How Redding Became An Unlikely Epicenter Of Modern Christian Culture
Speaker 1: 00:00 California is big in many ways and it is big into religious faith of many varieties. We've got more mega churches than any other state. Pentecostalism was born here and today. One Small California city has become an unlikely global epicenter of Christian culture as part of our California dream collaboration. Kate QEDs, Vanessa Ranconyo reports, Speaker 2: 00:25 Redding, California is the kind of place you learn your way around. In a day or two. Downtown is just a handful of blocks, but walking around this city of 90,000 you can meet people from a dozen countries in a day Speaker 3: 00:37 from Australia, from the Netherlands, New Zealand. I'm from England, Manchester. Speaker 2: 00:41 They're not here for the fly fishing or the views of Mount Shasta. No, Speaker 3: 00:46 God is what brought me to Redding, California, specifically Speaker 2: 00:49 glee. God brought Galena Yamanaka to the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry. Speaker 3: 00:55 You were called to shape history. The fall asleep Speaker 2: 00:58 produced Promo video for the school shows people mostly young hip looking people raising their arms in worship. While a band plays on stage, they place their hands on a forehead, a shoulder and knee. A man hands over his crutches and walks freely. Will you say, yes, Speaker 3: 01:18 we are a supernatural school, so we believe that healing is for today. Speaker 2: 01:23 Crandall oversees first year students at the school of Supernatural Ministry where students are taught through prayer. They can manifest the power of God to heal. Speaker 3: 01:32 We believe that God is still speaking and, and he can speak to his kids and he does. Speaker 2: 01:37 The school was founded 21 years ago by a pastor who heads up Bethel church. It started with a few dozen local students. Today the schools, 2,500 students represent more than 70 countries. It enrolls more international vocational students than any other school in the country. Speaker 3: 01:55 Treat on a Monday morning, 1201st years file into class. Norms are tied together in the name of Jesus. Amen. The students are studying worship music and you've got homework due on Wednesday. Glebe Yamanaka was still in England when he encountered Bethel's teaching at his church in Manchester. At first he wasn't feeling the whole miracle thing. My internal response was, this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of in my life. But then when you pray for someone, a complete stranger on the streets and they get healed of a leg injury and they say, what the heck have you done? To me, that kind of changes the way you look at things. Speaker 2: 02:28 Bethel wants to be more than a school with international pole more than a mega church with 11,000 members. Richard Flory is a university of southern California sociologist who studied Bethel and says their objective is nothing short of cultural transformation. Speaker 4: 02:44 Let's get the right kinds of Christians in the right kind of public sectors of American society, politics, economics, Hollywood, whatever. Through their efforts will bring about the Kingdom of God on earth in the here and now, Speaker 2: 02:56 but some writing residents don't want to be of the experiment. Reading is their test case of turning a city that is a democracy into a theocracy. Laura Hammons is a member of investigating Bethel. A Facebook group with more than a thousand members. Hammons is one of a dozen members of the group meeting at a writing park. One afternoon, another member Donna's Ebola is passing out stickers. Some say don't drink the Koolaid. We've handed them out, you know, just freely because you know we want to get the message out there. Some people are afraid to put them on their car, afraid. She says, because the church's influence feels like it runs through the core of the city writings. Mayor is a Bethel. Elder. Bethel peed the salaries of several police officers. When the city couldn't afford to Bethel, his influence was central to getting a direct flight from lax to Redding and there's $150 million Bethel expansion underway that will triple church capacity and allow the school to grow by a thousand students. Speaker 2: 03:55 They have this really well organized program to innovate everything with with their influence. David Boon, another member of investigating Bethel. You get this feeling that they know they're a sort of virus, but they think they're the good buyers that we all need for some in writing, the very [inaudible] integrity of their city is at stake. Others see Bethel as a positive force. They say it makes the city more vibrant, diverse. It's good for the economy. Either way. Bethel's outsize influence on this little city is unavoidable. Redding has become a new type of Christian Mecca in writing. I'm Vanessa Ranconyo.
