Benny Hinn

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"Benny" Hinn

Tofik Benedictus "Benny" Hinn (born December 3, 1952 in Tel Aviv, Israel) is a controversial Christian pastor, faith healer, and televangelist. He is half Greek and half Armenian, and was raised within the Greek Orthodox Church, but currently he is involved in the Word of Faith movement within the Charismatic/Pentecostal arm of Protestantism. He attended Georges Vanier High School in Toronto, Ontario. He is married to Suzanne Harthern and resides in Dana Point, California.

Contents

1 History
2 Controversies

2.1 Investigations and exposés

3 Claim of prophetic ability

3.1 Examples of questionable prophecies

4 List of questionable statements
5 Famous quotes
6 Theological statements
7 Bibliography of Hinn's writings
8 External links

History

Hinn has written that as a 20 year old in December 1973 he traveled by charter bus from Toronto to Pittsburgh to attend a "miracle service" being conducted by evangelist Kathryn Kuhlman. While he never personally met Kuhlman, he often attended her "healing" services and cited Kuhlman as an influence in many interviews.

Ten years later, Hinn founded the Orlando Christian Center. During its heyday the church averaged over 10,000 in attendance. In 1999 Hinn sold the church (by the time renamed World Outreach Center) to Clint Brown and moved to Grapevine, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. However, he maintained the legal entity "World Outreach Center Church Benny Hinn Ministries" which has been the subject of recent controversy. (see below)

He is currently the host of This Is Your Day, a 30-minute TV show that runs on various religious networks, including Trinity Broadcasting Network, Daystar Television Network and The God Channel.

Hinn hosts regular revival-meeting-cum-faith-healing-summits he calls "Miracle Crusades" that are usually held in large stadiums in major cities. At these services, Hinn carries out the purported miracles on whoever comes up on stage with an allegedly healed medical condition, whether it be Lou Gehrig's disease, AIDS, arthritis, or cancer. Usually, he shouts "Touch!" at them and they fall to the floor, "slain in the Spirit". Hinn also "slays" entire stands and the volunteer choir, too. Highlights from these highly theatrical events are taped and then broadcast on Hinn's TV show, This Is Your Day.

Controversies

There is not an area of Hinn's Christian doctrine, ministry practice, or even his personal background, which has not been the subject of controversy. At least one book, The Confusing World of Benny Hinn (ISBN 1-885591-94-2), published by Personal Freedom Outreach (PFO), is devoted solely to various issues surrounding Hinn and his ministry, and PFO's Quarterly Journal usually has at least one article devoted to the latest controversy surrounding Hinn. The Sword of the Lord also has a book for sale devoted to Hinn, and virtually every Christian counter-cult, watchdog, and apologetics teacher and ministry has extensive information and critique of Hinn.

As a proponent of Word of Faith doctrine, Hinn is subject to the criticisms that accompany the viewpoint. These include: unsound Biblical doctrine, exploitation of the poor, a heavy reliance on personal "health and wealth", and so on. Also, his support of faith healing brings the accompanying criticisms of that viewpoint. Allegedly, Hinn visits the grave of Kathryn Kuhlman to receive the "anointing" from God, and has been accused of practicing divination.

Investigations and exposés

In 2000, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's (CBC) show Witness ran a two-part series about purported faith healers Benny Hinn and Reinhard Bonnke.

On November 3, 2004, the CBC's the fifth estate ran an exposé on Benny Hinn, revealing reports of fraudulent activity on his part.

Dateline NBC also ran an exposé on Hinn in December 27, 2002, and aired a follow-up investigation on March 6, 2005, which alleged that Hinn lives a lavish lifestyle, that his ministry uses only a small percentage of its revenues for charitable purposes and that claims of successful faith healing are unsubstantiated and, in some cases, false. Hinn responded to the allegations in detail in a letter on March 10, 2004. The allegations, however, are hard to validate, since Hinn's ministry claims a "church" tax exemption, as opposed to a religious non-profit exemption, which exempts Hinn and his ministry from having to reveal financial records (see below regarding an investigation into such exemption). Hinn lives in an oceanfront hacienda in Dana Point, California, valued at $8.5-million. [link] [link]

The Dallas Morning News reported in July 2005 that Hinn was being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service as to his ministry's tax exempt status, specifically its designation as a church. Under IRS regulations, non-profit organizations must file for a "letter of determination" as to tax-exempt status and annually report information as to donations, expenses and salaries. However, churches are specifically exempt from reporting requirements, and do not need to file for a letter of determination. They may simply claim tax-exempt status, which the IRS must then prove otherwise.

