In the ancient world, the sick and dying would embark on desperate pilgrimages to the sanctuaries of Asclepius, the Greek god of healing. These were not hospitals. These were temples—shrines of mysticism where hope and illusion walked hand in hand. Scattered across Greece, with major centers in Epidaurus, Kos, and Pergamon, these sites lured the suffering with empty promises of divine intervention, wrapped in elaborate rituals and sacred theater.

Here, the desperate underwent a practice called incubation—sleeping in the temple, waiting for Asclepius to visit them in a dream, whispering their cure or, if they were particularly lucky, performing the miracle himself. Priests—acting as intermediaries—administered sacred baths, dictated diet restrictions, and dispensed medicinal plants with the same confidence as a faith healer commanding a wheelchair-bound man to “rise in Jesus’ name.”

But perhaps the strangest element of these sanctuaries was the serpents. Real, live snakes, that were believed to be emissaries of Asclepius himself, slithered freely through the temple grounds. Their ability to shed their skin, they believed, symbolized renewal, transformation, and divine healing—until, of course, one of them bit you and sent you to an early grave.

Asclepius’ power, according to legend, extended beyond mere healing. He grew so skilled in the art of restoration that he learned how to raise the dead (sound familiar?), disrupting the natural order of life and death itself. Zeus, unwilling to tolerate such an abomination, struck him down with a single thunderbolt, obliterating his influence and restoring balance to the cosmos.

A fitting end for a fraud who overstepped his bounds.

Yet this, perhaps, is the best analogy to describe Bethel Church.

Enter Bill Johnson, grinning like a televangelist who just cashed a tithe check, proudly brandishing a book by faux faith healer, Chad Gonzales, titled Never Be Sick Again. The irony is thick enough to choke on—if it weren’t so grotesquely irresponsible.

Here stands a man whose own eyes betray him—forced to wear glasses because his faith isn’t strong enough to restore his failing vision. A man whose wife, despite the grandiose proclamations of healing, succumbed to cancer just over a year or so ago. A man whose church once engaged in what could only be described as a seance, an unhinged display of misplaced faith in an attempt to resurrect a dead toddler.

And yet, here he is, still selling the same snake oil, still convincing the gullible that divine healing is just one more Bethel conference away.

Perhaps the most damning indictment of Bethel’s fraudulent healing theology is found in the story of Nabeel Qureshi, a former Muslim turned Christian apologist. Diagnosed with stage 4 stomach cancer, Qureshi made his own pilgrimage—not to the temples of Asclepius, but to the faith healers of Bethel. He sat through their services, endured their prophecies, allowed their self-proclaimed miracle workers to lay hands on him. Bethel’s leadership declared health over him, proclaimed victory over his body, waged supernatural war against the cancer.

And yet, despite all their showmanship, despite the roaring declarations and the fevered prayers, the cancer did not retreat. Their magic words carried no power. Unlike the collection plates they pass around like sacred relics, their promises were empty.

In September 2017, Nabeel Qureshi died.

Not healed. Not miraculously restored. Just another casualty of Bethel’s cruel fantasy.

And still, Bill Johnson grins. Still, he peddles books. Still, he sells conferences. The desperate will keep coming. The suffering will keep hoping. And the cycle will continue—because Bethel’s business model isn’t built on truth. It’s built on the willingness of the afflicted to “sow seeds” of false hope.

The inconvenient realities—his own failing eyesight, his wife’s death, Qureshi’s tragic end—will not make a dent in the narrative. The system depends on selective memory. The failures are forgotten. The contradictions ignored. And the lie, wrapped in the language of faith, marches on.

It would be entertaining if it weren’t so scheming and serpent-like with real-life and eternal consequences.

Bethel’s theology is nothing more than a modern-day reincarnation of the cult of Asclepius—magic words, mystical rituals, and a staggering confidence that flies in the face of both Scripture and observable reality. They believe their words hold divine creative power. They “declare” bones to knit, tumors to shrink, blind eyes to see.

And yet—conveniently—their miracles only ever seem to materialize inside dimly lit auditoriums filled with suggestible audiences. Never in hospitals. Never in hospice wards. Never where the truly desperate and dying need them. Always on stage, where the cameras are rolling, where the lighting is perfect, where the crowd is primed for deception.

In 2019, Bethel orchestrated what can only be described as a modern-day necromantic ritual. A two-year-old girl had died suddenly, and rather than mourn as Christians—clinging to the hope of the resurrection to come—they launched a social media campaign under the hashtag #WakeUpOlive.

They danced. They sang. They commanded her lifeless body to rise.

They turned grief into a spectacle. They dragged an already shattered family through the gauntlet of false hope, of performative faith.

And when—predictably—Olive did not rise?

They moved on.

No apology. No self-reflection. No reckoning with their fraudulent theology. Just silence, as if it had never happened.

This is Bethel’s calling card—never admit failure, never acknowledge the cracks in the foundation. Just keep pushing the next spiritual gimmick. And when healing doesn’t come? It’s never the theology that’s flawed—it’s always your fault. Not enough faith. Not enough giving. Not enough “pressing in.”

But the Bible tells a different story.

Scripture never promises immunity from sickness in this life. Even Paul—an actual apostle, not a self-appointed “apostolic leader” like Johnson—suffered from a thorn in the flesh that God chose not to remove. Timothy had stomach ailments. Epaphroditus nearly died. The great men and women of faith were not marked by glowing health and earthly prosperity but by perseverance through suffering.

The gospel does not promise perpetual healing. It promises resurrection life in Christ. A promise secured not by Bethel’s stagecraft but by the atoning work of Jesus Christ alone.

So what exactly is Bethel selling?

Not biblical faith. Not scriptural truth. Not the hope of the gospel.

They are selling a repackaged, modern-day version of Asclepius’ cult—false hope wrapped in spiritual theatrics, a carnival act disguised as Christianity. And Bill Johnson, with his toothy grin and these useless books, is nothing more than a merchant of delusion, selling miracles he cannot produce, promising healing he cannot deliver.

Perhaps, like Asclepius, Johnson and his movement will one day be struck down—not by Zeus, but by the true and living God of Scripture, and the cold, hard reality that their empire was built on a foundation of empty words and broken promises.

And when that day comes, perhaps some of their followers will finally wake up to the truth.