Here we are back for the second part of this weeks blog. Let me get you up to speed in case you missed the first entry but i do suggest you go back and read it as well when you're finished here.
We can all agree that we live in a generation and culture(if you're in America) of easy believism and people have the ability to get their message out to millions with just the click of a mouse. With that said, there is a slew of theological information at our fingertips. One quick google search and you can get commentary and scripture interpretation from Billy Graham to Benny Hinn and everything in between. With so many choices and the deceitfulness of our own hearts we're apt to listen to whomever we "like" or whomever our friends listen to or whatever makes us feel good. In light of this reality let us be diligent in determining who we let speak into our life! Every heretic speaks some truth sometimes or no one would listen. My goal over the next few months is to do two blogs a week, both critiquing prominent evangelicals in our day, one on someone who is trustworthy, someone who rightly divides the Word, someone who doesn't twist the scriptures, and the other on someone who is untrustworthy, possibly deceived, and even possibly an apostate, who for filthy lucre, distorts the Gospel. Let me say up front that there may be some of these critiques that you absolutely agree with and some you may vehemently reject and at times you may think that I'm being judgmental, harsh, or you may even think I'm crazy but I challenge you to research the Word and the person and then decide. I will praise some of these men and I will reject others, it's not personal but as a Pastor with a Pastor's heart I feel compelled to protect the flock from wolves and to lead the flock to spiritual food that will equip them for this life and the next, that is the sole intent behind these blog entries! Lets get started!
Unfortunately it's time to address the negative, someone we CANNOT trust........
Benny Hinn
It's hard to find a place to start but let's begin with background. Hinn was born in the early years of the establishment of the nation of Israel, in Israel, into a family of Greek Orthodox Christians. After certain situations his family moved to Canada where Hinn heard the heretical word-of-faith false Gospel by a woman evangelist named Kathryn Khulman and was mentored at Broadview Faith Temple by Winston I. Nunes who was a part of the charismatic heretical "latter Rain" movement. Hinn has never turned from what he learned and saw in his early years under the preaching of a false gospel, he's actually travelled farther into heresy than his mentors and have influenced, blinded, and mislead millions along the way!
There have been countless controversies surrounding Hinn over the last few decades. From investigations by the Federal Government concerning financial wrong doings to undercover surveillance by HBO and CBC which seemed to paint a vastly different picture of Hinn's "Miracle Faith-Healing Services" broadcasts around the world. It's been documented that at these "miracle" services those who are visibly disabled are ushered out of the line to Hinn, some even pushed away after refusing to step aside. In November 2004, the CBC Television show The Fifth Estate did a special titled "Do You Believe in Miracles" on the apparent transgressions committed by Benny Hinn's ministry. With the aid of hidden cameras and crusade witnesses, the producers of the show demonstrated Hinn's apparent misappropriation of funds, his fabrication of the truth, and the way in which his staff chose crusade audience members to come on stage to proclaim their miracle healings. In particular, the investigation highlighted the fact that the most desperate miracle seekers who attend a Hinn crusade—the quadriplegics, the brain-damaged, virtually anyone with a visibly obvious physical condition—are never allowed up on stage; those who attempt to get in the line of possible healings are intercepted and directed to return to their seats. At one Canadian service, hidden cameras showed a mother who was carrying her muscular dystrophy-afflicted daughter, Grace, being stopped by two screeners when they attempted to get into the line for a possible blessing from Hinn. The screeners asked the mother if Grace had been healed, and when the mother replied in the negative, they were told to return to their seats; the pair got out of line, but Grace, wanting "Pastor Benny to pray for [her]," asked her mother to support her as she tried to walk as a show of "her faith in action," according to the mother. After several unsuccessful attempts at walking, the pair left the arena in tears, both mother and daughter visibly upset at being turned aside and crying as they explained to the undercover reporters that all Grace had wanted was for Hinn to pray for her, but the staffers rushed them out of the line when they found out Grace had not been healed. A week later at a service in Toronto, Baptist evangelist Justin Peters, who wrote his Masters in Divinity thesis on Benny Hinn and has attended numerous Hinn crusades since 2000 as part of his research for his thesis and for a seminar he developed about the Word of Faith movement entitled A Call for Discernment, also demonstrated to the hidden cameras that "people who look like me"—Peters has cerebral palsy, walks with arm-crutches, and is obviously and visibly disabled—"are never allowed on stage [...] it's always somebody who has some disability or disease that cannot be readily seen." Like Grace and her mother, Peters was quickly intercepted as he came out of the wheelchair section (there is one at every crusade, situated at the back of the audience, far away from the stage, and never filmed for Hinn's TV show) in an attempt to join the line of those waiting to go onstage, and was told to take a seat. This segment was later edited with new footage and shown on Dateline: NBC in November 2005. Hinn has also been accused of an affair with Paula White(another heretical charismatic) around the time of his divorce from his wife. Initially denied, Hinn eventually confessed that they did have a "relationship." Hinn later remarried his first wife after a few years of being divorced in a lavish ceremony, all of which is COMPLETELY unbiblical, Deuteronomy even labels such an act an abomination. Though significant, these moral failures of Hinn aren't the most horrific atrocities of his ministry!
