'Olive, come out of that grave:' Reporters cover Bethel Church trying to resurrect a dead child

December 20, 2019 Julia Duin

Ever since Sunday, there’s been this bizarre — no other word for it — story out of Bethel Church in Redding, Calif., about the followers of this immense church trying to raise a 2-year-old from the dead.

Bethel has been an anomaly in the charismatic/pentecostal world but at the same time a place I’ve been telling reporters they need to get to know. As the days have progressed, I’ve been amazed to see all sorts of media, from the New York Post, USA Today and the Sacramento Bee to Slate and then the Associated Press jumping on this story.

Here’s what AP came out with late Thursday:

Kalley Heiligenthal stomped her feet and waved her arms, dancing her way from one side of the bright-lit stage to the other.

“Come alive, come alive!” the congregants at Bethel Church in Redding, California, shouted in expectation as they clapped and sang praises.

The faithful shared these scenes on Instagram Tuesday night as they prayed for Heiligenthal’s 2-year-old daughter, Olive Alayne, to be raised from the dead.

Heiligenthal, a worship leader and songwriter for Bethel Music, announced on social media Sunday that her daughter had stopped breathing and been pronounced dead.

Since then, she has publicly called for people to pray that her girl be resurrected.

Redding police are investigating the death, which occurred sometime between Friday night and early Saturday morning. The child’s body remains at the Shasta County coroner’s office. Sadly, NBC News, which ran the AP story, stripped the reporter’s byline from the piece, as I would have liked to have seen who wrote it.

Why? Because the writer actually quoted Pentecostal experts elsewhere in California who know something about Bethel. Most reporters don’t have a clue as to how to cover this unusual congregation, but the writer called Azusa Pacific University religious studies professor Arlene Sánchez-Walsh (who seemed flabbergasted by Bethel’s attempts to raise this child from the dead) and Richard Flory of the University of Southern California’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture.

Flory was surprised that a GoFundMe account would be necessary for Bethel to help with the family's expenses, as he described Bethel as a multimillion-dollar organization.

"If you're that big and have that much money, wouldn't you support your worship leader in some fashion or another?" Flory wondered.

The Daily Dot, an Austin-based website that covers internet culture, had the same question.

A GoFundMe page has been set up to help with “the unforeseeable expenses the Heiligenthal family will incur, medical and otherwise.” As of Thursday afternoon, more than $50,000 had been collected.

But a Twitter conversation shows many find the thought of “resurrection” concerning and are questioning the high GoFundMe goal.

GoFundMe’s funeral page recently showed fundraisers following the death of a loved one, including funerals, requested between $25,000 and $35,000, with the highest goal set around $50,000 and the lowest at $17,000. Photos on Heiligenthal’s Instagram page, meanwhile, show a comfortable way of life and regular family vacations.

“This is either lunacy or a giant scam in the making,” wrote one user.

I want to draw attention to Ruth Graham’s story in Slate, which also appeared late Thursday. It gives lots of good background about the church, also mentioning its growing political influence. Quoting Craig Keener, a professor of biblical studies at Asbury Theological Seminary:

Keener has written about rare contemporary resurrection accounts that he finds credible, and he does not begrudge a parent’s instinct to pray for a miracle. But he cautioned that the longest period of time between death and resurrection, in the Bible and in what he considers credible contemporary accounts, is four days. Heiligenthal posted on Wednesday that “Day 5 is a really good day for resurrection.”

Other evangelical Christians are beginning to question the church’s ongoing calls for resurrection. Author Wade Mullen, who writes about abuse within evangelical institutions, cautioned that attempted resurrections are often associated with cults. On Wednesday, Bill Johnson posted a somber five-minute video statement addressing critics who have questioned the church. Johnson says there is biblical precedent for such miracles, citing biblical accounts of Jesus raising people from the dead. But he acknowledged that the outcome is unknown. “There’s no manual that tells us ‘fast this many days, pray this many hours,’ ” he said. “But there’s a biblical precedent that tells us to keep praying.”

It’s unbelievably tough to cover this kind of thing. On one hand, you really feel for the family. On the other, you also know that little kids don’t just snap to life in the coroner’s office. Also, when Jesus raised the dead, he tended to do so in secret, with only two exceptions (Lazarus and the son of the widow of Nain). How does that method differ from the social media circus this story has morphed into?

Holly Pivec, a Fairbanks researcher on the modern-day prophetic movement of which Bethel is a part and who spoke at the 2017 Religion Newswriters conference, had this to say about Bethel’s methods in her latest blog post. What she says about “declarations” is quite important.

As always, the local media had some original angles. KRCR-TV, the local ABC affiliate, has covered this as has the Redding Record Searchlight , which ran this on Wednesday.

The public prayer gatherings for resurrection are also apparently not a common occurrence at the church, said Aaron Tesauro, a spokesman for the church.

“There are references to resurrection in the Bible, and we believe that with God, nothing is impossible, even things like resurrection. Although at Bethel, this is the first public gathering of prayer for resurrection that I have seen in the over 10 years I’ve attended the church,” Tesauro said.