Benny Hinn

Toufik Benedictus "Benny" Hinn
Born	December 3, 1952 (1952-12-03) (age 58) Jaffa, Israel[1]
Occupation	Televangelist Author Speaker
Spouse	Suzanne Harthern (m. 4 August 1979, Divorced)
Children	three daughters, one son

Toufik Benedictus "Benny" Hinn (Greek: Τουφικ Βενέδικτος "βενι" Χιν, Arabic: توفيق بندكتوس "بني" الحن‎, Hebrew: תאופיק בנדיקטוס (בני) הין; born December 3, 1952) is a televangelist, best known for his regular "Miracle Crusades" – revival meeting/faith healing summits that are usually held in large stadiums in major cities, which are later broadcast worldwide on his television program, This Is Your Day.^[2]

Contents 1 History 2 Ministry and theology 3 Missions 4 Criticism and controversy 4.1 Senate investigation 5 Personal life 6 Bibliography 7 See also 8 References 9 External links

History

Hinn was born in Jaffa, in 1952, in the then newly established state of Israel^[3]. His father was of Greek heritage and in communion with the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem of the Eastern Orthodox Churches and his mother an Armenian in communion with the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem. He was raised within the Eastern Orthodox tradition.^[4]

Soon after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War (the Six-Day War), Hinn's family emigrated to Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where he attended but later prematurely left the Georges Vanier Secondary School. In his books, Hinn states that his father was the mayor of Jaffa at the time of his birth, and that as a child, he was socially isolated and was handicapped by a severe stutter, but was nonetheless a first-class student.^[5] These claims, however, have been disputed by critics of Hinn.^[6] As a teenager in Toronto, Hinn converted from Greek Orthodoxy to Pentecostalism, eventually joining a singing troupe made up of young evangelicals. According to a 2004 CBC report on Hinn, his newfound religious devotion during this period became so intense that his family became concerned that he was turning into a religious fanatic. Hinn was taught the bible and mentored by Winston I. Nunes of Faith Temple in Toronto.

He has written that on December 21, 1973, he traveled by charter bus from Toronto to Pittsburgh to attend a "miracle service" conducted by evangelist Kathryn Kuhlman. Although he never met her personally, he often attended her “healing services” and has often cited her as an influence in his life.^[5]

Upon moving to the United States, Hinn travelled to Orlando, Florida, where he founded the Orlando Christian Center in 1983. Eventually, Hinn began claiming that God was using him as a conduit for divine healing powers, and began holding faith healing services in his church. These new "Miracle Crusades" were soon held at large stadiums and auditoriums across the United States and the world, the first nationally televised service being held in Flint, Michigan, in 1989. During the early 1990s, Hinn launched a new daily talk show called This Is Your Day, which to this day airs clips of supposed miracles from Hinn's Miracle Crusades. The program premiered on the Trinity Broadcasting Network of Paul Crouch, who would become one of Hinn's most outspoken defenders and allies. Hinn's ministry began to rapidly grow from there, winning praise as well as criticism from fellow Christian leaders. In 1999, he stepped down as pastor of the Orlando Christian Center, moving his ministry's administrative headquarters to Grapevine, Texas, a suburb of Fort Worth, while hosting This Is Your Day from a television studio in Orange County, California, where he now lives with his family. His former church was renamed Faith World Church under pastoring of Clint Brown, who merged his Orlando church with Hinn's.

Ministry and theology

Benny Hinn is a well-known Christian evangelist and Bible teacher who practices faith healing. He is the author of a number of best-selling inspirational Christian books. His thirty-minute TV program This Is Your Day is among the world’s most-watched Christian programs, seen on various Christian television networks, including Trinity Broadcasting Network, Daystar Television Network, Revelation TV, Grace TV, Vision TV, INSP Networks, and The God Channel.

Hinn conducts regular "Miracle Crusades" – revival meeting/faith healing events held in sports stadiums in major cities throughout the world. Tens of millions attend his Holy Spirit Miracle Crusades each year. Benny Hinn claims to have spoken to one billion people through his crusades, including Memorable crusades with attendance of 7.3 million people (in three services) in India, the largest healing service in recorded history.^[7][8][9] Hinn is frequently welcomed during his crusades by kings, prime ministers, and heads of state.

Hinn's teachings are Evangelical and charismatic, accepting the validity of spiritual gifts, and Word of Faith in origin, with a focus on financial prosperity. Some doctrine and practices that Hinn teaches would be thought unusual in mainstream Christianity.^[10] The charismatic Christian community (who, according to a recent study by The Barna Group, make up 46% of US Protestants and 36% of US Catholics),^[11] is very diverse, and Hinn's ideas would only be accepted in some constituencies.

