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On yesterday's show he really lost grasp. He said that everyone's Christian life did not begin at the cross, or at their moment of conversion -- it began with the day of Pentecost.
I don't usually watch him because I get so upset with these quirky things, along with the ethics of the organization's administration.
It is wonderful that his organization is so well set up to reach people around the world, but what is he feeding people... His teaching is like those bagels with the fake blueberries.
Benny Hinn fleeces poor people of their savings, which doesn't sound very loving or Godly to me. He tells them that their monetary contribution directly affects their faith and their likelihood of getting healed. The money factor is totally entwined in his message.
People keep saying "Don't touch the lord's annionted! Let God deal with Benny..." --but we are our brothers keeper! We are tasked with tending the sheep. If we see a wolf hurting a sheep, we are supposed to do something about it, not just sit there and hope God will sort it out.
I don't believe Benny Hinn has ever performed a ligitimate healing. its just circus tricks and power of suggestion like at any carnival side show.
If the Holy Spirit is as I say at work within Benny, is it not dangerous to condemn him?
Let's check off the characteristics of Benny Hinn and his followers as the following list applies to them. A "YES" is for a characteristic that applies, a "NO" is for on that does not apply, and a "?" is for a characteristic that is in question.
YES (1) The group is focused on a living leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment. - Hinn is called holy man of God by all his followers. They call him the "anointed" man of God. His words are not to be questioned.
YES (2) The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members. There it no longer any real evangelism being done by Hinn followers, just invitations to the crusade, some event, some other Third Wave gnostic revival meeting.
YES (3) The group is preoccupied with making money. Hinn certainly is! At a suggested minimum donation of $50. per person Hinn walks out of cities with between $250,000 to $1,000,000. per crusade night. His followers are preoccupied with giving it to him to be sure to share in the anointing and get their "healing".
YES (4) Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished. - Girls at the crusade I passed out leaflets are a perfect example. They told people not to read anything negative about Benny. Questioning is met with stiff resistance, if not charges of being a "heretic hunter" or even a demoniac.
YES (5) Mind-numbing techniques (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, debilitating work routines) are used to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s). People were told to be at the Hinn crusade in Honolulu at 5 p.m. and it lasted till 11 p.m. Ear splitting volume on music and sound numbed people into a trance state. Hinn coerced people to repeat phrases some twenty times. This and other techniques in Hinn crusades are nothing more than brainwashing.
YES (6) The leadership dictates sometimes in great detail how members should think, act, and feel (for example: members must get permission from leaders to date, change jobs, get married; leaders may prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, how to discipline children, and so forth). - Hinn and others are famous for personal prophesies over people and every aspect of their lives. They are told they will feel something when they get zapped, thus they are conditioned to act in a certain way to be accepted. In fact they are told not to think too much at all, and pay no heed to critics.
YES (7) The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and members (for example: the leader is considered the Messiah or an avatar; the group and/or the leader has a special mission to save humanity). This one needs no explanation. The looks I saw on people's faces of laughter, scorn and even violent anger betrayed their claim to be "the anointed". Hinn has claimed to be little messiah, I Am, a little god. R.W. Shambach called him The Anointed One on his TV show.
YES (8) The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society. This is the continuation of the hyper Pentecostal attitude against those they perceive as not having had an experience of the Holy Spirit or no overt gifts taken to the extreme. Now you have to go up and shake, birth, make unintelligible noises, growl, hop around.
YES (9) The group's leader is not accountable to any authorities (as are, for example, military commanders and ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream denominations). Hinn has never been accountable to anyone. He was thrown out of or left the AoG depending on who you talk to, he has never joined the ECFA, he has not stopped his terrible fundraising practices and telling people they are healed of AIDS when they are not even when busted by CNN and CBS.
YES (10) The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify means that members would have considered unethical before joining the group (for example: collecting money for bogus charities). C. Peter Wagner, the man who coined the term "Third Wave", put forth in his 1976 book Your Church Can Grow that the ends DO justify the means. True Christians have blinded themselves to Benny Hinn's unethical fundraising ($50 minimum), the unseemly displays in his crusades blamed on the Holy Spirit, his opulent lifestyle, his false prophesies, his crazy heretical teachings. The end ... the anointing ... is all that counts, even if you have to lie, use deception and steal money from the poor to get there.
Hey there Marine:
My best friend knows Benny personally. Benny is just like all the rest of us in some respects. He is FLAWED. Just like me and you, and everyone who criticizes him.
But Benny Hinn is leading THOUSANDS of people to Yeshua. Whoever is going to criticize him, let them show us THEIR fruit. Put up or shut up, I say.
Do I LIKE BH. No, not really. Does it MATTER if I like him? NO.
God could take Benny down, or pretty much any other believer if he wanted to, but HE'S busy using him to heal, baptize in the Holy Spirit, and Save THOUSANDS, maybe millions.
Benny is ANOINTED BY GOD, chosen, not because he's cool, but because he's weird! You have to be a little weird to do what he does.
Learn what you can, examine what he says carefully, and keep what matches the BOOK!
In reply to Oscarr's thoughtful post:
The man in question (Hinn) refuses to hold himself accountable to anyone. This is not a matter of discerning what percentage he is working in the flesh and in the Spirit.
Look at all of the cult leaders in the past who have avoided unaccountability -- David Koresh and Jim Jones to name a few. They also were considered men of God, and yet their fleshy 'errors' are not considered to be acceptable, now, are they?
How do we know he is not accountable to anyone? Usually a large ministry like this has a Board of Governors or Trustees behind it. The preacher is the public face of the ministry, but there is a group of elders behind the scenes to whom the evangelist is answerable. The evangelist does not have to be accountable to every Tom Dick or Harry who wants to be the judge of the way he conducts his ministry. If he has his own Board of Governors, he would be accountable to them.
Benny Hinn : Apologetics research resourcesThe Bible teaches that all Christians should learn how to discern between orthodoxy and heresy. It tells us to test everything, and to then hold on to that which is good. (See: 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22). This necessarily involves 'judging' - not of the person, but of his or her teachings and practices (to see whether or not they are Biblical).
Benny Hinn, however, claims that the same Holy Spirit who inspired Scripture tells him something different:The Holy Ghost is upon me...The day is coming when those that attack us will drop dead. You say, 'What did he say?' I speak this under the anointing of the Spirit. Can I tell you something? Don't touch God's servants; it's deadly...Woe to you that touch God's servants. You're going to pay. 'And the day will come.' The Lord said that to me. He said, 'The day will come when I will punish instantly. Woe to those who touch my chosen.' They will fear us. Hear this: today they mock us; tomorrow they will fear us.Source: Benny Hinn, "Miracle Invasion Ralley," Anaheim Convention Center November 22, 1991, quoted in Christianity in Crisis
, Hank Hanegraaff.
Instead of obeying God's Word, many of Benny Hinn's followers share his unbiblical rejection of accountability regarding his teachings and practices.
Note that the Bible foretold that there would come a time when certain people will simply not put up with sound doctrine, but instead seek out teachers and teachings which suit their own desires:
Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
Source: 2 Timothy 4:2-3 NIV
This is a fitting description of the 'experience over doctrine' approach.
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