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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Rex Humbard, Premier Televangelist Who Blessed Millions

By Julio Severo

The first time Rex Humbard met Elvis Presley, “the King of Rock and Roll” asked the televangelist a pointed question:

Rex Humbard

“The Lord’s coming soon, isn’t he?”

Maude Aimee Humbard, Rex’s wife, said to Presley, “I’ve been praying that you would dedicate your life to Jesus Christ.”

“Elvis went to pieces,” Humbard wrote. “He cried so hard he began to tremble.”

Humbard wrote that he and his wife joined hands with Presley and prayed for him. Then, at the end of the meeting, Presley said, “You and Maude Aimee coming here today and praying with me is the most wonderful Christmas present that Elvis Presley has ever received, and I want to thank you.”

The relationship between the televangelist and the late music icon is explained in Humbard’s book, The Soul Winning Century, The Humbard Family Legacy… 100 Years of Ministry 1906-2006, published in 2006 by Clarion Call Marketing of Dallas.

Humbard preached a sermon at Presley’s funeral in 1977 in Memphis.

According to the New York Times, “Elvis Presley was a loyal viewer” and admirer of Humbard.

Even though coming from a background as a gospel singer in the Assemblies of God, Presley draft away from the Gospel. He began to get interested again in the Gospel only through the simple message of Humbard, a charismatic televangelist.

Presley attended no church and Humbard’s program became his weekly service. Just as Presley, millions of people did not attend any church, or because they were not Christian or any other eventuality.

“The vast majority of people do not go to church and the only way we can reach them is through TV,” Humbard wrote in his autobiography, “Miracles in My Life.”

“We must go into their homes — into their hearts — to bring them the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

The special slogan of his program was “You Are Loved!”

His program became an important service even in Brazil. There was a time when my mother had no church near to go, and Humbard’s program was our only church service and encouraged us as nothing else did.

Rex Humbard was the first evangelist to have a weekly national television program in America. His program combined some elements of popular entertainment with evangelism, an approach also followed by Billy Graham. They were pioneers in combining preaching and music.

In spite of the modern approach, he said to his audience, “What America needs is an old-fashioned, Holy Ghost, God-sent, soul-savin’, devil-hatin’ revival!”

Humbard’s grandchildren singing in his TV program

His program was very pro-family: Humbard, his wife, children and grandchildren sang Christian songs in each program.

Humbard began his career in broadcasting at age 13, singing gospel songs on radio. He was ordained during the 1940s and in 1949 he began airing his sermons from a CBS-TV affiliate in Indianapolis, when the visual medium was largely untapped by evangelists. In 1952, weekly Sunday messages began broadcasting from his nondenominational Cathedral of Tomorrow, a renovated theater that seated 5,400 people, in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.

Later, his program, carried by more than 2,000 TV stations and broadcast in some 77 languages, featured revival preaching mixed with lively musical numbers, including folksy guitar music and songs performed by Humbard, a choir, and guest performers such as Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash.

In the last 1970s, B.J. Thomas, a popular singer, appeared in Humbard’s show, telling his testimony of conversion to Jesus Christ and singing Christian songs. After Elvis Presley, B.J. Thomas was probably the most famous American singer in that generation.

At its peak of popularity in the 1970s, Humbard’s program attracted some 20 million viewers.

His ministry eventually extended to Canada, Europe, the Middle East, Far East, Australia, Latin America and Africa, giving it a worldwide reach of 8 million viewers, greater than any of his contemporaries by the late 1970s. In Brazil, he attracted large crowds at the giant soccer stadium in São Paulo for weeks.

Critics of televangelists often accuse: “Why are not televangelists going to preach the Gospel in faraway poor nations?” Rex Humbard did it. He spent millions of dollars, of the donations from his U.S. supporters, to have a Christian program reaching Africa, Brazil and Latin America.

Poor nations could not afford his program. Even so, U.S. supporters donated to helped Humbard to reach these nations.

“One of the distinctions of Rex Humbard’s ministry is the popularity maintained in South American countries, especially Brazil, where during a recent crusade appearance in Rio de Janeiro, more than 180,000 people filled a soccer stadium to hear the word of God,” according to Fort Worth Star Telegram.

“Seek the Savior,” Humbard would urge, “and all other moral problems will solve themselves.”

Humbard’s Sunday television program premiered in Brazil in the old Tupi Network, currently SBT, in 1975. This program, which was the first major charismatic influence in Brazil and began when there was no charismatic (neo-Pentecostal) church in Brazil, drew soon the attention of evangelicals from different denominations, and when Humbard visited Brazil for the first time in 1978, 80,000 people filled the Pacaembu stadium, in São Paulo, and 100,000 filled the Maracanã stadium, no Rio de Janeiro.

Humbard family in Brasília, Brazil

Subsequently it was broadcast by Manchete TV until 1984, when it went offline because of lack of financial resources.