Missions

Benny Hinn Ministries supports 60 Missions organization across the world and several Orphanages across the nations. Housing and feeding over 100,000 children a year and also supporting 45,000 children daily because of his donors, includinga Hospital and Emergency Care in Calcutta, India. 200,000 hospital patients are provided free medical care every year and much more. ^{[12] [13]}

Benny Hinn Ministries donated $100,000 for Relief Supplies to Hurricane Katrina Victims in 2005, ^[14] and $250,000 to Tsunami Relief Effort in 2007. ^[15]

Criticism and controversy

By far the most controversial aspect of Hinn's ministry is his claim to have the "anointing", the special power given to him by God to heal the sick. At Hinn's Miracle Crusades, he has allegedly healed attendees of blindness, deafness, cancer, AIDS, and severe physical injuries. Since 1993, however, investigative news reports by programs such as Inside Edition, Dateline NBC, the Australian edition of 60 Minutes, and several network affiliates in the United States have called these claims into question.

Hinn made a number of unfulfilled (religious) prophecies for the 90s, such as God destroying America's homosexual community in 1995, the death of Fidel Castro,^[16] the election of the first female president of the USA,^[17] the East Coast of the United States being devastated by earthquakes,^[16] etc., all before the third millennium. Hinn also appeared on the Trinity Broadcasting Network in October 1999 to claim that God had given him a vision that thousands of dead people would be resurrected after watching the network—laying out a scenario of people placing their dead loved ones' hands on TV screens tuned into the station—and that TBN would be "an extension of Heaven to Earth."

In April 2001 HBO aired a documentary called "A Question of Miracles" on Hinn and fellow faith healer Reinhard Bonnke. ^[18] The director Antony Thomas told CNN's Kyra Phillips that they did not find cases where people were healed by Hinn.^[19] Thomas told the New York Times about Hinn's claims, "If I had seen miracles, I would have been happy to trumpet it . . . but in retrospect, I think they do more damage to Christianity than the most committed atheist."^[20]

In March 2005, Ministry Watch, an independent evangelical organization which reviews Christian ministries for financial transparency and efficiency and advises potential donors accordingly, issued a Donor Alert stating that "the reported exorbitant spending of the Hinn family reveals that BHM has far more money than it needs to carry out its ministry" and advising Christians to "prayerfully consider withholding contributions to Benny Hinn" while praying for his restoration and repentance.^[21] Benny Hinn Ministries is not a member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.^[22]

In December 2006, BHM sent out a mailing asking for donations towards a new Gulfstream G4SP jet valued at an estimated US$36 million and costing over US$600,000/year to maintain and operate.^[23]

In November 2004, the CBC Television show the fifth estate did a special titled "Do You Believe in Miracles" on the apparent transgressions committed by Benny Hinn's ministry.^[24] With the aid of hidden cameras and crusade witnesses, the producers of the show attempted to demonstrate Benny's misappropriation of funds, his fabrication of the truth, and the way in which his staff chose crusade audience members to come on stage for televised healings.^[24] In particular, the investigation highlighted the fact that the seriously disabled who attend a Hinn crusade are never allowed up on stage; those who attempt to get in the line of possible healings are intercepted and directed to return to their seats. At one Canadian service, hidden cameras showed a mother who was carrying her muscular distrophy-afflicted daughter, Grace, being stopped by two screeners when they attempted to get into the line for a possible blessing from Benny. The screeners asked the mother if Grace had been healed, and when the mother replied in the negative, they were told to return to their seats; the pair got out of line, but Grace, wanting "Pastor Benny to pray for [her]", asked her mother to support her as she tried to walk as a show of "her faith in action", according to the mother. After several unsuccessful attempts at walking, the pair left the arena in tears, both visibly upset at being turned aside and crying as they explained to the undercover reporters that all Grace had wanted was for Benny to pray for her, but the staffers rushed them out of the line when they found out Grace had not been healed.^[24] A week later at a service in Toronto, Baptist evangelist Justin Peters, who wrote his Masters in Divinity thesis on Benny Hinn^[25] and has attended numerous Hinn crusades since 2000 as part of his research for his thesis and for a seminar he developed about the Word of Faith movement entitled A Call for Discernment^[26], also demonstrated to the hidden cameras that "people who look like me"--Peters has cerebral palsy, walks with arm-crutches, and is obviously and visibly disabled--"are never allowed on stage[...]it's always somebody who has some disability or disease that cannot be readily seen." Like Grace and her mother, Peters was quickly intercepted as he came out of the wheelchair section (there is one at every crusade, situated at the back of the audience, far away from the stage, and never filmed for Hinn's TV show) in an attempt to join the line of those waiting to go onstage, and was told to take a seat.^[24]

