Moore implicated Tyler Deaton in the alleged crime, and we presented that implication as credible as well. But the evidence available now suggests overwhelmingly that Bethany Deaton committed suicide and that Moore and Deaton are innocent of any crime. We now know: every verifiable statement Moore made to detectives was either proven false or was contradicted by the evidence ; after the confession, investigators discovered no additional evidence that a crime had occurred; and both circumstantial and forensic evidence point to suicide.
We urge readers to reconsider this story in light of the totality of the evidence. O n October 30th, , at p. A tan Ford Windstar van occupied the far-northwest space of the parking lot. A white plastic trash bag had been pulled over her head and tied under her chin. She wore running shoes, black sweatpants, a light-blue fleece and a diamond wedding ring.
A pair of eyeglasses had been folded and placed in a cup holder. A handwritten note on the center console acknowledged the evil of suicide and alluded to a terrible choice made long before.
Also on the console were two hundred-count bottles of acetaminophen PM, one unopened, the other empty. Bethany Deaton was 27 and had recently completed her nursing degree. Her supervisor would later describe her as an excellent, empathetic nurse. On the front seat were several CDs produced by the International House of Prayer, a charismatic Christian movement based in Kansas City and the nearby suburb of Grandview.
Bethany had moved to Grandview nearly four years earlier, after graduating from Southwestern University, a small liberal-arts school in Georgetown, Texas. For years, she had longed to marry Tyler, and they had envisioned themselves enduring the Tribulation together. Sex and Death on the Road to Nirvana. Over the past few months, Moore told a detective, Bethany had been dosed with the anti-psychotic Seroquel, and he and several men in the house had been sexually assaulting her.
They had begun to worry that she might tell someone about it. The judge granted him bail. He will be tried this fall. Tyler cooperated with investigators and has not been charged with a crime. He declined to comment for this story. Tall, handsome, haughty and effeminate, he was about to begin his junior year at Southwestern University.
Seemingly intractable homosexual impulses also vexed his faith. He often felt a sense, he later told a friend, of worthlessness. Deaton was determined to overcome those forces, though. His confidence, monolithic and exclusionary, tended to divide the world into allies and adversaries. He had been a champion debater in high school, and he brought a tirelessness to religious debate at Southwestern. He considered his positions plainly factual and listeners who rejected them ignorant.
A boy with one leg, he told friends, had miraculously acquired another. Since his return, Deaton had been wondering how to access the supernatural in America. Angels would descend and demons would flee, and Christians across the university would rush to join the group. The group members began comparing themselves to the four Pevensie children in The Chronicles of Narnia , who enter a universe mastered by evil, win renown as soldiers in the army of a resurrected Messiah and finally assume their places as kings and queens of a renewed world.
That was the root of our whole ideology. The magic at the heart of the books would always inform his understanding of his own divine power.
He would tell the birds to fly away and they would fly away. In some ways, she made an unlikely follower. She started keeping a blog at the end of , and produced some pages of pointed, wry, sometimes lyric prose.
Bethany took care of other people instinctively. She could also be lavishly, almost immoderately romantic. She imagined herself as a novelist and professor at a small university, living in a cottage in the woods. She had been praying for her husband since she was a teenager. She had written him letters, before they even met. She was aware of his struggles with homosexuality but believed that God would use her to heal his heart.
I kid you not. I have one word attached to one phrase that God has violently poured into my heart. It is. That word, that phrase. Friends, I freaking cannot wait to talk to you in person. But Jesus has no clear return path. Demons, he says, have steadily taken possession of Christian hearts and infiltrated earthly institutions. Bickle believes that unceasing, euphoric worship and song at IHOP and in prayer rooms across the globe, which should never close or be empty, will promote passionate intimacy with the Lord, revive the church and demolish demonic strongholds.
And so IHOPers pray all day and night, through blizzards and blackouts, in hours-long sessions of mesmeric, musical worship, repeating the same phrases over and over, expecting to precipitate the Great Tribulation and the final battle between good and evil that precedes the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
God has conceived in his heart of a plan to make a race of men that would live like gods on Earth. He claims that he visited heaven one night at a. At IHOP, where prophetic experiences are endemic, the mortal and divine commingle liberally. When Christ returns, he will slaughter by sword in a single day the unsaved, and his warriors will rule heaven and Earth forevermore.
