A Summary Critique: Welcome, Holy Spirit


Just a few miles from Pastor Benny Hinn’s Orlando Christian Center (now called World Outreach Center) in Florida, at Universal Studios, one can see what, at first glance and from a distance, looks like a New York street. A closer took reveals cleverly built facades with nothing behind them.



Hinn’s latest literary offering, Welcome, Holy Spirit, is like those facades. He has crafted a book intended to be mainstream and as inoffensive as possible. He has even tried to paper over some old errors. But a closer look reveals the same Benny Hinn who fabricates events to demonstrate his alleged supernatural powers from God.



One example is his backing off the claim that his father once was the mayor of Jaffa, Israel. His new characterization of his father as having “a prominent position... in the political life of Israel” (p. 74) still remains an overstatement.



Another is his story of escaping serious injury in a 1983 plane crash. “I did not have a scratch,” he writes on page 254. Newspa­per and other reports from the time, howev­er, reveal that he was in a state of shock and was hospitalized for three days. He might not have had a scratch, but the inference one draws from his statement — that he was not harmed — is hardly accurate.



Hinn writes on page 50 that he knows whom God is healing and from what. Yet during a March 1993 interview with Inside Edition, when questioned about an actress who pretended to be healed of polio, Hinn told reporter Steve Wilson, “That was one we missed.”



The most notable example of Hinn’s per­sistence in fabricating the miraculous begins on page 230, where he claims fulfillment of prophecies by Demos Shakarian and Kathryn Kuhlman. Shakarian prophe­sied that someone would walk through a hospital and instantaneously heal patients. Kuhimans prophecy was an aspiration that all would be healed in one of her own ser­vices. These “prophecies” caused Hinn to wonder, “Would God raise masses of people from their beds of affliction?” (230).



In 1976, Hinn went to Sault Sainte Marie, Ontario for a crusade at the invita­tion of Pastor Fred Spring at Elim Pentecostal Tabernacle. Hinn said that “God moved mightily in that city” and that his meetings drew overflow crowds (231).



Hinn continues: “I received a special invitation from the Reverend Mother of a Catholic Hospital in the area. She wanted me to conduct a service for the patients — along with three other Pentecostal preachers and seven Catholic priests. The chapel of the large hospital seated about 150” (231). Hinn describes the chapel as being filled with chronically ill bed and wheelchair patients, with doctors and nurses watching “from the balcony.” Some were turned away because of limited space (231).



The hospital under discussion is General Hospital, located at 941 Queen St. E., in Sault Sainte Marie, and has 182 beds. The picture being paint­ed here is that many of the patients from those 182 beds were at the meeting, since the 150-seat chapel was so full “that many could not attend because of the limited space” (231).



Hinn recounts that he took control that day, and with anointing bottles in hand, ministers and priests were told to anoint and pray for everyone present. Hinn says one priest kept knocking down patients as he anointed them. Hinn adds that patients all over the chapel were being healed instantly (233-34).



At this point even Mother Superior got caught up in the excitement, according to Hinn: “After the service in the chapel, the Reverend Mother asked, ‘Oh this is won­derful. Would you mind coming now and laying hands on all the patients in the rooms?’ …More than fifty doctors, nurses, Pentecostal preachers, priests and nuns joined this ‘Miracle Invasion’ team as we headed for those hospital rooms” (234).



Hinn recounts that as they walked down the hall “you could feel God’s Spirit all over the building. Within a few minutes the hos­pital looked like it had been hit by an earth­quake. People were under the power of the Holy Spirit up and down the hallways as well as in the rooms” (234).



Even the visitor’s lounge could not escape the power: “We entered the lounge...One by one, they fell under the power. In fact, as we began to pray for one gentleman who was smoking, he fell under the power with a lit cigarette still in his mouth” (235).



The detailed account of the miraculous in Welcome, Holy Spirit tops anything in the Book of Acts or in the annals of church his­tory. Something of this magnitude probably never would have been forgotten in Sault Sainte Marie (1977 population: 80,219) or especially at General Hospital. Yet there is neither anyone at the hospital who remem­bers it as Hinn tells it, nor any records to confirm facts clouded by faulty memories. The real story is neither extraordinary nor miraculous.



Contacting the hospital got us the response, “Benny who?” Lois C. Krause, director of community relations for Sault Sainte Marie General Hospital, denied all that Hinn claimed. She said it could not have happened in the way Hinn’s book describes. She laughed after reading a copy of the story. No miracles occurred in the hospital as Hinn claims, she said, adding that “no patients left that day” due to mirac­ulous occurrences.



