Televangelist Benny Hinn, who became a millionaire by making worshipers donate to him, said that his prosperity gospel “It’s an offense to the Lord,” and vows he will never ask for money again

By Julio Severo

Televangelist Benny Hinn, who became a millionaire by preaching the prosperity gospel, has now made a stunning rejecting of the practice and declared that “it’s an offense to the Lord.”

His form of the prosperity gospel got him rich by challenging people to give large sums of money if they wanted a big blessing.

Hinn, who has an estimated fortune of $60 million, now says the “Holy Ghost is just fed up” with the prosperity gospel and vowed never again to ask for money.

“I’m sorry to say that prosperity has gone a little crazy and I’m correcting my own theology and you need to all know it. Because when I read the Bible now, I don’t see the Bible in the same eyes I saw 20 years ago,” Hinn said.

“I think it’s an offense to the Lord, it’s an offense to say give $1,000. I think it’s an offense to the Holy Spirit to place a price on the Gospel. I’m done with it. I will never again ask you to give $1,000 or whatever amount because I think the Holy Ghost is just fed up with it. I think it hurts the Gospel, so I’m making this statement for the first time in my life and frankly, I don't care what people think about me anymore. When you look at the word of God… if I hear one more time, break the back of debt with $1,000, I’m gonna rebuke them,” he said.

“I think that’s buying the Gospel. That’s buying the blessing. That’s grieving the Holy Spirit… If you are not giving because you love Jesus, don’t bother giving. I think giving has become such a gimmick… it’s making me sick to my stomach,” he added.

Daily Mail reported that Hinn’s ministry collected roughly $100 million in annual donations.

Hinn is known for his faith healing summits that are often held in huge stadiums across the country.

The faith healing services often show believers being knocked over by the Holy Spirit. They also claim to have been cured of illnesses through Hinn's services.

Hinn, who was born in Israel and grew up in Canada, became a devout evangelical as a child. He moved to Florida in his 20s and married his wife — the daughter of a preacher. It was then that he also became a preacher. He started his TV show in the early 1990s and it quickly started airing worldwide.

Hinn had his Texas offices raided by the IRS back in 2017 and he was one of six television evangelists investigated by the Senate Finance Committee in 2007.

The prosperity gospel is the teaching and belief among Pentecostals and charismatics that Christians can obtain wealth and health by exercising their faith.

There are varying degrees in teaching and practice of the prosperity gospel. Some prosperity gospel televangelists insist that you can receive blessings only by giving money in the church. This was Hinn’s case.

Other prosperity gospel televangelists insist that miracles happen only by faith, regardless donations. This was the case of the late televangelist Rex Humbard.

The prosperity gospel, which was born in the United States, the most capitalist and Protestant nation in the world, is a distinctly capitalist form of the U.S. evangelicalism that was exported to several nations around the world. In Brazil, prosperity gospel televangelists have been in the forefront of the cultural war and, interestingly, Brazilian socialists have said that the number 1 enemy of socialism in Brazil is the prosperity gospel.

In fact, socialist Fernando Haddad, who lost the Brazilian presidential election to Jair Bolsonaro in 2018, blamed his defeat to charismatics and the prosperity gospel.

The prosperity gospel threatens socialism in Brazil because while socialists teach the poor to support socialist politicians to get health, education and a better life, prosperity gospel televangelists teach the poor to seek intensely God for health, education and a better life.

Socialism entered Latin America enticing the poor that they could get better lives by taking from others and helping Marxists into power.

The prosperity gospel, in its several forms, came directly from America and entered Latin America by encouraging and motivating the poor to work hard and pursue a professional objective by seeking God intensely. The prosperity gospel teaches its adherents in Latin America to hate abortion, homosexuality and similar ideologies. So it is no wonder that the left hates it. The only surprise is why Calvinists are so united with Marxists, socialists, progressives and even sorcerers who fight this capitalist theology.

I welcome Hinn’s decision to leave his radical form of the prosperity gospel that made people donate millions to him. But other forms of the prosperity gospel should be encouraged, not only because they produce a capitalist spirit in poor Christians, but also because they threaten socialism.

The biggest enemies of the prosperity gospel in Brazil are socialists, including secular, Catholic and Protestant socialists. This speaks volumes.

The degrees of difference in the prosperity gospel are vast. For example, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG) is a neo-Pentecostal denomination that owns TV Record, the second largest TV channel in Brazil. UCKG preaches the prosperity gospel and uses Hinn’s radical form of teaching that people can be blessed only by giving more and more money to the church, but UCKG is very hostile to all the other prosperity gospel churches in Brazil. UCKG is the only neo-Pentecostal church in Brazil defending abortion, a stance that is compatible with the Presbyterian Church USA, the largest Calvinist denomination in the U.S. And UCKG defends cessationism, teaching that prophecy, revelation and other gifts of the Holy Spirit today are demonic. UCKG teaches that only the Bible is necessary and that the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit ceased 2,000 years ago, a stance that is compatible with cessationist Calvinists.

