staff. Just like they sent this Sean Bulls letter only to alumni.
- [99:08]
D
Yes.
- [99:10]
A
So an email that went out and this email, what were the. Like from what you're aware of, what was the statements like about Bob?
- [99:17]
D
The email was we were asking no one to attend Bob's meetings at his home and to not have Bob in your homes for meetings, you know, his ministry times. And that was essentially it. They gave no explanation as to why.
- [99:42]
A
Right.
- [99:43]
D
And they. They kind of cut him off a little bit at Bethel. And you could feel it. I mean, I. I saw a little bit of it. Eric Johnson, I mean, he went up to Eric one day and tried to talk to him, and Eric pushed him away. I mean, I saw a little bit of that. However, they said nothing to nobody about, as far as I know, publicly, they didn't. About what was going on. So I had known Johnny for several years. So I went to Johnny and I said, look, I need you to help me here because this isn't okay. Like, they need to. They need to know. And. And Bob had a conference coming up at Morning Star right around that time. And Johnny said, essentially, bottom line, Johnny said, michelle, I can't handle this right now because I have my own thing going on, which I found out later he told me was about Sean Bulls. And this was 2017.
- [101:06]
A
Okay.
- [101:07]
D
However, what happened was I said this to Johnny. Johnny said, I'll talk. You know, he'll. He'll get in touch with, you know, Bill and all of them. He did, but nothing happened. But they did say something to Rick Joyner about it because I said, he's got a conference coming up. So something was said to Rick Joyner, and Rick Joyner actually cut him off from the conference. So we asked him not to come. So that whole situation, and again, I'm giving you highlights, was very upsetting to me because I saw all of them. I was astounded at their lack of shock, really. Like, it wasn't. It was kind of like, okay, let me just put in the.
- [102:16]
B
That.
- [102:17]
D
That devastated me. And by the way, he also got in this matters too much. But he did get an email from Mike also that I saw. But Bob actually showed it to me because he confronted me about all this from Mike.
- [102:36]
A
Sorry, Mike who?
- [102:37]
D
Mike Pickle.
- [102:38]
A
Oh.
- [102:39]
D
And all Mike Pickle said was, God have mercy on you. That was it. So even Mike didn't confront him. So at that time, I moved back to Orlando. I was just. And I got out of all of it. And, you know, I was in minute. I had a ministry. I was in ministry. So I was in the heart part of, you know, all this stuff. And I just got out and. Because I just didn't know what to do, I. They all knew. I told them. And I. So I just gave it to God, you know, at this time. And I was like, if you want me to do something, you're gonna show me. And I just felt like all I could do was weep over it, you know, and want nothing to do with any of them at that point. And so Fast forward to 2021. I get a phone call from someone that was in Kansas City, and she said, I really need to talk to you. I need to share this with somebody. And I said, okay. She. She basically tells me that Bob had come on very strong to her, against her will, and that she was a virgin. He had sex with her and she was a virgin. And she was. Oh, my gosh. She was devastated. Devastated. And I'm like, lit up again about this, you know?
- [104:17]
A
Right. And now you're. Now you've got to be thinking, how many people? How many women? Yes. Because it's. It's. You might be able to convince yourself maybe it was just that one time. It's rarely the case.
- [104:31]
D
Well, I had. I had actually found out that there were other women. He had promised a few women that he was going to marry them, and they were all in different cities. So one was in.
- [104:46]
A
Is there a playbook these guys have? There's like a playbook somewhere. It's like Mike Bickle's unpublished autobiography.
- [104:54]
D
It's bizarre.
- [104:55]
A
Wow.
- [104:56]
D
It's bizarre how familiar it all was. I just can't even. I felt it so many times, I thought I was in the Twilight Zone. So one of them was who was in Kansas City. And I don't want to say, give too much detail, because I know she doesn't want to have anything to do with it either. But went to Morningstar. She was in Kansas City, went to morningstar, was on staff at Morningstar, and he was in relationship with her, promising her she. That they would get married. While messing with his assistant. While messing with me, Telling and another woman that he was gonna. It was just. It wasn't a surprise to me that he was pursuing her the way he was. I was shocked about the rape because that's what it was. It was a. It was rape.