Some older staff members did recall Hinn’s name, but did not remember anything as extraordinary as his book describes. They did not deny the possibility that the chapel meeting was held, but did not recall the meet­ing as recounted in Welcome, Holy Spirit.



Mother Superior Mary Francis, of the Gray Sisters of the Immaculate Conception order, also disputed Hinn’s account. She said she did not invite Hinn, but reluctantly allowed his chapel service in deference to the pastoral care department, which initiated the service.



The hospital then released a statement, which included the following remarks: “No such events have ever occurred at General Hospital. His pronouncement can neither be verified through the medical records nor by testimony from past or present personnel of this hospital. Mr. Hinn’s claims are Out­landish and unwarranted.”



Equally offensive to Hinn’s myth-making in Welcome, Holy Spirit is his appealing to the likes of Charles Ryrie, Lewis Chafer, John Walvoord, D. L. Moody, R. A. Torrey, and A. J. Gordon to support his teaching on the third person of the Trinity. It is obvious that Hinn is working overtime to make it appear that he is in line with many of the greats in recent church history.



Bearing in mind that Hinn (a Pentecostal) has spent the last year or so with one foot in the Word-Faith camp and the other in the Assemblies of God camp, anyone familiar with the above list of theologians and evan­gelists is going to see a contradiction akin to Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses favorably citing the works of Walter R. Martin. Ryrie, for example, believed the Pentecostal posi­tion of tongues “is not valid” (The Holy Spirit, 89) and that sign gifts “were also temporary” (92). Lewis Chafer, in volume 7 of his Systematic Theology, lists seven errors of professional healers (183-85), call­ing their teachings cruel and unscriptural.” He says that “many are driven insane” by the treatment and teachings of modern-day healers.



A.J. Gordon was a Baptist minister in Boston during the 19th century, and evangelist heavily involved in foreign and local missions. He was clearly a noncharismatic who lived long before the modern Pentecostal movement. The book Who Was Who on Church History (Keats Publishing, 1974) details the sound, sane, scriptural, and practical life (168-69) of this ardent supporter of D. L. Moody.



R. A. Torrey deplored mysticism and emotionalism, writing, “filling with the Spirit that is not maintained by persistent study of the Word of God will soon vanish…Anyone who wishes to obtain and maintain fullness of power in Christian life and service must constantly feed upon the Word of God” (How to Obtain Fullness o Power, 18).



The way Hinn uses sources is misleading and wrong. It creates an illusion of credibility, respectability, endorsement, and scholarship. The cults have been doing this for years. Indeed, it is a cultic distinctive to make it appear that there is scholarly support for one’s position when there is no such support.



Hinn, like many big-name Christian authors, has editors and ghostwriters who help produce his books. However, the buck still stops with Hinn. His name on the book’s cover confers responsibility for its contents. Hinn and the creators of Welcome, Holy Spirit have promulgated a scholastic deception.



- G. Richard Fisher and M. Kurt Goedelman



G. Richard Fisher and M. Kurt Goedelman serve on the board of directors of Personal Freedom Outreach (PFO). PFO materials on Benny Hinn and other Christian discernment issues are available. Write to Personal Freedom Outreach, P.O. Box 26062, St. Louis, MO 63136.

Excerpt from an interview with Derek Webb:

What does it mean on your new album when it says don’t label my music?

DW: It’s more of a personal liberty type comment, more than put a label on my music that I listen to so that I can discern between what is safe and right and what is dangerous and wrong. The whole secular/Christian thing, which is a total fiction, rather than just teaching me to listen to the Spirit and have the Spirit guide me into the truth and learn how to discern truth and beauty and find it in all kinds of places, which is more of the Francis Schaeffer model. Discern truth and beauty and don’t put your faith in categories.

Don’t let your local Christian bookstore do your thinking for you and believe that everything they have there for sale is good and spiritually beneficial to you. If anything, we have proven that the Church unfortunately is identified with really poor art. The Church certainly does not have the market cornered on beauty. A lot of what we do is not very beautiful. The art we make is not very good. A lot of the songs I have heard on Christian radio are just outright misrepresentations of the character of God.