In one service alone, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, more than 180,000 Brazilians attended the one televised crusade meeting and over 100,000 came forward to dedicate their lives to Christ. In the South American crusades, over one million people attended in person to hear the family sing and Rex bring the word.

In his crusades, he would ask: “How many of you here believe in Jesus Christ? Let’s see your hands.” A sea of hands would rise.

Last month, my Portuguese blog received this message from a reader:

“Today, August 8, 2017, as a 57-year old man reviewing my papers and an old picture of him [Humbard] and wife and children dated February 1978, I had the curiosity to see (know) on internet news about my spiritual father wondering if he still was in this our material world, but I learnt about his passing 10 years after. On October 1977, I was a teenager when I began to watch on TV Pastor Rex Humbard, and I fell in love with his messages. I was extremely Catholic in that time, but one day on October 1977 I was watching him in a very small TV set that my father had received as a gift from his boss, a kindhearted bank clerk. In this point the Holy Spirit touched me powerfully and I spent some three days silently and discreetly crying, so that my family would not perceive it. Afterwards, a Baptist minister explained to me that it was a conversion and, to sum up, from that point on my life experienced only victory.” — Deli, in Ibirataia, Bahia, Brazil.

Humbard’s reach was incredible. He had a major role in the expansion of the evangelical, Pentecostal and charismatic (neo-Pentecostal) movement in Brazil.

In 1977, 500 million heard or saw Humbard’s one-hour radio/TV gospel service broadcast from Jerusalem on Christmas Eve in seven languages simultaneously.

He was termed one of the “Top 25 Principal Architects of the American Century” by U.S. News & World Report on December 27, 1999.

Humbard grandchildren praising Jesus

Humbard not only witnessed a century of Pentecostal expansion, he contributed significantly to the growth of the worldwide Pentecostal and charismatic movement. It is doubtful whether Evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity would have spread as wide and as fast as they have during the past half century without the work of televangelists.

Televangelists, 1979. Left to right  Demos Shakarian, Billy Graham, Rex Humbard, and Pat Robertson.

Humbard paved the way for generations of televangelists, not only using television to spread his message but also building his own studio broadcasting facilities along with his church. And he kept up with advances in aviation, flying his staff to televised rallies all over the United States and Canada; by 1971 he had bought his third plane, a Lockheed Electra turboprop.

In the late 1960’s, Time Magazine came to Akron, Ohio, to meet with Rex Humbard in preparation for a feature story. The magazine’s editor-in-chief himself flew to Akron to write the story.

After meeting with Rex and his family for many days, he explained to Rex that he did not know what to call Rex and his ministry. As far as the editor-in-chief understood, Rex was a pastor, evangelist and a television preacher. When the article came out in print, the editor had chosen a unique phrase to describe Rex, referring to him as simply “the Tele-Evangelist.”

This was a totally new phrase, never before used to describe a television pastor.

Time magazine said, “Today, Rex Humbard has come closer than any other human being in history… to preaching the Gospel in all of the world… more than any other evangelist, he has taken up the challenge.”

His full name was Alpha Rex Emmanuel Humbard and he was a son of an itinerant preacher, Alpha E. Humbard, and Martha Bell Childers Humbard. When he was 2 days old, he said, his mother consecrated him to God’s service.

His father was born in 1890 near Little Rock, Arkansas, and he had a rough childhood. Poverty, fights, liquor, and hard work dominated the world in which young Alpha was reared. However, he sensed God’s calling at a young age and overcame the odds to answer this call. Alpha was a practical, direct, no-nonsense kind of preacher whose compassion for people overcame any deficit created by his lack of formal education. Perhaps it was this lack of high culture — combined with a dependence upon God — that allowed him to touch the masses where they were at.

Alpha once recalled that a seminary-trained minister bitterly complained that, while he was a learned man with good diction and degrees, he could not draw the crowds like Alpha, whom he described as “an old farm boy, a clodhopper who can’t talk good English.” Alpha recalled that he recommended that the minister throw away his cigar, which he was smoking while complaining, and get on his knees and pray. Alpha was not alone — his innovative, sometimes rough-and-tumble ways reflected a whole generation of early Pentecostal preachers.

He attended the Assemblies of God in 1914, but never joined that church. Alpha built up a thriving church, orphanage, and publishing house near Hot Springs.

Alpha’s group seemed not to espouse strange tongues as the initial evidence of the Holy Spirit, as taught by the Assemblies of God. This view would put him in par with modern charismatics, who do not see the gift tongues as the first evidence. It attracted independent-minded Pentecostals from across the nation.

It was into this Pentecostal entrepreneurial preacher’s family that Rex Humbard was born in 1919. In the summer of 1932, young Rex watched a Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus tent fill with crowds in Hot Springs. While he was not allowed to attend such “worldly” diversions, he did draw some heavenly inspiration from the event. He promised himself that he would “spend [his] life trying to put God on Main Street.” As he grew up, he saw how gospel music attracted crowds.

