Thousands Flock to Revival in Search of Miracles

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Claims of miraculous healing have attracted many followers to Todd Bentley's enclave in central Florida. Here a revival attendee dances to praise band music.

(Karson Yiu/ABC News)
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The Healing Touch?

When asked to present evidence of the healings, Bentley promised to give "Nightline" the names and medical records of three followers who would talk openly about his miracles. He never delivered. Instead, his staff gave "Nightline" a binder filled with what he says are inspiring miracles, but with scant hard evidence. It offered incomplete contact information, a few pages of incomplete medical records, and the doctors' names were crossed out.

When pressed further, Bentley provided the name of a woman in California who had a large tumor in her uterus that shrank after she saw Bentley.

Her husband, however, told "Nightline" that it could be a coincidence because she was still undergoing medical treatment. He said she was too tired to talk to us at the time but added that she was regaining her strength day by day.

The husband did provide some of his wife's medical records from a clinic in Tijuana, Mexico, where she went for cancer treatment after being turned away by American hospitals. They, however, insisted on obscuring the clinic's name and the names of the doctors.

Not a single claim of Bentley's healing powers could be independently verified.

Bentley, however, remains positive.

"I believe God is real and he's showing himself to his people," he said. "Yes, I believe the prayer of faith will save the sick."

Bentley's revival is filled with wheelchairs and crutches, with people of faith and people desperate for salvation through faith.

One of them is Bill Wise. He patiently tended his desperately ill baby daughter throughout the long night's revival. He listened for a call from Bentley offering a cure for his child's condition. But it never came.

Yet Wise defiantly refuses to lose faith.

"Even if we don't see any change, in the immediate run here, sometimes prayer is cumulative," Wise said.

This piece has been updated with a clarification that was necessary because of an editing error.