A video made the round a few weeks ago of arch-heretic Todd White reacting to finding out he was featured in the American Gospel movie. The film was given to him by a friend, who was hoping he would repent of his theological chicanery, but it was not to be so. White reacted rather poorly and called the film “demonically inspired.”
We now have the background story of who gave Todd White the DVD, how it went down, and what Todd White said and did afterwards.
Steven Kozar of Messed up Church had a feature on Chris Rosebrough’s excellent program “Fighting for the Faith” where he interviewed the friend who gave the DVD. The friend was Trevor Parmentier, a professional dance instructor and choreographer who taught White’s daughter’s dance class for a season, and also who happened to be a huge Todd White fan who had really supported him and his teachings.
After a series of personal encounters with White over a couple of years, including Todd doing a leg-lengthening trick on him and some other failed healings from Todd to Trevor that did not work, along with with exposure to proper, biblical teaching, Trevor began to see that Todd White’s theology was as far from biblical as could be. Through a providential encounter on the internet while researching White’s teaching, Trevor found the film “American Gospel.”
He watched the film and then contacted director Brandon Kimber, letting him know that he knew Todd White personally. This ultimately led to a conversation where Trevor handed Todd White in person the film as well a personal letter from Costi Hinn. He told White that he was featured in the film and that he should check it out, which White agreed to do.
As such, we’ve included the link to the full interview in the video above, as well as the audio at the end. But here is a transcript of the program. It has been edited for brevity and clarity. We’ve also bolded a few parts for emphasis.
So I hand him the DVD and the letter from Costi and I told him that Costi Hinn is Benny’s nephew. And he goes ‘oh Costi hates me, man. Costi hates me. He’s called me the Backstreet Boys of the gospel’
He said some other things and I’m forgetting what exactly what, but basically I felt like he’s victimizing himself, because Costi was in his circle and now he’s not and he speaks out against him.
Todd White brought up John MacArthur as well, about how these guys like Costi don’t believe in the full gospel, that they deny that gifts to the Holy Spirit and he talked about cessationism and all that, and just it kind of just got little off, he was venting for a moment. But I said ‘Todd, Costi does not hate you at all, Like, I read the letter. He was so kind, he says he loves you in the letter.”
Todd goes “Love is just a word. I doubt it man. ” He says “I’m not gonna read the letter. I’m not gonna read the letter from Costi.”I said “well, at least consider the letter and at least consider watching the film.” And I had to hand it to him to take it, you know? Because he wasn’t… he was unwilling to listen and I said “Todd, I think you maybe can hear me saying that I’m not even calling you anything right now. I’m challenging you on some things but I just want you to consider the film. I mean, I’m not even telling you that the film’s right, It was just a great resource for me and I wanted to share to see what you think.”
And that was really the heart of me wanting to reach out to him. It’s not for me to bash him over with all the reasons why I think he’s false. Because I do believe is a false teacher but I think the most effective way- well I thought was gonna be effective, it really wasn’t at the end of the day, but for me to reach out to him just say ‘hey consider this position and I wanna see what you think.’
So he took it we parted ways, and then 24 hours later I get a call on my phone and pops up Todd White, and my stomach drops. So I’m like ‘oh man, cool’
So I answered the phone and what happened next really shook me. I was just shocked. He answers the phone and he says “Trevor, man I just wanted to thank you bro for bringing me closer to Jesus.”
And at that moment I’m like ‘he watched it,’ you know? What happened? Maybe he’s converted or something- like he sees something, a paragdim shift, but he quickly went into defense mode and told me how here I am giving him this film that paints him out to be a heretic and a letter written to him telling him that he’s a heretic and false and he needs to repent. And he basically bragged about how he ripped up Costi’s letter, threw it in the trash and then stomped on the DVD and broke it so that no one could ever watch it.
nd I thought ‘Oh great, cool.’ So he goes on, and and I’ll rewind to the day before when I challenged him on the sovereignty of God. I said ‘Todd just from a personal experience of how I came out of this false teaching that God’s not really in control, was in my marriage I was going through some suffering and going through some troubles and there was the moment that I realized that God was sovereign even over our deepest struggles that that’s when the healing began. Knowing that God never took his hand off our marriage and this was something maybe…maybe what was happening was the suffering was a lack of my faith or my wife’s faith or maybe we did something wrong. That was that was going on. I was having very troubling thoughts to think ‘maybe I messed this up.’ But to know that God is sovereign over the most crazy situations, it brings so much healing it builds your faith.