- [105:50]
A
This was the. The woman who contacted you in 2021.
- [105:53]
D
It. It all kind of comes to a head in 2023 when everything started to get exposed and I came out in a much bigger way. But in 20. And that there's reason for that. But in 2021, again, I went to Johnny and I told him what happened. And he. He said, michelle, again, he mentioned Sean Bowles, but then he mentioned someone else that he was involved in with exposing some things. And he's like, you know, you take this one on, do a video, you know, talk about it, let people know. I'm like, johnny, I don't have the platform you have. People need to know about this. You know, anyway, I did a video. It really stirred some people up. People were angry with me. Bob threatened me. I will tell you this. He obviously, he. There is a consistency in terms of the gaslighting with everybody. You know, there's denial.
- [106:57]
B
She.
- [106:57]
A
It.
- [106:59]
D
His stance was, oh, I'm well known, I'm prophetic. And they came on to me. Well, let me back up and say this. So in 2020, I had gotten a phone call from Mark Schlesinger. Do you know who Mark Schlesinger is?
- [107:19]
A
No.
- [107:20]
D
He is the one that is talked about. I mean, I don't know how much you've seen or listened to or watched about this story in general, but his wife was the one that was having an affair with Mike Bickle's son.
- [107:42]
A
Okay. Yeah.
- [107:45]
D
And they were going to Mike for years. Elizabeth Herter talks about this, and Mike wouldn't do anything about it. And that's what started the whole issue with the leadership team at ihop. It was this issue with Mark because they saw Mike's son doing something and Mike was just blowing it off. And that was affected in a big way.
- [108:05]
A
Yes. Wise people say the way that you blow off somebody else doing something like that may come from you blowing off you doing something like that.
- [108:15]
D
Yeah, exactly.
- [108:17]
A
It's a natural instinct. Yeah. You put two predators in a room together and they. They both attack the prey not each other. That's. Yeah, they naturally don't.
- [108:31]
D
We're convinced of that now more than ever.
- [108:34]
A
Yeah.
- [108:36]
B
Sad.
- [108:37]
D
So Mark had called me, and he just wanted counsel. And so. And by the way, I. I work with a lot of leaders in the body, and I counsel a lot of leaders, so that wasn't abnormal. You know, I didn't know Mark very well, but someone had suggested that he talked to me. So he talked, he called, and he told me what was going on. At this time, no one knew anything. He. His life was just falling apart.
- [109:11]
A
You said this was 2020.
- [109:14]
D
Yes, 2020. And for. Well, all the way up until 2023, I was counseling Mark through what was going on as I saw, you know, Mike's son continue to do what he was doing, seeing how the leadership was responding. So I knew back then that some. Some things were going on. Right. That was my first introduction, was 2022. Some things happening in regards to Mike. She said to me, I know a lot of people call you and a lot of women call you. We want to know if anyone has called you about Mike. And. And I said, no, A lot about, you know, things with Bob it's been over the years, but not Mike. So she told me what was going on. I wasn't. Again, I had known about Mark's Lessinger, so I was putting all the pieces together, you know, and I know that the Jane Doe. So when all of that started to come out,
- [110:30]
A
Bob
- [110:34]
D
started to take this stance of defending Mike, and he started to show up in the prayer room, calling these prayer meetings to protect Mike. And I started to speak up on social media about these things because I knew a bunch of things behind the scenes, but people weren't believing what was happening. So I just started to kind of speak up a little bit at this point.
- [111:05]
B
Point.
- [111:06]
A
What. What year was this that Bob's like, in prayer rooms doing damage control for my.
- [111:10]
D
23. 2023.
- [111:11]
B
Okay.