Nevertheless, a Brazilian Calvinist theologian speaking at the Ligonier National Conference used UCKG as a “perfect” example of the prosperity gospel, being very careful not to mention that UCKG is as cessationist as he is!

Cessationist Calvinists are celebrating Hinn’s decision. Many of them have a socialist background or are friendly to Calvinist socialists. Even though they are not hesitant to call any form of the prosperity gospel heresy, they are very hesitant to call any form of socialism among Calvinists heresy.

The prosperity gospel in its several forms is not present among Calvinists. But socialism in its several forms, including the old Social Gospel and the gay theology, is present among Calvinists. So it would be very wise for Calvinists to focus on their massive domestic socialist problem, not on the prosperity gospel, which has been the most effective form of evangelical capitalism to fight socialism.

Often cessationist Calvinists attack the prosperity gospel, making no distinction in its several degrees, because they oppose everything Pentecostal and charismatic, especially spiritual gifts of the Holy Spirit. They believe that these gifts ceased 2,000 years ago and that Christians who say today that they have such gifts are heretical or under heretic and demonic delusion.

This is the case of Calvinist theologian John MacArthur. In his book “Strange Fire: The Danger of Offending the Holy Spirit with Counterfeit Worship,” he mentions negatively Benny Hinn 199 times, even though Hinn was not invited to preach in Calvinist churches. “Strange Fire,” which makes no negative mention of PCUSA and the homosexualist Calvinism of the Gospel Coalition, uses the prosperity gospel to attack all charismatics, Pentecostals and neo-Pentecostals.

In “Strange Fire,” MacArthur said,

“By elevating the authority of experience over the authority of Scripture, the Charismatic Movement has destroyed the church’s immune system—uncritically granting free access to every imaginable form of heretical teaching and practice. Put bluntly, charismatic theology has made no contribution to true biblical theology or interpretation; rather, it represents a deviant mutation of the truth. Like a deadly virus, it gains access into the church by maintaining a superficial connection to certain characteristics of biblical Christianity, but in the end it always corrupts and distorts sound teaching. The resulting degradation, like a doctrinal version of Frankenstein’s monster, is a hideous hybrid of heresy, ecstasy, and blasphemy awkwardly dressed in the tattered remnants of evangelical language.”

MacArthur repeatedly calls the Pentecostal, neo-Pentecostal, and charismatic movement “heretical.” One of the many excuses he uses to apply this extremist label to Pentecostals is in his book, which says: “Pentecostals and charismatics elevate religious experience over biblical truth. Though many of them pay lip service to the authority of God’s Word, in practice they deny it.”

The opposite is true. I give an example of MacArthur’s own Calvinist backyard. The Gospel Coalition, a group formed exclusively by Calvinists, has been advocating the idea that an evangelical can be homosexual and minister as long as he limits his homosexuality to thoughts and desires without practicing them. In fact, the Gospel Coalition has several members who are supposedly non-practicing homosexual ministers.

MacArthur is also a member of the Gospel Coalition. This is the perfect case of putting the personal experience of sin, whether in thoughts, desires, or actions, of homosexual Calvinist ministers above God’s Word. In fact, it is not the Pentecostal churches that are leading the apostasy of ordaining homosexual ministers. It is Calvinist churches. Pharisaism reigns in cessationist Calvinism.

Benny Hinn has done the right thing by renouncing an extremist prosperity theology that demands money in exchange for blessings. But the other less radical capitalist forms of the prosperity theology that confront socialism and encourage and motivate poor Christians to seek health, employment, and a better life in God, not in socialism, should be strengthened.

As for John MacArthur, who demonizes Pentecostals, Charismatics, and neo-Pentecostals, and all capitalist forms of the prosperity theology, he should focus on the Gospel Coalition that accepts homosexual Calvinist ministers who place their homosexual experience and feelings above the Word of God.

Another harmful feeling is envy. MacArthur and other envious Calvinists should not use the hardcore form of the prosperity gospel formerly preached by Hinn as an excuse to attack all forms of this gospel and, worst of all, attack all charismatic, Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal movements, which is exactly what he does. Such feeling is a hardcore envy, especially because the prosperity gospel, with its distinct American capitalist evangelicalism, has had a prominent benevolent role to encourage and motivate the Third World poor and threaten socialism. MacArthur and other Calvinists should praise God, not dedicate their lives to a hardcore envy against charismatics, Pentecostals and neo-Pentecostals.

If all forms of the prosperity gospel are destroyed, as cessationist Calvinists want, who will be left to encourage and motivate the poor to pursue a better life through a biblical capitalism? Who will be left to fight socialism so prevalent among Catholics and even Calvinists in Latin America?

With information from DailyMail.

Portuguese version of this article: Televangelista Benny Hinn, que se tornou milionário fazendo adoradores darem contribuições para ele, disse que sua teologia da prosperidade “é uma ofensa ao Senhor” e promete que nunca mais pedirá dinheiro

Source: Last Days Watchman

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