I think you have to learn to discern and look elsewhere and say, “I need to learn how to engage with a God everywhere I can find truth and beauty, regardless of the intention of the maker of that art.” I really believe that is a more biblical worldview. It also keeps us from being people who live in fear. There is no room for living in fear. There is no reason to be afraid. There is no reason to be fearful of secular music. We should learn how to chew on the meat, spit out the bones, to discern the truth and beauty, to commend that rather than to be just completely fearful and put all our security in these categories that don’t mean anything. It’s a dangerous way to live.

The Christian industry, ridiculous as its existence I believe is, is an industry that literally markets records based on the worldview of the artists, which no other industry does. The one thing they do really well is get resources to Christians. I thought this is something I want in the hands of fellow believers. I think that is the audience that this content would be relevant to and so that is the avenue that I took. Providentially, I landed with a label that I had no idea was really given the freedom to go beyond that. That is what I’m trying to do now. I’m not making records specifically and exclusively for the Church anymore.

Like I said, Mockingbird, I believe, deals with much broader issues. There are many more points of connection with even our neighbors that don’t believe what we believe about Jesus but do believe it is right to care for the poor. Maybe that is our connection point. Regardless, the label allows me the freedom to do that. That is a great provision for me, but I do think it is strange that I am in Christian music.

See the entire interview at http://www.relevantmagazine.com/beta/issue_20_webb.php

“The contemporary American church is so largely enculturated to the American ethos of consumerism that it has little power to believe or act.” These words are written in some of the very first pages of Walter Brueggemann’s The Prophetic Imagination. If one year of seminary has done anything for me, it has made me conclude that the American way of life, our focus on consumerism, materialism, and greed, is wrong.
Bruggemann talks in detail about what he calls “The Royal Consciousness,” going in detail first of all about the alternative community that Moses portrayed, breaking away from Egyptian consciousness, and then the days of Solomon. The reign of Solomon was the embodiment of the royal consciousness because it contained sexual immorality, a large bureaucratic government, an army that no longer acted on authentic national interest, a fascination with wisdom (which Bruggemann argues was an effort to rationalize reality), and conscripted labor. Although the Solomic empire was one of affluence, it also led to an oppressive social policy and static religion. These three things, according to Bruggemann, embody the royal consciousness. No longer did Solomon stand in the Mosaic tradition of equality, but affluence gained the upper hand. Justice was replaced with oppression. When criticism came, he silenced it through prohibition or imperviousness.
So what is the prophetic imagination? Bruggemann says that it is the task of prophetic imagination “to cut through the numbness, to penetrate the self-deception, so that the God of endings is confessed as Lord.” The prophet offers symbols that confront the numbness. The prophet brings to the surface those fears which we no longer even admit that we have. The prophet speaks metaphorically about the death we feel around us with anger and passion. Bruggemann says, “The riddle and insight of biblical faith is the awareness that only anguish leads to life, only grieving leads to joy, and only embraced endings permit new beginnings.”
As I read this book, I was struck at how the comparisons between the Solomic empire and America today. I commented to my professor that the books he assigned to read were “really screwing my world up.” Dr. Hawk smiled in that fantastic smile he has and his eyes lit up and he said, “Heaven forbid you should be forced to think in seminary.”
One of the more interesting things about going to an evangelical seminary that has seventy different denominations represented is the frequency you will run into someone who disagrees with you. This has been the case this year at the Brethren-sponsored school that I attend. Although the school is sponsored by Brethren Church, it also has a large United Methodist influence. Being the “questioning Calvinist” that I am, I’ve had some interesting conversations. The funny thing is though that I now count among some of my very best friends a member of the PCUSA, several Anglicans (broken off from the Episcopal Diocese), several United Methodists, a Quaker, and at least one American Baptist. There are others who I do not consider my friends, in particular, one man who likes to spout his borderline prosperity theology and even had the guts to try and use this book to support it. (You ever met one of those guys that when he talks, he is so wrong, you do not know even where to start?) With this consortium of people sitting in our Old Testament class the last day of class, we discussed this book. While others were tip-toeing around the tulips, and my very wrong colleague spewing venomous thoughts, I finally had to say something. Below is a paraphrase:

“As I read this book, I found it hard not to compare the culture of Solomon to American culture. The American church has slid so far downhill that it has embraced the philosophies of the culture and replaced the gospel with marketing strategies and feel-good theology and the [I raised my voice a bit here] the absolute heresy of prosperity theology. We want to sit back in our comfortable chairs and watch life get better while out brothers and sisters in other countries are being persecuted and discovering what it really means to be Christ-followers. I find it hard not to believe that very soon, the American church will soon fall under persecution.”