- [111:15]
D
And so because of that, my emails, every avenue to me was getting flooded with women and men with sexual abuse or spiritual abuse from Bob and Mike and other leaders at ihop. So for me specifically, I knew I had a specific, whatever you want, name you want to put on it assignment regarding Bob. I knew I would like. This just kept landing on my lap, landing in my lap over and over. And so all of these women. And I just. I actually started a group because I couldn't talk to all these people. I had a group of almost 300 people that had contact. Yes. Yeah.
- [112:12]
A
All about Bob.
- [112:13]
D
No Bob abuse. Yeah.
- [112:18]
A
But the ones, but all in the IHOP connection, not just ihop.
- [112:26]
D
Bethel Morningstar, you know, those three kind of all run together. And so those that were connected with Bob, I started another group, a separate group, and started to talk to them about all of it and said, okay, guys, what do you. What do you want to do? We need to get help with this. But they were all on fire about this. Like, he needs to be exposed. Sorry, My light. I have it. Am I dark?
- [112:59]
A
Not to me. I think. Yeah, it looked fine to me. Yeah. Does it look weird on your. Like, yeah. Or whatever.
- [113:04]
D
I'm in front of my window and the sun's going down.
- [113:06]
A
Oh, you look. You look. It looks good lighting to me.
- [113:12]
D
And long story short, they all said, we want to expose him and we want to come out about this specifically because he was really making a lot of noise, too, like in these. Calling these prayer meetings. While when I found out, not kidding, the day he was on the mic and started the prayer meeting and called this fast. In these prayer meetings for Mike, that very day, he did that. He contacted a woman and said he would pay her for sex that very day, the same day. And so I had all this evidence. I had emails, I had videos, I had text messages, you know, and we were like, this needs to. This needs to come out. He needs to be stopped. I mean, I had a. Almost nude picture of him that he sent to somebody. I mean, it just went on and on.
- [114:17]
A
At that time, the 2021 victim. I'll call her that. How about that?
- [114:22]
D
She came around again. So then I had all. Probably about a dozen women and seeing this pattern, more recent pattern that I wasn't aware of previously, of him offering money to women w. Money to women to have sex. And so that was when I started to speak and say, Bethel was contacted about this years ago. Morningstar was contacted about this years ago. Mike was contacted about this years ago more than once, and nothing was ever done. And that was kind of when. And then I got on the phone with Jedediah and we started to talk, and he. He didn't know about any of that while he had his own things going on with his. With his dad.
- [115:20]
A
Right, so that was fake prophecy stuff. Yeah.
- [115:22]
D
Yes. And a big theme with all of these women was. Was prophesying.
- [115:28]
A
It was, yeah, help me out. Lay out for me a few if you can. You said you had about a dozen women now and you noticed patterns. One of the patterns was offering money to women for sex. What are other patterns that were consistent across multiple women and Witnesses, prophecy, specifically, what was the kinds of things he would do with prophecy?
- [115:52]
D
Marriage, promising marriage, or seeing marriage or prophecies around, like how wonderful you're going to be or what you're going to do in there. It's kind of like it was flattery.
- [116:10]
A
They should have known that that's the big. That's the big thing. Should have known, should have done something. In some cases. Did know, should have done something. Well, yeah.
- [116:19]
B
Even.
- [116:20]
D
Even still, after this was coming out, the same girl that was Bob's assistant back in 2017, 2017, that saw the email from his assistant, the sex one, she contacted me because she saw what was coming out, and she was like, michelle, I just have to tell you, Bethel knows about all of this stuff. And Bob was just at a meeting, a leadership meeting yesterday, prophesying over people. I was like, are you kidding me?
- [116:56]
A
She's like, oh, yeah, this is 2023.
- [116:59]
D
Yes.
- [116:59]
A
Okay.