It should come as no surprise, then, that Rex met his wife, Maude Aimee, while singing gospel music. Rex not only impressed Maude Aimee, but also her pastor, Albert Ott of Bethel Temple Assembly of God. Ott brought the Humbards on staff at his Dallas church. Rex and Maude Aimee married in 1942 and traveled with the Humbard family ministry for the next ten years. Following a successful meeting in Akron, Ohio, Rex decided to leave the family ministry and to pastor a local church in 1953. The Akron congregation, Calvary Temple, was renamed Cathedral of Tomorrow when a large round building was erected in 1958. Seating 5,400 people, it became one of the largest churches in the United States.

Rex, like his father, did not teach initial evidence doctrine of the baptism in the Holy Spirit and emphasized evangelism rather than Pentecostal doctrines. This caused some confusion among some evangelicals and Pentecostals, who were uncertain which camp he was in.

Rex Humbard praying for prayer requests from viewers. Each program had room to pray for healing, salvation, deliverance and prosperity.

Humbard had not formal theological training, but this was no barrier for his powerful ministry. Although he lacked a theological degree, Humbard was ordained in Greenville, South Carolina, where the family had run a revival meeting, and received credentials from an organization of independent Pentecostal ministers.

Unlike Pat Robertson, Rev. Jerry Falwell and other televangelists, Humbard, as Billy Graham, avoided the political messages of the religious right. “For me to preach about the Vietnam War,” he said in the early ’70s, “would be like going to a blacksmith to get a tooth pulled.” If Jesus were preaching today, he said a decade later, “He would never get into politics.”

His television programs were essentially praise and preaching programs that highlighted God’s love and forgiveness and avoided controversial political or doctrinal debates.

Humbard family in Brasilia, Brazil

In spite of not declaring openly his conservative, Pentecostal stances, he was attacked for his conservatism. On November 12, 1978, “Fantástico,” the largest-audience TV show in Brazil, criticized Humbard, Billy Graham and Pat Robertson through the lips of Rev. William Sloane Coffin (1924-2006), a liberal and pro-sodomy Presbyterian minister, who was interviewed by “Fantástico” to portray U.S. televangelists in a bad light.

In 1998, Humbard told about the major influences in his life. He said:

In my more than 66 years of full-time ministry, four great religious leaders have had a profound impact on my life.

Dr. Billy Graham, who I have known for more than 50 years.

Oral Roberts, who in 1949 prayed the prayer of faith for the healing of our oldest son, Rex, Jr., who suffered from tuberculosis and was healed.

Kathryn Kuhlman, probably the closest friend my wife, Maude Aimee, and I have ever had, touched our lives in a wonderful and personal way.

Benny Hinn, who I have had the privilege of ministering with in his crusade meetings throughout the United States and Canada.

Humbard’s comment is a part of his introduction in the biography “Kathryn Kuhlman, Her Spiritual Legacy and Its Impact on My Life,” written by Benny Hinn. This Pentecostal biography was published by the originally Calvinist publishing house Thomas Nelson Publishers in 1998.

Kathryn Kuhlman (1907–1976) was no stranger to Calvinists. In the late 1940s, she held her healing services among Pentecostals and mainline Protestants, including at the First Presbyterian Church and at Carnegie Hall in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

One of the major sources for this article on Humbard was the book “The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal, 1901-2001,” written by Vinson Synan and published by Thomas Nelson Publishers.

Paradoxically, in 2013 Thomas Nelson Publishers published the book “Strange Fire,” by the radical Calvinist theologian John MacArthur, which misrepresented many experiences of Pentecostal televangelists as “demonic.”

Christians should avoid aggressive ministers who are busy attacking other Christians over petty issues. In the 1980s, I had several Humbard’s books, including on biblical prophecy and on how to be prosperous. I had received these books free of charge because, when I received them in the 1970s, I could not afford them. I kept them with me for years.

Among Humbard’s books there were: The Prayer Key New Testament, How to Live Life and Love It, Your Key to God’s Bank and many others. They were books encouraging supernatural experiences when there was no charismatic (neo-Pentecostal) church in Brazil.

Your Key to God's Bank: How to Cash Your Check for Spiritual Power, Physical Healing, Financial Success

Then came an Assemblies of God minister saying that Humbard was a “prosperity gospel” heretic and that his message was demonic and that I should burn his books. I did so, and today I am repentant from following his misguided advice. Two years after the radical advice, the Assemblies of God minister lost his ministry in a terrible scandal with a prostitute. In contrast, Humbard had never been involved in sexual scandals.