So he took that piece of information and then on our phone call the next day he asked me, he goes ‘hey Trevor, you said you’ve been having marriage problems in the past. Does your wife have a drinking problem?’ And I was like so taken back by that, I’m like ‘what are you talking about? No, not at all.’
And he doesn’t even know. He’s never met my wife. I doubt he even knows her name and I was like ‘what are you talking about?’
He said that he saw she post online of her drinking and I’m thinking was he looking at my wife’s Facebook? I’m so confused. We do have drinks from time to time at dinner, but that was not the source of anything true of what he was saying. And so once he realized that that wasn’t really happening, he said that the reason why I was having their troubles is because I was watering down the gospel for my life and I’m not leading her correctly.
I thought ‘man, you kidding me?’ In that moment I cannot believe that this is actually happening. And then Todd goes on to express that last night in a dream God gave him this vision of this house and I was in the house with him and I was with these other sheep telling him to come out of the house, that there was this better way.
And you know how these teachers speak, they speak in such an imagination, that I couldn’t even grasp all of the lingo that he was talking about, but basically in his dream that God gave him to tell me, at the end of the dream me and these sheep got destroyed, got lit on fire and that was confirmation for him to tell me that for to tell me that God is saying I’m lost and that I’m not following the true way. And He went on to share about how I’m a hypocrite, how I stand with people who [dont?] believe in the gifts of the Spirit and that I’m gonna walk into this new season of suffering and I’m gonna lose my job.And even I wish I had it recorded because this was something that I never heard this side of Todd. He’s on stage, he’s so kind. He goes up to people and he says “God loves you. You’re awesome. You’re amazing”
And then here he is on the phone with someone who doesn’t agree with him and he’s shooting me to the ground (comments by Steve) and it makes me sad and I’m hanging up the phone and just like so upset. You know this sucks, but at the same time it is confirmation there was some there was some peace about that. But one thing I forgot to mention was he asked me on the phone, he said “if someone put a gun to your mouth would you die for the gospel?”
I said ‘Todd, absolutely I would die for the gospel.”
He says ‘I doubt it.” And then he keeps going on about the season in my life and what’s about to happen, and I almost felt very threatened by him over the phone that he would say something like that. He’s not speaking scripture. He’s not saying anything biblical, he’s just speaking out in anger..I don’t know what he’s trying to do.
I think he views me as weak and so he’s trying to belittle me to not challenge him any more. I also was very bothered by the fact that he’s trying to discern these words from God, these vision from God that God wants to share with me but he gets special revelation from God and what am I supposed to do with that? Like, what’s the conclusion when someone has a vision? How do you know that’s true? You know, what do you go to? Well you just have to take their word for it it’s very it’s very confusing and I can see why people in that movement are so emotional and stuck.
Like if I really believe Todd White was the Michael Jordan of evangelism, I would have been so crushed by what he said. I would want to repent and get more from what he’s trying to say. So phone call was just again confirmation of everything I thought he was and what he’s taught. And the creepiest thing about all of this was over the phone he’s very, very angry and defensive and then I see him in the lobby of a hotel restaurant and he gives me this huge hug, and now that he’s in front of his family in front of other people he’s givingthis huge hug and says “man I love you so much, I’m proud of you” and he grabs my face and he puts his forehead to my forehead and he just looks at me and just is so loving again in front of everyone else I that was the really violating almost- like are you kidding me?I couldn’t even say anything. And that that’s what I think really angered me. And I wasn’t angry at him because I hated him or because I think he’s a horrible teacher, it was just the deception. And I felt angry over the fact that people, we’re talking about probably millions of people who follow Todd, and they don’t see the side of him. I feel like the deception. And it breaks my heart that people are being deceived by him, and so that is the whole purpose of me sharing this experience with him.
And you know I reached back out to him, I texted him, I said “hey would you be interested in and chatting over the phone again to talk more about this vision you had?” And he was very unwilling and basically said I’m blaspheming the holy spirit and that I need to repent before God, before Judgment Day. And kind of just left it at that. I’m gonna probably stop reaching out but just kind of leave it be.
I’ve kind of given him the chance to go over what he was saying but he’s very unwilling to talk again, so this is me sharing the story. I feel like I feel like people do need to come out and discredit him a little bit, and challenge him, him because he’s under an no authority. This lifestyle (unintelligible) training he has, this school, his ministry, there’s no apparent elders or church authority that he’s under. He’s basically everything for his ministry. And I think that people need to start to question Todd White.
