If his book When Heaven Invades Earth is to be believed, "miracles" occur so frequently at Bill Johnson's hands at Bethel Church that that's "the normal Christian life", as he calls it.
Close readers of the book, however, will note that none of the people who experience these so-called miracles seem to have last names.
Not only that, you can't be sure of their first names either. "Some of the names of the people mentioned in this book have been changed. The author has done so where he felt anonymity is essential", we are informed in the fine print on the copyright page.
This is despite the fact that the miracles are supposed to "reveal the nature of God", not hide it under a cloak, "bring courage" instead of such caution, "reveal His glory" and "give Him glory", not make one wonder if he's really telling the truth.
One would think that if so many miracles were happening at that church that the scads of recipients would be writing their own books about it instead of Johnson. One would think that the population of Redding would have burst by now as people beat a path to it instead of stagnating as it has. One would think that its hospitals would be out of business by now.
And yet after 20 years of Bill Johnson, almost half of the jobs of the top four employers in Redding remain medical jobs at Mercy Medical Center and Shasta Regional Medical Center.
Redding, California, in fact remains "the medical hub of rural far northern California", according to the Wikipedia article.
The new pool of Bethesda it is not.
