December 12, 2022
Do you remember when #WakeUpOlive took the internet by storm? I certainly do. I can’t think of the last time I followed an internet story so closely. I refreshed news sites, Instagram feeds, and Reddit threads constantly for seven straight days, eagerly searching for updates, voraciously reading what people were saying about the situation.
If you’ve never heard of it—or don’t remember—Olive Heiligenthal was the two-year-old daughter of Kalley and Andrew Heiligenthal. Kalley was (and still is, I believe) a worship leader for Bethel Church, located in Redding, California, which is an extremely charismatic church. They believe in miracles and miracle healings so much that they even have a school for the supernatural. Yes, it’s literally called Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry. Many people critical of the church call it the Christian Hogwarts.
On December 14, 2019, Olive Heiligenthal stopped breathing. Shortly thereafter, she was pronounced dead by doctors.
Before I go on, I want to take a moment and acknowledge the severe amount of pain, heartbreak, and trauma that the Heiligenthals had to endure at having their daughter suddenly and abruptly pass away. I do not have children, so I cannot begin to understand what their grief feels like, but I do know that my heart and condolences go out to them, even today, nearly two years after her passing.
Despite the unfortunate fact that thousands of children across the world die per day and given that Bethel is all about miracles, the entire church quickly came together and began a marathon session of prayers and worshipping, imploring God to resurrect two-year-old Olive from the dead.
Yes—literally resurrect. Olive was not on life support. She was not in a coma. She’d been pronounced dead by doctors who’d examined her. The congregation was imploring God to bring this little girl back to life.
#WakeUpOlive became a thing on Instagram. Videos of the marathon worship sessions were posted. Kalley Heiligenthal was front and center on stage, singing and praying and leading worship and demanding a resurrection from God. I’ll never forget the endless refrain of their song: “In Jesus name, Olive, come out of that grave.”
This lasted for days. The worship and praying was unceasing. I imagine people rotated in and out—when some got tired, they went home to get some rest while others came in to continue the praying.
As the days went on, the situation started to garner attention elsewhere. More and more videos got posted to Instagram. People started posting about it on Reddit (which is primarily where I was following the story) and even some national news outlets started covering it.
As you’d expect, most of the reactions to what was going on was one giant cringe.
One big element of this was concern for Olive’s older sister. Both her parents were continuously on stage leading desperate and fervent worship for days at time. She’d just lost her sister and was likely sad and confused. People online wondered where she was, what she was doing, and who was attending to her, since her parents clearly were not.
Others speculated on the location of Olive’s body. Since doctors had pronounced her dead—presumably at a hospital—they wouldn’t simply allow the parents walk out with the body. That meant she was in the hospital morgue, awaiting burial. People speculated about what the Heiligenthals thought was going to happen—was Olive just going to wake up in the morgue and tap on the freezer door for someone to let her out?
Others wondered how long this could possibly go on for, since it showed no indication of stopping anytime soon. Some California residents stepped in to break down the laws when it came to burial timeframes. They said that the Heiligenthals were running out of time from a legal standpoint. They’d have to do something with Olive’s body or else the hospital would have to make that decision and likely cremate her. It’s what hospitals do when no one shows up to claim the bodies of deceased, unknown individuals.
The whole thing ended just as you might expect. Olive Heiligenthal was not resurrected by God, unfortunately. Kalley Heiligenthal eventually posted on Instagram stating that a resurrection had not happened and that they were proceeding forth with a funeral and a celebration of life.
During the whole thing and for a few days afterward, Christians and non-Christians alike took to online platforms to discuss the situation and its implications. Many Christians expressed what I thought were reasonable sentiments—essentially that while they believe Jesus was raised from the dead, they didn’t necessarily believe that God would raise just anyone at any time. Many of them believed that Olive’s tragic and untimely death was part of God’s greater plan—a sentiment that I heard often when I was still in the Church. It’s used to explain away the senselessness of young people passing away long before their time.
Atheists—who can be quite brutal to Christians, particularly online—were surprisingly civil (for the most part) and expressed their condolences to the family. And despite not approving of their actions following Olive’s death, they at least could bring themselves to somewhat understand why they’d reacted the way they did.
I still think about #WakeUpOlive from time to time. I’d never seen anything like it before and I doubt I’ll see anything like it ever again (because it didn’t work). I often wonder if the situation caused anyone who was involved to deconstruct. If I attended a church that was all-in on miracles and miracle healing and then watched God refuse to resurrect a baby girl that belonged to one of that church’s worship leaders… well, I’d probably go for a long walk and think about that pretty hard.