- [117:00]
D
And so she is now an assistant to another leader at Bethel. And so she said to me, do you think I should go to her and tell her about this stuff with Bob? Because a lot of people were a bit isolated at Bethel, right. To what was going on at this point, because it had just, you know, got going. But. But Bill and Chris knew. I knew. Chris knew because there was a. He tagged me in a comment on Facebook about when I said they never did anything. And he said nothing was done. And I said, oh, okay, if you want to say that, you told me, you know, your. Your leadership team, okay, you did something, you know, so he knew. But he. He actually went to her. She. Sorry. She went to her, the leader of Bethel, and that was actually what got things going there with Bethel because she has a real standing in terms of, like, the healing department at Bethel. And she went to Billing Crest and confronted them about it. So that happened right at the time when Jedediah was then sending this stuff to Bethel. So they were kind of having it come in all ways. And yet they still had Bob ministering in meetings, prophesying over people.
- [118:28]
A
This is. So he, in 2023, is still being seen and enabled to function as a prophet in Bethel.
- [118:37]
D
Yes.
- [118:38]
A
A full. My goodness, how many years. It was 2017. When they first got.
- [118:48]
D
Yeah.
- [118:48]
A
When they first should have. When they should have known that you're aware of.
- [118:52]
D
Yeah. And I mean, that Bill had even that year come out and she told me this and was talking about a prophecy he got from Bob, like a recent one.
- [119:08]
A
Yeah. Is this the one that he could remarry after his wife passed yes. Jededi was telling me about that.
- [119:14]
D
Yeah. I mean, that's absurd.
- [119:19]
A
Yeah, well, it's the flattery thing. He uses prophecy to flatter and control the way. Way he uses money. Oh, look at my wonderful house. Like, it's like that kid you knew growing up who didn't. Didn't. Had such a bad personality. He couldn't get friends, but he had a lot of toys, so he'd be like, come on, you can play with my new toy if you come hang out with me.
- [119:42]
D
Absolutely. I still get text messages from Bob. I don't know how he. I keep changing numbers. I block him every which way. And a lot of times it even is about the money I have. You know, first it's threats, and then it's, I love you, I'm sorry, We can work this out. I have the money to take care of this. I have the money for this.
- [120:04]
A
I was hoping he would offer me some money so I could tell everybody. Yeah, I told my wife because she. She's the one who handles all the books for my ministry. I was like, if we get any. Here, watch for any donation that looks like this, right? Watch for any donation that looks like. Comes with a message. And you're like, what is. Yeah, what is this? And I gave her, like, a list of names. Anybody from this, you know, but anyway, we. We haven't had that yet. I kind of wish they would so I could be like, come back to put it on screen for everybody in 2023. She, this assistant tells her boss, the boss is going to Bethel Leadership. So they. It's reasonable to say that they know that you are in contact with a number of victims at this point?
- [120:47]
D
Yes.
- [120:48]
A
Do they contact you or any of the victims?
- [120:50]
D
No.
- [120:54]
A
Did they do anything at all?
- [120:55]
C
No,
- [120:59]
D
nothing.
- [120:59]
A
Did you. Did the assistant ever get back to you and tell you, like, what happened or did they even know?
- [121:04]
D
Yes.
- [121:05]
A
So what'd they say?
- [121:06]
D
Told me that, well, her boss, the woman on leadership, Bethel Leadership, was going to look into it. She did. And she came back and said she was very upset about it. She's going to Bill and Chris. So she did. She actually went with her and did. And did that. And so it was actually that same, oh, I don't know, maybe two weeks, 10 time frame when Bob was still in meetings prophesying over people, and her boss happened to be in one of those meetings, and there was a big upset about it because nothing. Nothing was done. So she. This. She was pursuing this with them, With Bob and Chris, specifically.
- [122:00]
A
Yeah, but do you Know of anything Bill said in response to the allegations or statements or anything?
- [122:07]
D
Only the email that he sent out to the leadership team at Bethel back in 2017. There was nothing else said. I hate. And I just, you know, this for me was years of really giving benefit of doubt to Bethel too.
- [122:24]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [122:25]
D
You know, it was like, right, surely they're gonna do something. I had so much respect for them and I. It can't be. They're gonna do something. And the benefit of the doubt, oh God, like, I don't want to accuse anybody, I don't want to slip or anybody. You know, then you come to the point where like, sorry, excuse my language. Yeah, I mean, I can't. Every single ministry is throwing this stuff under the rug. I. And then you look at Bentley and so. Yeah, yeah.