Benny Hinn claims proof from the faithful's doctors that healings have been successful, and that every miracle claimed onstage has been checked and verified before any of the healings are shown on-air.^[24] However, according to the show, when the producers of the fifth estate requested information on over 70 miracles claimed during three crusades in Toronto--over half of which had already been shown on This Is Your Day by the time the producers made the request--Hinn's ministry would not provide any information to verify any of the miracles claimed. When pressed, Hinn's ministry did eventually provide information on five miracles spanning several years--though none from the Toronto crusades in question--that the ministry claims have been verified and documented, but the producers were unable to independently verify any of these cases because the people involved either could not or would not provide medical records to document the veracity of their healings.^[24] Producers for the fifth estate were able to track down several people supposedly 'healed' at Hinn crusades around the U.S. and Canada; in every case investigated, none of these people were healed, and most had never heard from the Ministry at all after the crusades, much less had any requests to verify their healings.^[24] For example, the show presented the case of a 9-year-old blind boy, William Vandenkolk, whom Hinn promised on stage at a Las Vegas crusade in 2001 that "our ministry will set up a fund" for his college education after William said that his vision was clearing and that he could "see better". When contacted, the boy's uncle and guardian, Randy Melthratter, said that William suffers from an incurable eye disease called retinoschisis, and that not only was William still blind, but that it had taken over a year to finally get information from the ministry about any fund established for William, and that the boy had yet to receive a single penny from Hinn's ministry.^[24] As of 2009, William Vandenkolk--who has reached college age--still has yet to receive any money from Benny Hinn Ministries.^[27]

The show approximates that Benny Hinn Ministries takes in about $200 million yearly.

Senate investigation

On November 6, 2007, United States senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa announced an investigation of Hinn's ministry by the United States Senate Committee on Finance. In a letter to BHM,^[28] Grassley asked for the ministry to divulge financial information^[29] to the Senate Committee on Finance to determine if Hinn made any personal profit from financial donations, and requested that Hinn's ministry make the information available by December 6, 2007. The investigation also scrutinized five other televangelists: Paula White, Kenneth Copeland, Eddie L. Long, Joyce Meyer, and Creflo Dollar^[30][31] . On December 6, 2007, Hinn told the Associated Press that he would not respond to the inquiry until 2008.^[32] Hinn's ministry has since responded to the inquiry, and Senator Grassley commented that, "... Benny Hinn [has] engaged in open and honest dialogue with committee staff. They have not only provided responses to every question but, in the spirit of true cooperation, also have provided information over and above what was requested."^[33]

Personal life

Hinn married Suzanne Harthern on 4 August 1979.^[34] Harthern filed papers in Orange County (CA) Superior Court on 1 February 2010 seeking a divorce, citing "irreconcilable differences". ^[35] The couple have four children together.

Bibliography

• Benny Hinn. Kathryn Kuhlman: Her Spiritual Legacy and Its Impact on My Life. W Pub Group. ISBN 0-7852-7888-5. 
• Benny Hinn. Good Morning, Holy Spirit. Nelson Books. ISBN 0-7852-7176-7. 
• Benny Hinn. He Touched Me an Autobiography. Nelson Books. ISBN 0-7852-7887-7. 
• Benny Hinn. The Anointing. Nelson Books. ISBN 0-7852-7168-6. 
• Benny Hinn. Welcome, Holy Spirit How You Can Experience The Dynamic Work Of The Holy Spirit In Your Life. Nelson Books. ISBN 0-7852-7169-4. 
• Benny Hinn. This Is Your Day for a Miracle. Orlando, FL: Creation House. ISBN 0-88419-391-8. 
• Benny Hinn. The Biblical Road to Blessing. Nashville, Tenn: Thomas Nelson Inc. ISBN 0-7852-7517-7. 
• Benny Hinn. Miracle Of Healing. Nashville, Tenn: J. Countryman. ISBN 0-8499-5399-5. 
• Benny Hinn. The Blood. Lake Mary, FL: Charisma House. ISBN 0-88419-763-8. 
• Benny Hinn. Going Deeper with the Holy Spirit. Benny Hinn Ministries. ISBN 1-59024-039-1. 
• Benny Hinn. Lord, I Need a Miracle. Nashville, Tenn: Thomas Nelson Inc. ISBN 0-8407-6251-8. 
• Benny Hinn. Total Recovery, Supernatural Restoration and Release. Dallas, Texas: Clarion Call Marketing, Inc. ISBN 1-59574-038-4. 

See also

• Charismatic movement
• Kathryn Kuhlman
• Prosperity Gospel
• Televangelism
• Word of Faith

References

External links

• Benny Hinn Ministries – Official website
• Faith World – Official website Hinn's former church
• Ministry Watch Report on Benny Hinn