Satire

“A bloodbath” is how one Norwegian pastor described the scene at a Christian event featuring controversial U.S. preacher Todd Bentley.

Bentley’s visit to Norway this week started off innocently enough. But it wasn’t long before the fears of many over the violence of his ministry were realised. Bentley, who held his first revival meeting tonight in the Norwegian town of Slavenger, started the healing portion of the night by giving a man a ‘wedgie in the Spirit’ while praying for him.

“He picked him up by his underwear. The man was yelling in pain. It was completely inappropriate. And that was only the beginning,” sobbed one attendee. “We were warned by the British. We should have listened.”

Bentley, who is known for drowning people at their baptisms, planned to visit the United Kingdom next week, but the British Home Office added him to an ‘exclusion’ list, saying: “The government makes no apologies for refusing people access to the UK if we believe they are not conducive to the public good.” Bentley was flagged by a Member of Parliament who was concerned about the violent nature of his ministry.

During the course of almost two hours in Slavenger, Bentley’s team brought a steady stream of the unsuspecting faithful to the stage to be subjected to the evangelist’s unique brand of prayer and physical assault. An elderly woman was punched in the groin for healing of a cancer which had metastasised in her pelvis. A teenage girl was slapped repeatedly in the face by Bentley for healing of her sinuses. A Drammen-based attorney was subjected to close-range flatulence, when Bentley told him that God had told him to pass wind close to his head.

“When Jesus calls, you better pick up the ****ing phone,” Bentley is quoted as yelling.

One man knew that things had gone too far when his brother appeared on the stage for prayer. “Things got really serious when Jørgen went up there,” he observed.

Jørgen Bjercke, who went to see Bentley in a wheelchair, was stabbed in the legs multiple times with Bentley’s ball-point pen.

“It got pretty bloody,” said the man’s brother, who asked not to be named in this piece for fear of retaliation from Bentley. “He just kept shouting ‘Can you feel that? Can you feel that? Can you feel that? What about that? What about that!’ It was terrifying.”

A member of the church that invited Bentley said that many Christians believe in the supernatural power of God. “You’ve got to have faith. We often see people stabbed in the Spirit, it’s perfectly biblical.”

Bentley, captured by mobile phone camera wearing a butcher’s apron during the event, denies that he did anything inappropriate.

“Look, this is God’s work. If you don’t want to listen to God, that’s fine. But go and ask Abraham whether it’s okay to spill a little blood when the Lord tells you to. Okay?” he said afterwards.

The night proceeded to get more gory as time went on, as the helpless worshippers continued to be roughed up by Bentley one after the other. Many in the congregation began to leave after Bentley began picking up speakers and other pieces of the audio equipment and throwing them at people queuing up for prayer at the side of the stage.

“BAM! BAM! BAM!” he is reported to have said as each congregant went down. “Now that’s what I call slaying in the Spirit!”

A local Lutheran clergyman said the practices did not resemble any he could remember reading in the bible. “No, I can’t remember Jesus doing any of this,” he said, gazing as Bentley started ripping cymbals from the drum kit. “Certainly Jesus wanted us to pray for others, but this is a little unusual.”

38 people in all were treated in hospital for wounds incurred at the hands of Bentley, according to the police. There were also 7 deaths; 3 people were suffocated, 2 were crushed, 1 poisoned and 1 decapitated on-stage.

“A massacre. There’s no other way to say it,” observed a local police officer called to the scene. “If only Norway had a government that cared for its people like the British do, this would never have happened. The people of the UK should be proud to have such stringent protection from their Home Office.”

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(Satire.)