The Trinity Foundation, a self-proclaimed "watchdog ministry" headed by Ole Anthony, states that its investigation "proves" that Hinn's ministry does not meet IRS guidelines for church designation, specifically that Hinn does not conduct "regular public worship services" at his headquarters (which Hinn lists as the church address; however, according to Anthony and Trinity Foundation access to the facility is highly restricted and not open to the public) or at any other location that Anthony or Trinity Foundation have been able to determine.

There is, in fact, a "World Healing Center Church" that operates in California under the leadership of Hinn's son-in-law Michael Koulianos and daughter Jessica.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported in August 2005 that the Tarrant County Appraisal District (responsible for determining the assessed value of real estate for tax purposes and for granting property tax exemptions) was reviewing whether Hinn's facility in Grapevine met the requirements for a property tax exemption. Specifically, the review would focus on whether the "church" designation, the same one Anthony and Trinity Foundation claim is false, was used to claim an exemption to which Hinn's ministry may not have been entitled. The review was requested by Anthony and Trinity Foundation.

Hinn's ministry has confirmed the validity of the reports regarding the IRS and Tarrant County reviews, but accused Trinity Foundation and Anthony of attempting to destroy "all Christian ministries in general" and specifically Hinn's.

In January 2005, Hinn's ministry organized a trip to Bangalore, India, and a prayer meeting attended by various politicians and high profile people. Hindu groups objected to this stating that the meeting was a front for mass conversion by controversial means. The news website Rediff.com India reported: "Hinn claimed that he had cured several people of ailments with the blessings of Jesus Christ, but hundreds of disabled and sick people returned disappointed, without getting any remedy." The report also mentions "A doctor, meanwhile, lodged a police complaint against Hinn and the organisers of the show, seeking action for what he said was the death of a man due to cardiac arrest after being pushed by Hinn on the stage on Saturday".

Claim of prophetic ability

Benny Hinn claims to be a prophet of God and regularly issues specific prophecies regarding events that he claims will occur within specific periods of time. However, he has a documented history of making prophecies that have not come true (see below for a partial list). Since, according to the definition specified by the Bible that true prophets inspired by God can never be incorrect in their prophecies, [though this too can be debated because Jonah's prophecy, for example, did not come true even though he was a true prophet Jonah 3:4, 4:1–2], many Christian apologetics ministries, primarily those who oppose the Word of Faith movement in general, consider Benny Hinn to be a false prophet.

Examples of questionable prophecies

"The Spirit tells me - Fidel Castro will die - in the 90's. Oooh my! Some will try to kill him and they will not succeed. But there will come a change in his physical health, and he will not stay in power, and Cuba will be visited of God."
:http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=420067844
"The Lord also tells me to tell you in the mid 90’s, about ’94-’95, no later than that, God will destroy the homosexual community of America. [audience applauds] But He will not destroy it – with what many minds have thought Him to be, He will destroy it with fire. And many will turn and be saved, and many will rebel and be destroyed."
:Orlando Christian Center, Dec. 31, 1989 ([audio])
"The Spirit of God tells me an earthquake will hit the East Coast of America and destroy much in the '90s. Not one place will be safe from earthquakes in the '90s. These who have not known earthquakes will know it. People, I feel the Spirit all over me!"
:Orlando Christian Center, Dec. 31, 1989
"We may have two years before the rapture. Can I be blunt with you? I don't know if we have two years left. I'm going to prove to you from the Word tonight, that we have less than two years, unless the Lord changes his mind."
:November 9, 1990 Praise-a-Thon
"But here's first what I see for TBN. You're going to have people raised from the dead watching this network. You're going to have people raised from the dead watching TBN. Programs -- just plain programs -- programs that haven't done much when it comes to supernatural manifestations -- teaching programs!" (http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=420067844 has an audio of this and Hinn was referring to people physically being raised from the dead.)
: October 19, 1999 Praise The Lord, Trinity Broadcasting Network
"Jesus is coming again within the next two years."
:July 1997, fund-raising telethon on TBN

List of questionable statements

[Verifiability>sources or references] that appear in a [Reliable sourcescredible publication] and are not primary sources, such as websites and publications affiliated with the subject of the article. You can [WikiProject Fact and Reference Checkhelp] Wikipedia by including appropriate citations.

