Televangelist calls word-of-faith ‘New Age.’
Christian Research Institute president Hank Hanegraaff and evangelist James Robison have taken televangelist Benny Hinn to task for his teaching of the word-of-faith doctrine, telling Hinn that if he does not change his ministry, it eventually will fail due to false teachings.
After meeting with both leaders, Hinn has apologized to his congregation, eschewing the faith message he has been preaching for almost a decade.
In interviews with CHRISTIANITY TODAY, both Hanegraaff and Robison detailed their roles in bringing Hinn to a change of heart. Hanegraaff, author of Christianity in Crisis, says Robison phoned him to say he had “called Benny Hinn and told him that if he didn’t change now, his ministry would go down the tubes.”
Robison confirms, “I told Benny that every time I prayed for him, the Lord showed me his displeasure over what he was doing. I didn’t want to see Benny continue in his slaughter of the innocent sheep.” Robison says he brought the same message to Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, and Larry Lea, but none of them heeded the warning. Hinn, says Robison, reacted differently.
“Benny went to pieces and was very contrite,” Robison says. “I told him God didn’t anoint him to preach erroneous teachings and perform extravagant theatrics like knocking people down, waving his coat around, and blowing on people, and, if he continued, his ministry would be destroyed within three years.”
You gotta have faith
Hinn, pastor of the 7,000-member Orlando (Fla.) Christian Center, greeted his stunned congregation in June with his renunciation of the faith message, which includes positive confession, the prosperity gospel, and the divine right-to-be-healed concept. Under such teachings, followers are told God wants them to be “healthy and wealthy.” The right amount of faith will secure anything, from a cure of cancer to a new, expensive automobile. To be in debt or to be sick shows a lack of faith.
In front of a jolted and teary-eyed congregation, Hinn censured the “word-of-faith” movement. “It’s faith, faith, faith and no Jesus anywhere. We have to have faith in Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. So, where do I stand on faith? Stop seeking faith and start seeking the Lord! The word-of-faith message is New Age and it doesn’t work. I’m going to stop preaching healing and start preaching Jesus.”
In a July interview with CT, Hinn delineated the way faith teaching has harmed him. “I was heavily swayed by Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland. And, none of them talked about salvation. It’s all faith. The faith message is a message of lack, without the Spirit anywhere.”
In his June sermon, Hinn, seemingly resolved to “right the wrong I’ve been teaching and doing,” continued his strong denunciation of word-of-faith teaching. On “prosperity,” Hinn asserts: “The very word itself has been twisted around and has become a major business in the ministry. Money, money, money. It’s almost like going gambling!” And Hinn lambastes both healing, his ministry’s cornerstone, and positive confession.
“I once said if my daddy knew what I know, he wouldn’t have died of cancer. [But] it was God’s will to take my father home. I became so convinced I was right. God had to shake it out of me.”
Bruce Barron, a Pittsburgh scholar who has followed the faith movement for a decade, says, “The health and wealth gospels are, in their extreme, a symptom of a deeper problem, that being an ongoing tendency to elevate redeemed humanity at the expense of God’s transcendence and sovereignty. This inclination can take its form by placing humanity and human powers at the center of the universe, and placing God at man’s disposal.”
Robison is convinced of Hinn’s turnaround. “I told Benny that what I hear God saying is that he anointed him to lead people into his presence with abandonment to [God’s] will. I think Benny will do that this time.”
“There has been a hunger inside me for the past few weeks,” Hinn says softly. “I really want Billy Graham to pray for me.”
Still skeptical
Hanegraaff, though encouraged by Hinn’s changes, says he still has concerns. “I told James [Robison] that at the risk of sounding cynical or skeptical, I have seen Benny [repent] before, so I’m not sure if he’s sincere.”
Hinn has recanted the faith message before (CT, Oct. 28, 1991, p. 44; CT, Oct. 5, 1992, p. 53), and Hanegraaff has reason to be wary. Hinn has publicly threatened his critics, including Hanegraaff, in the past, once saying he wished God would give him “a Holy Ghost machine gun” to destroy them.
According to both Hanegraaff and Robison, there is only one way for Hinn to demonstrate his rectitude. “The real test,” says Hanegraaff, “is whether Benny will pull his books. In other words, will he continue to sell books that promote the very thing he says he is turning away from?”
“Benny must demonstrate repentance and a turning away from what he has been teaching and doing, including pulling his books,” Robison says.
At Thomas Nelson, Bruce Barbour, head of the company’s book division, says pulling books from store shelves is not a decision made by a publishing house alone. “We don’t publish Thomas Nelson books, we publish authors’ books. If one of our authors has a problem, we want to react clearly.”
Hinn, later, said he and Thomas Nelson came to an agreement. Lord, I Need A Miracle is being extensively revised, Hinn said, deleting all references to word-of-faith teaching. Good Morning, Holy Spirit has no faith teaching in it, and only one editing change is needed in The Anointing, according to Hinn.
Hinn says that on future books, he’s enlisting sound counsel. “I’m having Dudley Hall [a Robison associate] work on my books with me,” he says, “not only on what I’ve already done, but on future ones.” Hall is working on Hinn’s new book, The Blood, published by Creation House and distributed by Word, which is owned by Thomas Nelson.
This latest Hinn confession has coincided with a new round of media scrutiny. In the summer 1993 issue of Cornerstone magazine, William Watkins, a former managing editor of Thomas Nelson’s book division, recounts his unsuccessful attempts to correct Hinn’s unorthodox theology in his first two books. And the July issue of The Quarterly Journal published by Personal Freedom Outreach says Hinn has shown a “propensity for exaggeration” and details further his “personal mythmaking” about everything from circumstances of his childhood to details of healings. Earlier this year, “Inside Edition,” the tabloid TV show, planted a woman who faked a healing on one of Hinn’s broadcasts. In the August issue of Charisma magazine, Hinn says he has instituted new procedures in which physicians will closely question those individuals who claim healings so as to verify their claims. In addition, Hinn reports he has stopped wearing his Rolex watch and now drives a Lincoln instead of a Mercedes.
Recently, some Christian retailers have begun to react harshly to word-of-faith books. Steve Adams, president of Evangel, Inc., says his recent decision to get rid of books by faith teachers was a matter of knowing what God’s Word says. “Our industry needs to police itself against unscriptural and heretical teaching. That’s why I took Copeland’s, Hagin’s, and Hinn’s books off my shelves. It’s aberrant teaching.”
Bookstore owner and Christian Bookseller’s Association (CBA) chairman Jim Reimann says, “We can carry any book that has a correct view of who Jesus Christ is, from the biblical standpoint.
“We [as an industry] need to search the Scriptures and determine what is biblical, then compare what we’re offered to sell in our stores and not sell what is unbiblical.” Reimann does not sell books by Hinn, Copeland, or Hagin.
CBA board member Winston Maddox, of Evangelical Books and Bibles, also recently stopped carrying books by Hinn, Hagin, and Copeland. “We need to examine all our teachers and we must ask ourselves: Does any teaching utilize only a small part of the Bible and neglect the whole … and are the practices meant to glorify God or the teacher?”
By Perucci Ferraiuolo.
