Todd Bentley

About Todd Bentley

Todd Bentley (born 1976) is a Canadian Christian evangelist. He is one of the primary preachers involved in the Charismatic revival meetings in Lakeland, Florida known as the Florida Healing Outpouring. Attendance at the meetings has reached as high as 10,000 visitors a night from around the world.

Bentley was raised mainly in Gibsons, British Columbia, a small community on the western coast of Canada. His parents divorced while he was a child, after which Bentley struggled with drug and alcohol addiction and criminal activities. Bentley credited his conversion to Christianity for delivering him from that lifestyle and propelling him into ministry at age 17.

In 2001 the now-defunct Report Newsmagazine, a secular conservative publication, ran a profile on Bentley. In the article, they reported that his criminal activities as a teenager included more than one instance of sexual molestation. The article was graphic in details, summarizing Bentley's behavior as "heinous". In Canada, the criminal records of juvenile offenders are protected from public disclosure, however Bentley later admitted to Charisma Magazine that the Report Newsmagazine article was, in substance, true. This led to heated debate in the Christian press and websites about whether Report NewsMagazine had acted correctly in publicizing Bentley's crimes - and whether this impeached Bentley's position as an evangelist.