In addition to making questionable prophesies, Hinn has made a number of statements over the years that have been proven to be erroneous.

"In his sermons and books, Hinn has portrayed his childhood as that of a social outcast, handicapped by a severe stutter, who was nonetheless a stellar student. But when G. Richard Fisher and M. Kurt Goedelman, two journalists who write for Personal Freedom Outreach, looked into Hinn's youth, they found that both claims were untrue: nobody remembered Hinn stuttering, and he had dropped out of high school after the 11th grade."
:Illustration by 4G² Issue #191, January/February 2004
"Hinn claims to have preached at an all-girls Catholic school in Jerusalem in 1976 and "every single girl in that school got saved, including all the nuns." Since there's only one Catholic girls school in Jerusalem, Schmidt's Girls College, it was a fairly easy matter to question all the nuns who were there in 1976, as well as Father Dusind, who has overseen all religious instruction since 1955. The result? "This is nonsense, real nonsense," Dusind told Fisher and Goedelman. "It never happened and could not happen because a Charismatic healer or Protestant preacher would never ever be let in to talk to the girls."
:Illustration by 4G² Issue #191, January/February 2004
"The heavyweight boxer Evander Holyfield, banned from boxing because of a heart condition, went to a Benny Hinn crusade in Philadelphia, had Hinn lay hands on him, and gave Hinn a check for $265,000 after he was told he was healed. In fact, he passed his next examination by the boxing commission, but later his doctors said he never had a heart condition in the first place – he had been misdiagnosed. But Hinn refused to give Holyfield his money back and threatened legal action if he told anyone the truth."
:Illustration by 4G² Issue #191, January/February 2000

Famous quotes

"The reason people lose their healing is because they begin questioning if God really did it."
"I don't need gold in heaven, I gotta have it now."

Theological statements

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"God the Father is a person separate from the Holy Ghost. Totally separate. ...Do you know that the Holy Spirit has a soul and a body separate from that of Jesus and the Father? ...God the Father then is a triune being within Himself. He's a person, He has a soul. ...A soul is an intellect. ...God thinks ...separate from the Son and separate from the Holy Ghost. ...God the Father is a separate individual from the Son and the Holy Ghost, who is a triune being who walks in a spirit body and He has hair...has eyes...has a mouth...has hands" (Orlando Christian Centre, October 13th 1990).
"...I put a curse upon anyone who comes against this ministry..."
"There is nine in the Trinity..."
"Adam was a super being when God created him...he had dominion over the fowls of the air which means he used to fly...well of course how could you have dominion over the birds and not be able to do what they do. Adam flew into space, with one thought he would be on the moon."
"Jesus Christ will appear with me on the platform..."

*The "Adam super being" quote is on audio at http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=420067844 Many of the other statements are on the same audio file.

Bibliography of Hinn's writings

Kathryn Kuhlman: Her Spiritual Legacy and Its Impact on My Life. ISBN 0785278885
Good Morning, Holy Spirit. ISBN 0785271767
He Touched Me - An Autobiography. ISBN 0785278877
The Anointing. ISBN 0785271686
Welcome, Holy Spirit: How You Can Experience The Dynamic Work Of The Holy Spirit In Your Life. ISBN 0785271694
This Is Your Day for a Miracle. ISBN 0884193918
The Biblical Road to Blessing. ISBN 0785275177
Miracle Of Healing. ISBN 0849953995
The Blood. ISBN 0884197638
Going Deeper with the Holy Spirit. ISBN 1590240391
Lord, I Need a Miracle. ISBN 0840762518

External links

Official

[Benny Hinn Ministries]

skeptical

News Report

[Report by rediff.com on Hinn's trip to India, Jan 2005]

Other

[IMDb Entry]

[Satellite photo of Benny Hinn's Dana Point mansion]
[Benny Hinn's Crusade in India]
[Who is Benny Hinn?]
[BBC Report on controversial trip to Nigeria]
[Christian Apologetics web site critical of Benny Hinn Teachings.]
[Sermonaudio.com playing a selection of Hinn's failed prophecies]
[News tracker: Benny Hinn]
[Sacred Blue] - A webcomic that satirizes Hinn and other popular televangelists
[Chart of Executive Salaries paid to leading Christian Ministries]
[Canadian Broadcast Corporation's exposure of his ministry]

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