What's most disturbing are his false teachings concerning God's Word! Hinn has twisted, manipulated, and deliberately used scripture in the same way the initial deceiver did in the garden! Hinn is a charlatan of the most extreme kind, a false prophet, and a wolf in sheep's clothing. That's strong language but the stakes are too high to coddle our PC emotions. We wouldn't leave our children in the presence of a predator such as a lion or pedophile, we would call them out and defend those who are under our care. I pray that you realize that that's exactly what I'm doing here, protecting those I love by calling out the enemy and using the sword of the Lord in defense. Here are some of Hinn's false prophesies and heresies......
- Claims he and a Catholic priest channeled the power of God to heal practically every patient at a hospital in Sault Sainte Marie, Ontario, Canada.
- Claimed to have video of Jesus walking around in one of his meetings. When asked to show the video, his staff said it had been “misplaced.”
- On Dec. 31, 1989, Hinn went into a trance and said God was giving him (in real time) prophecies about major events that would occur before the end of the next decade. Hinn predicted the total collapse of the American economy within a decade. He declared that during the 1990s the East Coast would be be ravaged by earthquakes; a female would be elected as president; Fidel Castro would die in office; a “short man dictator” would arise; the rapture of the church would occur; and the homosexual community of America would be destroyed by fire “in ’94 or ’95, no later than that.”
- Claimed God told him by divine revelation that there are nine members in the Godhead.
- Claimed that as a young man he was in his room talking to the Holy Spirit. When called to supper by the “woman of the house,” he said, “as I was about to leave, I felt someone take my hand and say, ‘Five more minutes. Just five more minutes.’ The Holy Spirit longed for my fellowship.”
- Claimed that an image of Jesus appeared on the wall of his church and “stayed for eight weeks.” Hinn says, “Even the people who studied the Shroud of Turin came to see this image. …the mouth [of Jesus] would move, the Lord’s mouth would move…but His mouth would only move as I was preaching.”
- Claimed (repeatedly) that he once saw a man raised from the dead on the platform on which he was standing. When later questioned by a reporter about the incident he said, “I did not see it. In that one case we did hear about it.”
- Regularly “slays in the Spirit” people who get up on stage by touching them on the forehead or cheeks, waving his coat at them, or yelling, “Fire!” Once he even managed to slay himself! This practice has not one shred of biblical support.
- Claimed to have a department that verifies all his healings. Justin Peters who writes for Grace To You said he has spoken with a former employee of Hinn who says not only that the healings are not verified but that such a department does not even exist.
- Seed-faith theology is a staple in Hinn’s teaching. He promises people that if they “sow a seed” (translated, give him money), God will give them a “harvest.”
- Teaches that “if the preaching of the gospel lacks signs and wonders, it’s an empty shell.”
- Claimed the Holy Spirit told him women were originally intended to give birth out of their sides.
R.C. Sproul says "What do we mean by heresy? Is every theological error a heresy? In a broad sense, every departure from biblical truth may be regarded as a heresy. But in the currency of Christian thought, the term heresy has usually been reserved for gross and heinous distortions of biblical truth, for errors so grave that they threaten either the essence of the Christian faith or the well-being of the Christian church. Hinn fits that box! I pray that you'll consider the Word and the man and see the truth of the matter. If the blind lead the blind, both fall in the ditch, the sad part is Hinn will be in the ditch with those he deceived but he'll be rich and they'll typically be poor! Don't fall for the show, the theatrics, and the flamboyance, it's a trap of the enemy! Discernment seems to be dead in our age of tolerance but the truth of the scriptures can't be broken or negotiated with! God bless!
