Beware False Prophets
are you guarding your heart?
Reader let’s begin with the relevant Bible passage.
“BEWARE FALSE PROPHETS who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”
Matthew 7:15-20 :: A Tree and Its Fruit
15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.16 You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. 18 A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.20 Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.
Prosperity theology distorts the teachings of Jesus and the message of the Bible. According to the Lausanne Movement, “the prosperity gospel simply teaches that believers in Jesus Christ, as part of their heritage from God in this life, are entitled to certain spiritual and physical blessings by right.” In addition to engaging in distorted hermeneutics, prosperity theology promotes the tithing and giving of material gifts to Christian leaders, with the rationale that Christian followers who sow seeds by giving material gifts to Christian leaders they follow will reap rewards from heaven. Christian leaders feel entitled to the prosperity and wealth they accumulate for themselves. Prosperity theology trains the focus of study and praxis from a theology of the poverty of the cross towards a materialistic theology. Prosperity Theology teaches a faith path of entitlement over poverty.
Would we know a false prophet when we saw one?
Should we think of Sean Feucht as a false prophet? What fruits do we see Feucht bearing? Go read the passage above carefully. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? No, we cannot pick grapes from thorn bushes. No we cannot pick figs from thistles. You will recognize them by their fruits. What fruit do we pick from the tree of Sean Feucht? Do you know anything about this guy?
Feucht Ministries Inc revenue exploded from $228,467 in 2018 to $5,314,148 in 2020. Feucht has 9 or 10 homes across the United States, including one worth over $3 million in California and one in DC worth $900,000. Added to that, his theology looks somewhat sketchy. Not to mention Feucht has a pattern and demonstrated track record of spiritual and psychological abuse.
Sean Feucht started a ministry chapter with a man named Peter Harrell who identified Feucht as a childhood bully. “However, patterns of manipulation and spiritual abuse resurfaced—Sean made empty promises, used shame to control leaders, and diverted designated donations for personal or organizational use.” You can see an excerpt of Hartzell’s testimony above.
Sean Feucht now enjoys free publicity from the false holy war he has tried to trigger in Canada. He preyed on and exploited a weakness in Canadian discourse and society—he continues to ride it for all he can get.
Why couldn’t this Christian man who purports to lead a Christian ministry choose a conciliatory path to the conflict with the progressive cancel culture cultists he encountered? Why couldn’t Feucht minister to the conflict, lead an open conversation with both parties, in order to select a different venue? Do we really believe this guy centres Jesus in his ministry? At this point, he has come off as a grifter playing a publicity stunt. Why couldn’t Feucht and his team find other places to perform and be done with it?
Christian artists tour Canada without incident and without controversy. They serve their local community and they grace us with their talent and love and devotion for g-d. I know for a fact they exist. Below you can see a photo of myself with Brian Doerksen, taken at a local church in Vancouver in April of 2024. I wrote a reflection about my experience, in fact.
So, reader, what’s the problem with Sean Feucht, then? It’s all quite strange and it smells a bit off.
It’s all a diversion and a distraction. From what? That’s a good question and I’ll let readers think about that on their own time. Outrage baiters remind me of crack dealers. Outrage serves as emotional and psychological crack for many. Guard your heart, reader!
Sean Feucht has created a problem to divide people. He plays his guitar and sings whilst Canada burns itself to destruction in a silly political civil war. How much attention and material profit does he rake in from the religious war he started and continues to fuel?
According to Christianity Today, protest worship has proven quite lucrative to Feucht. Reports have surfaced of misuse and mismanagement of funds, of spiritual, emotional, psychological abuse, of failure to pay staff, of manipulating the business and tax structure of his organisations to create tax shelters and shield himself from accountability regarding financial disclosure.
A number of people have come forward to blow the whistle about corruption and mismanagement. Christy Gafford wrote her story a year ago, you can see an excerpt below.
You can read an extensive report of financial non-accountability, compiled by whistleblowers, here, it’s called Truth and Freedom Stories. You can read the report about spiritual abuse here.
“Beyond the financial allegations detailed elsewhere in this report, multiple former staff, volunteers, and ministry partners have come forward with accounts of spiritual, emotional, and psychological abuse experienced while working with Sean Feucht and his organizations. These testimonies reveal consistent patterns of manipulation, exploitation, and harmful leadership practices that have caused significant personal damage to those involved.” —via Spiritual, Emotional & Psychological Abuse :: Research Report: Sean Feucht's Ministries
So, what do we know about Sean Feucht?
He has a track record of financial mismanagement.
He has turned protest worship into a lucrative endeavour, taking his ministry revenue from $200k in 2018 to $5.3 million in 2020.
He has a track record of spiritual + emotional + psychological abuse. He exploits and manipulates.
He has sketchy theology. He promotes Christian nationalism and a prosperity gospel.
He has deliberately exploited the minor conflict in Canada, trying to blow it up into a major religious warfare. He continues to rage bait and stir the outrage fires.
He profits from free publicity and maybe more, when we hate each other over his contrived problem of pseudo-persecution.
So, it would seem
pretty much pegged this Feucht guy from the beginning. Because of course, it’s Glavin being Glavin — wise in his curmudgeoning. The saga of Sean Feucht has proved interesting and educational, I certainly learned some stuff about the human condition in all this dramatic farce-making.“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances …” — Shakespeare, As You Like It
Reader, do you think the strategy and behaviour of Sean Feucht, and the values they embody warrant your time and effort and energy? Think carefully about what’s going on beneath the surface of this farce. Think about what it all means.
I don’t doubt that cancel culture radicals have worked to cancel Feucht. I don’t doubt that progressives weaponise safety and discrimination to block events and people which offend their sensitivities. I don’t doubt that progressives have redefined hate speech to mean speech and expression I hate, and anything I find disagreeable. I don’t doubt that Montreal Mayor Val Plante erred. I don’t think of Feucht as a victim. I do think Feucht has victims and that their stories warrant close scrutiny by us. Finally, I don’t doubt the financial information revealed about his activities and his ministry and his acquisition of properties.
Multiple seemingly contradictory truths exist in this story. Progressives tried to cancel Feucht, and they’ve likely encroached on free expression in doing their cancel dance. Feucht is a professional sh1t disturber pretending to be the prophet. Feucht has a messianic complex through which he offers us deliverance from a destructive chaos he created. All facts and all true, reader. Think about the contradictions you think you see as illusory. Life turns out to have more complexity than we initially thought.
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.16 You will recognize them by their fruits … 20 Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.” (from Matthew 7)
What fruit do you see in Sean Feucht? Look carefully, and taste. Look for the wolf in sheep’s clothing. And then conduct yourself accordingly. Allow the gift of discernment to serve you, remember your values. Choose what to keep and what to discard.
Thoughtful