- [122:57]
A
How many, how many people that we don't even know about?
- [123:00]
D
Yeah, exactly. Well, from all of the people that contacted me back in 2003, quite, quite a lot. I got a text as soon as it was probably last week, maybe a little over a week ago from Bob. He gives subtle threats in the group. It would be one person saying, oh, I got threats today from Bob. And then someone else going, yep, I got one yesterday. Oh, I got one today. You know, know, it's like this thing. He knows who is in that group and so he's just been. I'm not. I honestly, I mean, he actually threatened to get a private investigator and find something in my life and use it against me.
- [123:57]
A
Yes, yes.
- [123:58]
D
And I actually believe that he did and didn't find anything. But I, I don't have, no, I have no proof about this. But there is someone that I work with, a well known figure, public figure, that suddenly who did some horrible things. I mean, really, really bad that back in the day when Internet didn't exist, so it, what didn't happen to get out on the Internet and it was somewhat hidden, but he repented, came to God, you know, all of that. And suddenly he's on some very well known boards. These people started getting phone calls about, about him and he calls me freaking out. And I thought, oh, I just wonder if this is him. There was no other reason for it, you know, than to look at people I'm working with and go about things that way too, you know, because it was actually there were some things that were public that you. He had a. He put a book out, two books.
- [125:11]
C
He.
- [125:12]
D
One of his books I was really promoting and he spoke at one of my events. I did. And so it wasn't a secret. That I was connected with him, you know, it wouldn't be hard.
- [125:22]
A
Right.
- [125:23]
D
So I believe he's done some of that too, to just stick it, you know, but he's not done anything in terms of like trying to sue or, you know, as a matter of fact, he goes back and forth, I'm going to sue you. I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. And then he's like, I love you. We can take care of this. Let's talk. You know, it's. What day am I going to get? What? Who am I going to get?
- [125:46]
A
Yeah, yeah, Well, I. I just. I sent in our chat, the link to that Twitter post that maybe you can.
- [125:55]
D
Oh, this chat, sorry, yeah, our chat.
- [125:57]
A
Our chat for the Zoom call. Yeah,
- [126:17]
D
Yeah.
- [126:20]
A
Right beneath it. You'll see.
- [126:20]
D
I didn't get any response from him. Yeah.
- [126:25]
A
From Bob. No. I even tried. Several days before I posted this, I tried reaching out on his website going, I'd love to interview you about your prophetic ministry. Maybe I could get him, rope him in. And I was being underhanded, admittedly, but I think that you have to be very clever when dealing with someone like him.
- [126:44]
D
He has gotten. I think his team has finally kind of quieted him a little bit, because even when all that was going on, he would get on and rant. And I mean, something I left out, actually, in 2021 when. When came to me, I actually went to his board and his board confronted him and told him to repent and publicly confess, you know, or they were going to remove him from ministries, something to that effect. And he didn't. He. He denied it. And they did their due diligence about it, spoke with the girl, had text messages, all that he didn't. And so his board actually put a statement out about Bob about that he still didn't quit the board, stepped down all of the board, and he just continued doing what he was doing. So. Yeah.
- [127:51]
A
Do you know if he, Bob, has made people sign NDAs or not?
- [127:55]
D
Yes.
- [127:56]
A
And some of them are the. The ladies in question.
- [128:00]
D
I know of one of them that signed an NDA.
- [128:03]
A
Yeah. There's another big ministry leader who. There's a big ministry leader who hasn't had any scandals that are like this, and he's. He's got the same issue, bunch of NDAs, and actually there's two that I'm thinking of, and I'm trying to think of how to navigate that. Well, the thing is that once the church, as enlarged, understands what's going on, they're 1,000% behind the victims. But controlling the narrative is the. Is the gameplay for those in power. And the truth is that when you combine the grassroots of the church with a few voices that are willing to speak up and have enough of a platform that you can't control their narrative anymore, like me, like yourself, when you shared online, like, if you had never said anything, there would have been these isolated women. But if we can combine these and then combine that with the counseling that these people will need and combine that with the legal help and financial support that they're going to need going through those things, then we can hopefully create an environment where the church develops white blood cells against these kinds of people.
