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
