What do you do when you’re a celebrity pastor with a crisis? You call Hunter Frederick to manage publicity for you. It’s what he does.
Sources within Bethel Church have confirmed to Pulpit & Pen that Hunter Frederick, who has served as a crisis manager for Lindsay Lohan and disgraced pastor Perry Noble, was hired by Bethel Church leadership to manage their publicity in the wake of a disturbing scandal this week.* Most recently, Frederick was in the news for speculation he was representing actress Lori Loughlin (from Full House fame) in the wake of her college admission bribery charges.
Frederick’s website brags about him working with “some of the most polarizing figures in media to elevate and secure positive press for his clients” (see below).
Frederick specializes in faith-leaders, even though he also represents secular-focused clients like Lohan. We have encountered him in our polemics work before.
Last weekend, Bethel Worship leader, Jenn Johnson, sparked controversy for asking that God raise a dead female child back to life. Thousands upon thousands of Bethel followers began to decree and declare her resurrection through the power of positive confession. Bethel Church teaches the Kenotic Gospel, which views believers as little gods who do similar things to Jesus just as the Apostles. Kenosis means “to empty” and they hold that Jesus emptied himself of divinity and accomplished miracles by faith and not divinity; ergo, they believe, by faith they can do the same miracles of Christ. Additionally, Bethel is a part of the New Apostolic Reformation, an extreme charismatic sect that believes leaders like Bill Johnson are Apostles with the same authority as those inspired to write the Holy Scriptures and hand-selected by Jesus.
We wrote about the resurrection controversy in the post, Bethel Church ‘Dead Raising Team’ Fails to Save Two-Year-Old. Since then it has been covered in many press outlets.
It seems that Bethel Church was rather mortified that their witch-chanting church members behaved so foolishly and are seeking the PR skills of Hunter Frederick to spare their reputation.
According to a source associated with Bethel Church, Frederick was hired to manage the crisis. Pulpit & Pen has seen testimony in written form that establishes this, sent to us from those associated with the organization.
Chris Rosebrough of Pirate Christian Radio suggested that Bethel had professional Public Relations because their press release was dumped on Friday evening (a common practice among more savvy PR people).
According to the source from within Bethel Church, their press release was indeed approved and coordinated by Hunter Frederick.
For those wondering exactly what’s wrong with Bethel Church and this resurrection issue, we would encourage you to watch this video from Fighting for the Faith.
*Editor’s Note: Shortly after the publication of this article, Pulpit & Pen received the following communication from someone claiming to be Bethel Redding Communications Director Aaron Tesauro:
“The claim made in a recent blog post on Pulpit and Pen that Bethel has hired a PR consultant is false. I’ve been on staff in the Bethel main offices here in Redding for 11 years, and worked directly with Bethel’s pastoral leadership team on all statements released this week. I have never heard of this PR person, nor has he been hired by Bethel.”
In the interest of full disclosure, the statement has been included here. Let the reader decide which conflicting source is telling Pulpit & Pen the truth. Interestingly, our source explicitly mentions Aaron Tesauro as the one responsible for utilizing Frederick. We have seen the evidence and believe the source.