- [129:09]
D
Exactly. That's the language I use, too.
- [129:11]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [129:13]
D
I want to be a white blood cell in the body. Yeah. And I will say this. I mean, like, I saw that because when this first came out, the narrative was don't slander, don't gossip. Right. And IHOP was really trying to control the narrative. I mean, I. All of them were trying to control Michael. Michael Brown. And. And I loudly spoke up, I said, you are not. You are not going to shame me into silence. That was just a spirit of shame to shut people up. And this is wrong. I'm not going to shut up. And I saw how it gave courage to other people, and they weren't having it. They're like, yeah, I'm not going to be shamed into. Into being quiet when this is very. This is wrong. Why on earth do we need to be. We're more concerned about protecting predators than we are the church. What, like, what. What are we drinking? What Kool Aid are people drink? This is madness.
- [130:17]
A
Yeah. And I'll be honest with you, Michelle. I think it's been that way from the beginning with ihop, Bethel and Morningstar. And you go back and you're like, what predator do you not cover for?
- [130:31]
D
Right. Bob Jones, Paul Kane, they all came from the same root, even Sean Bolt.
- [130:38]
A
And I want to be able to bring the proper spotlight onto this because there's sort of a mystical perspective people have on Bethel and IHOP that causes them to just fog over when it comes to recognizing, like, hey, this is dangerous and harmful.
- [130:56]
D
Well, the thread that you see with all of it, all of it is the prophetic Sean Bose, Bob Hartley, Mike. But every single one of them has that polluted prophetic spirit in it.
- [131:09]
A
Yeah.
- [131:10]
D
Whether it's, you know, that's the thing people aren't addressing or using it, using it against people, either one. It's Paul King. It's all the prophetic spirit.
- [131:20]
A
Yeah, I'm absolutely going to focus on that. Whereas other people are going to focus on the abuse as though it's not intricately. In fact, it flows from. The abuse, flows from the way that they practice spiritual things. And I still believe in prophecy, and I still believe that we should be seeking the Lord for those things. And if someone was like, I have a word for you, Mike. I'm not like, no, you don't. I'm like, what is it?
- [131:45]
D
You're probably in a better place than me. Because I'm like, God, I don't want to do this. Yeah, I want to do this. I don't want to do this. Give it to someone else. You know, it's so polluted. It's so grievous, like. And, you know, with Bob, I think that was so hard, was. He was the one. I saw it with my own eyes. You could see him sitting and connecting with God in a powerful way. And what flowed from him years ago was just. It was a pure river. It really was. And that's why I would tell people I don't believe, and I could be wrong, you know, and I would think we need to learn about these things. But I wouldn't call Bob a wolf in terms of, like. I would look at Bob Moore as someone that's incredibly broken and he's given himself over to something because in his brokenness with alcohol and drugs and, you know, all of that, he's. And that's why I pleaded with him. Other people pleaded with him for years. Years. I can't tell you how many people I saw try to get him to stop doing what he was doing. And it just got worse. I watched him give himself over, you know, and that was why in my. My heart, in the spirit of why I came out, I do not. I do not want to point a finger at Bob and make it all about Bob. Like, right. I've wept for Bob. I have wept for his soul. And I have no part in me that just wants to point him out and bad you. But I burn for the. For the church. And what you're doing to harm the church in your brokenness is not okay. And so I. I came out because you're not safe. Yes, you're broken. I get that. Mercy, compassion, whatever. But you need to be shut down publicly and get help. This is about other people. This isn't about you, Bob.