There were audible gasps. And then there was silence. Until my professor finally broke up the silence and said, “Well on that note…” At that point, a nervous laughter escaped from the class. “…we’ll dismiss the class.” Suddenly, and only for a moment, I was a celebrity. I was getting pats on the back and handshakes. People were saying, “I have been thinking that and wanted to say it all year.” I gingerly approached Dr. Hawk who greeted me with a smile. “I didn’t ruffle too many feathers, did I?” I asked him.
“It’s ok. I was trying to get someone to speak up and contribute to the conversation and you did and you said exactly what I was thinking.”
After class, I was a little dismayed. I did not consider myself a prophet at that moment, but I thought of Jeremiah and his weeping. I did not want pats on the back or handshakes. I wanted someone to say it before I had to. I wanted to turn around and look at all my friends and scream at them, “Why can’t you see this? You are all good students of God’s Word and good student theologians. Why can’t you see this?” I admit, I was even a bit angry. For someone to congratulate me that I had announced that I thought that this country would fall under judgment some day just seemed to not leave me. I really did hurt for my country and I still do.
This is the part of the essay where I’m supposed to give concluding thoughts and wrap up this nice little story in a neat package and serve it to you. The problem is that I can’t. I do not what to say or what to write that will make you or me feel as sense of conclusion, nor do I think that you should. I will say that I am finally learning what it means to be called to ministry and it is a burden that I would not wish on anyone.

So I took a “spiritual retreat” last week. There were some things in my head and in my spirit that I really needed to get straight. I went out to the local park, Brookside Park, here in Ashland. I found a nice park bench and just sat there for a few moments. I really had no plans, just wanted to spend some time with God. I finally started to read about the kings of Israel and Judah and all the fun that they had trying to duke it out and find who was going to be on top. Although I love history (btw, someone should make that a movie), it was not really spiritually nourishing. I went back to watching the ducks in the pond…and I think I learned more from them than I thought.
There were about five families of ducks. Each family of ducks seemed to be in a different stage of development. There were the very young ducks, the ones that had just learned to swim. The mama duck kept pretty close to them. Then there were the slightly older ducks; the mama duck was close, but not too close. The third group of ducks were like junior highers, always wanting to run off and get themselves in trouble, but the mama duck was never far behind, honking her admonishments. The fourth and fifth groups looked like teenagers, getting ready to leave home for good. You could barely tell the difference between the ducklings and their mama.
Then there was the mallard, the guardian of the pond. Of course, he is regaled in his green-feathered head, very much looking like a warrior and acting like one. He would slowly circle the pond, for the most part, and if any, and I do mean any duck tried to get in the pond and did not belong there, he would honk and flutter his wings, and do his best to get those ducks out of there.
I guess what struck me the most is how much God is like a mama duck. By the way, this isn’t going to be some huge theological argument. It might even sound trite, but bear with me. I think that God lets us explore a bit on our own until we get to a point where we might go too far. He continually honks at us to let us know that He is there and when we might go too far, those honks get a little louder.
That mallard duck reminded me of a guardian. The church really needs those. Its not that we do not want people to come to church, but even in that, we must be on guard against those people that only come to us to stir up trouble, those “other ducks” that might only be there to destroy the pond, i.e., the church.
The rest of the retreat was great. I read some in 1 Peter and walked around and prayed. The biggest thing on my heart was Kandice. It has been so hard seeing God through all of this. There are times when I feel like he is just out of reach. I think that it is these times that he uses to test us. There seem to be many competing and confusing voices in my head and somehow I am supposed to discern the voice of God. It’s not easy, let me tell you.
June 22nd is coming soon, so please keep her in your prayers. You will be undergoing a total colectomy (her entire large intestine will be removed). We both covet your prayers.


I Can't Do This - Plumb
Genre/Lang. : Christian
I woke up late. Guess I'm never really early. I hesitate, Only to fail. I get so tired Of procrastinating. I need a change. I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't do this by myself. I can't do this. I can't do this. Oh God, I need your help. I'm standing still, Moved so peaceful. I can't pretend That I'm fine. I get so ill, Crazy, agitated When I'm not really dying. I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't do this by myself. I can't do this. I can't do this. Oh God, I need your help. Press into me. (Press into me.) Breathe the air. (Breathe the air.) Bask in me. (Bask in me.) You'll be free To do anything. I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't do this by myself. I can't do this. I can't do this. Oh God, I need your help. I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't do this by myself. I can't do this. I can't do this. Oh God, I need your help.