IHOP is not the only charismatic movement in America to adopt this theology of aggressive prayer. A constellation of ministries shares its vision. Together, they make up what has been called the New Apostolic Reformation, a decades-old rebellion against traditional Christianity that counts millions of adherents worldwide; it has become such a force in evangelical America that Texas Gov.
The history of the group would play out against a backdrop of Final Quest imagery. Years later, when Herrington tried to reread The Final Quest , he started shaking, ran to the bathroom and puked.
I think they drove him mad. And that, upon His return, He would proceed to kill, and destroy multitudes of unbelievers. When Foret began to explore Christian theologies that differed from those of IHOP, he and his friends were brought before IHOP leadership and interrogated about their beliefs for seven hours.
Eventually Foret moved to Nashville, and then Asheville. We at The Pitch love what we do, and want to keep bringing you interesting and insightful pieces. But producing quality journalism isn't cheap. If you enjoyed this story, or have enjoyed reading any of our stories in the last 40 years, please consider clicking the "Support Us" button right here.
Being a grownup is hard. I have learned and grown much in the relationship with God in so many ways thanks to my charismatic brothers and sisters, and I have deep roots in the reformed foundations that have helped me stay the course in the midst of the spiritual battle — and if you have any experience addressing abuses of power in the christian institutional complex, you will be in the battle….
People who were in the Tyler Prayer group have little good to say about how Bickle, Hood, and other handled the aftermath, and from their accounts the leaders of IHOP engaged in some serious spiritual abuse. Coercing a false murder confession out of a weeping young adult by screaming in tongues in his ear, and then crediting the Holy Spirit for all of this? They received none. The money and Christian celebrities kept coming anyway.
Johnson claims to see gold flakes falling. When I look at him, I see a flake chasing gold causing people to fall. I always like the other IHOP better. Especially their Buttermilk Pancakes and their bottomless coffee carafe. The Roys Report seeks to foster thoughtful and respectful dialogue.
Toward that end, the site requires that people use their full name when commenting. Would you consider making a tax-deductible donation to help our journalists continue to report the truth and restore the church? Your tax-deductible gift helps our journalists report the truth and hold Christian leaders and organizations accountable.
Skip to content Have A Tip Questions? The Restore Conference is back! Join us May Learn More. Reporting the Truth. Restoring the Church. Inspired by his sensitivity toward others and bravery in confronting his personal demons, I learned to ignore my initial reservations and trust him.
Two years later, in the summer of , Tyler returned from a trip to Pakistan and announced that God was going to launch a spiritual revolution on our campus. Those of us who knew him well were surprised by the changes in his personality. He had always been extraordinarily perceptive, but now this ability had reached uncanny levels.
He said God was always speaking. He claimed he could tell what we were thinking, when we were sinning; he said he could feel in his own body what God felt about us. It was discouraging to see some of my best and only friends at Southwestern sharing an experience from which I was excluded; I wanted to belong to their group. I was lonely and bored, and I wanted to experience something extraordinary before I left school: a mystery to solve, a battle to fight, a romantic quest, like the heroes in the stories I had read.
All my favorite songs and stories ended with some powerful, and in many cases tragic, moment of catharsis. I wanted college to end like that. I had always imagined my life in terms of a story, and now Tyler was offering me the chance to be part of one. He said the five of us had been chosen for a dangerous but important mission: changing the nature and understanding of Christianity on our campus.
Like the character Morpheus or Hagrid, he became our escort into a secret community where evil was battled at close quarters and darkness lurked around every corner. That first semester was exhilarating. Our prayer experiences were very emotional; sometimes we wept. It felt like being in an epic adventure, in which each of the main characters bravely faces his or her own weaknesses while bonding together in the heat of battle.
Bethany continued to be my closest friend in the group. We confided in each other—including our mild doubts about the group. Near the end of November, she admitted she had feelings for Tyler.
She said God had told her they were going to be married once he was fully healed of his struggle with homosexuality. During vacations, we would discuss this for hours. She cried regularly. At the four-day gathering in Kansas City, Missouri, where the movement is based, he joined 25, other young people to pray for spiritual revival on college campuses throughout America.
After Tyler returned from the conference, his experiences with the supernatural seemed to intensify dramatically. As we walked across campus, he would see an army of demons carrying banners in front of the library. We never went back. I began to seriously consider the possibility that we were living in the last generation. The teachers and staff all had a message for the students: Everything we thought we knew about the world was wrong. Before joining the prayer group, I had been a fairly tolerant person.
Now I was different. I was belligerent toward my gay and atheist friends.
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