February.02.11
As many of you know, in the past weeks we posted the testimony of some mind-blowing miracles that were reported to have taken place in Brazil. Namely that 16 people were raised from the dead! It is staggering—and we know—hard to believe. But if it is true, we can’t hide from it even if it is so wonderfully uncomfortable and “out of the box.” We are actively seeking more information from the folks who were there. We are learning, the hard way, what it is like to report such a dramatic miracle prematurely, with the possibility of it not being true and/or the difficulty of documenting it to everybody’s satisfaction if it is true. And we have made some mistakes.
First we posted this testimony prematurely. We didn’t follow our own system for processing this before posting the report, so we regret this, and are sorry for the confusion, and are taking responsibility to make the necessary changes to our system.
Secondly, we asked for verification from one of the sources of the report. They in turn asked for documentation from another person and received a fax that, at the time, we thought was an actual newspaper story. The fax featured a newspaper heading, with two before-and-after photos and a body of text telling the story. But it now looks like the fax is a fabrication a person unknown to us put together for some unknown motive. The Brazilian newspaper represented in the fax was contacted in an attempt to confirm the story, but the paper stated it was not in their paper. Upon finding this out we took the report off of our website. We apologize that we did not complete the process of making sure that the documentation was accurate before we posted the testimony.
We, and those making the report, are aware of the proper scrutiny this testimony is under. We are grappling with how and when to report such things and how to research them effectively. As you can imagine, it is a unique challenge to document a report like this from another part of the world. We are going to privately look into this further and hope to talk more with eyewitnesses and others. Because of all the many factors, at this time we don’t plan on updating this report beyond this post unless we are able (and willing) to develop more substantial information about this miracle.
Thank you for your patience with us in this process and the helpful input and concern many of you have shared with us.
Sincerely,
Bethel Church
February 2, 2011
