After the June 22 front-page article on the Florida Outpouring Revival <"Signs and Warnings">, I simply have to speak up. I am a psychotherapist. Several weeks ago, the mother of a young adult patient of mine called for an appointment for her son.

He had been stable for quite some time on his medications for schizophrenia. He had recently decompensated, and was hospitalized in order to stabilize him and restart his medications.

He had attended one of Todd Bentley's gatherings and was told by Mr. Bentley that he was "healed." He stopped his medications, only to relapse into psychosis.

The outcome could have been worse. My client has very risky behaviors when psychotic. He might have died.

Some Pentecostal observers are calling the Lakeland revival the "third wave," following the "Toronto Blessing" that began in January 1994 and overlapped with the Brownsville Revival that began in June 1995 at Brownsville Assembly of God in Pensacola. In both of those revivals, there were daily services for more than two years, and both featured claims of miraculous healing and prophetic messages and worship practices not usually found in most churches, such as speaking in tongues and "holy laughter," in which worship leaders and portions of the crowd are seized with long bouts of hysterical laughter.
Bentley revival

While faith healing is a part of the Pentecostal tradition, the claims of resurrections have raised eyebrows. No dead bodies have been brought into the revival. Rather, reports of the recent death of a loved one - in some cases located long distances away - are relayed to the stage by e-mail or cell phone, and Bentley has led prayers for the person to be revived.

"We do our best to find out the situation. In one case, a boy drowned in a pool. He had no pulse, wasn't breathing and was clinically brain dead," he said.