- [134:03]
A
Right. Yeah, it's not. And that's part of the manipulation is making it about him, which is what has historically happened with this kind of thing. But I see this as a yes, Bethel. Yes, ihop, this should have been handled in house. But because it wasn't, it must be handled by the larger umbrella of the church. So it doesn't just drop the ball. It drops the ball where someone else can then pick it up. And I, I'm going to shout about it because they won't. And if they would, I would never say a word. I'd be like, oh, they're dealing with that.
- [134:35]
D
And even there's thing, by the way, even with Bob, back at that time, they were saying the same thing that, that they were saying about Sean. Like he's not on our, he's not on our staff. It's basically not our responsibility.
- [134:52]
A
Right.
- [134:54]
D
You know, and, and when you have a worldwide ministry, you can't say that.
- [135:00]
A
Now had they previously. And maybe I should have asked this earlier, but in what ways had Bethel supported Bob in that prophetic type role in. Before these events took place? So yeah, what did they do?
- [135:16]
D
He spoke on the platform. He, he ministered prophetically. He was in many of the leadership meetings giving prophetic counsel, prophesying over people. He was one of the prophetic voices speaking into Bethel. He gave, he had constant ministry out of his home to people at Bethel. Yeah.
- [135:48]
A
And then when they, and then when they disconnected, it was just message to our leaders. No more of him being involved in that official capacity. So which when you put these together,
- [136:00]
D
what you have is though, just for a minute though, it didn't last.
- [136:04]
A
Did he get. In what ways was he back in more officially? Because I know there's the one example, if he was at a leadership event and he was prophesying over Bill and then what else? Was there other things?
- [136:16]
D
I would say that from what I know it was just all back to normal in terms of people being in his home and ministering to. But like that just started all up again. I'm not sure what year that started up, but it was almost like, oh, okay, that blew, blew away. But I just kind of stopped tracking with Bethel.
- [136:37]
A
Right.
- [136:38]
D
So I'm not exactly sure. Jed would probably know more.
- [136:42]
A
Yeah. So Bethel's pattern seems to be step one, we endorse the guy as a prophet, put him on stage, put in front of people, we lend our credibility to him. And then something gets exposed, something gets brought to light and we tell as few people as we have to in order to create a distance between us and him so that he's no longer officially connected. And then anytime someone Says something, well, well, he's not under our authority. And you're like, maybe, maybe that's part of why you pulled him off stage. And everything was just this sort of protect yourself. But you didn't actually crush his ministry as you should have, because you weren't concerned with that. You were concerned with protecting yourself. So they did this with Sean and they told other people as well. And I don't think that. I think that for the most part, the whistleblowers have no idea how much power they actually have. That it's these. I think my personal opinion, maybe I'm wrong. It's the hanging threat of Michelle going public. It's the hanging threat of Jedediah posting publicly that causes them to go, let's send out an email. Let's send out a. And then they send out the email and then they contact the person they're afraid will go public. And they're like, is that good enough? Will you. Will you do this now? And a lot of them do. A lot of them are like, okay, well, it wasn't what I wanted, but at least you did something.
- [138:02]
D
Yeah.
- [138:03]
A
And then you could feel them like. Like a politician, like, trying to, like, I have to kiss, kiss every baby.
- [138:08]
D
How do I. Oh, it's self. What I've perceived about it, and I think you hit the nail on the head, is it's just self preservation.
- [138:18]
A
Self preservation.
- [138:19]
D
Yeah, Absolute self preservation. It's the fear of man, my ministry, and I need to protect that. And it's wrong.
- [138:33]
A
Stay tuned. Hopefully very soon I will have a video out about Sean Bowles, who also had a similar experience with Bethel. Them distancing themselves from him, them knowing about his problems and not actually doing the right thing. This is a consistent thing that has gone on for generations. I'm just giving some examples so that people can see that cover up culture is a real thing. And if you can see that it's real, you can dismantle it. You can dismantle it from within. So I'm calling for the leadership to rip the band aid off and do the right thing and stop trying to protect your prophetic ministries and do the right thing.