While anti-charismatic ministers accuse ministers like Humbard of exploiters and nothing else, the Rex Humbard ministry in Brazil had a wonderful policy that you could order books by paying whatever you could afford. If you could afford nothing, they would send you their books anyway. It is a generosity I never saw anti-charismatic ministers doing. It was through this generosity that I received Humbard’s books and I learnt.

Although Rex Humbard came from a Pentecostal background and sometimes he talked about prosperity, he did not emphasize such issue in his ministry. There was balance. The following statement was made by the director of public relations for his church: “The Cathedral of Tomorrow is not Pentecostal; neither is the pastor or any of the staff. Neither are we affiliated with any Pentecostal organization, and the magazine is not slanted at the Pentecostal message at any time. We are an interdenominational evangelistic church.”

The statement should not be interpreted to mean that the church was anti-charismatic, but rather that it was determined to avoid controversy. Prayer for the sick and anointing with oil were a regular part of the service, but the stress was always on the message of salvation. It was a formula that worked with a great deal of success.

Humbard (August 13, 1919 — September 21, 2007) was the most balanced charismatic preacher in his generation, and his ministry blessed millions.

With information from:

Catholic University of Pernambuco.

The Cambridge Companion to Pentecostalism (Cambridge Companions to Religion). Cambridge University Press.

https://rexhumbard.org/history/

New York Times.

Darrin J. Rodgers, in Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center.

Britannica Encyclopedia.

Washington Post.

Christian Broadcasting Network.

Akron Beacon Journal.

George Thomas Kurian, Nelson’s Dictionary of Christianity: The Authoritative Resource on the Christian World, Thomas Nelson.

The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements: Revised and Expanded Edition. Zondervan.

Encyclopedia of Religion, pages 7711-7712. © 2005 Thomson Gale, a part of The Thomson Corporation.

Christian Post.

Portuguese version of this article: Rex Humbard, o primeiro e mais importante televangelista que abençoou milhões

Source: Last Days Watchman

Recommended Reading:

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Justin Peters in Brazil: God Does Not Speak to You Today Through Prophecy and Revelation

By Julio Severo

There was a lot of confusion among some experts on Christian apologetics in Brazil early this year about whether Justin Peters preached or not cessationism when, as a VINACC guest speaker, he taught against prosperity theology preachers by calling them “heretics.”

Justin Peters

Actually, he wanted also to call believers in supernatural charismatic gifts of “heretics,” but he was hindered from doing so in his VINACC public meetings.

He was prevented from teaching his cessationist gospel in VINACC.

How did Peters become an intransigent cessationist?

Apparently, after attending several meetings of prosperity theology proponents and receiving no miracle, Peters, who is a disabled man, let his bad experience create a bad theology: If he received no miracle in these meetings is because God gives no supernatural gifts in our days.

Today, he is an avid cessationist — a theological jargon to design adherents of the theory that says the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit ceased 2,000 years ago and that they are no longer available today. In fact, his non-healing experiences have been used by Calvinist theologian John MacArthur to back his anti-Pentecostal “Strange Fire” conferences, where Peters is one of the speakers.

In Campina Grande, Brazil, where the VINACC meeting was held, Peters was recorded as saying,

“Anytime somebody says God has spoken to me and has given me a word, has given me a new revelation, has given me a prophecy, that you automatically write that person off as a false teacher as a false prophet. And we could talk for an hour at least about how God does or does not speak to people. Hebrews 1:1,2 pretty clear: God long ago spoke through the fathers in the prophets in many portions in many different ways, but in these last days has spoken to us in His Son Jesus who is the final speaking of God. We have the perfect, inerrant, infallible and sufficient record of that. So God is not giving certain individuals special revelations, special insight into His future plans. He’s not doing that anymore. Everything that we need is right here in the Word of God. We’re the dwell of the Spirit who illumines the meaning of this Word in our hearts and minds. That’s all we need. The second thing: anybody who claims to be an apostle or a prophet, write that person off immediately.”

After reading Peters’ words, Dr. Michael Brown, author of “Authentic Fire” (a book that exposes the fallacies of “Strange Fire,” a book by MacArthur), said to me:

“What a bizarre statement about God not speaking today. The Word plainly says that Jesus, by the Spirit, continues to speak. If I believe the Word, then I must believe the Spirit is still speaking today. It’s troubling to see how Mr. Peters terribly misuses the Bible to justify his claims and rather than dealing with the detailed scriptural evidence I provided in my Authentic Fire book, he dismisses it all because I accepted Benny Hinn’s invitation to appear on his broadcast and preach the gospel to millions of viewers.”

With his words, Peters showed that he has not a problem just with prosperity theology preachers. His problem is with all people professing Pentecostalism or charismatic experiences. In fact, his main foundation to attack Pentecostal leaders seems to be his fierce opposition to the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit today.

By the way, Brazil was a huge challenge for him, because most Brazilian evangelicals are Pentecostal. Brazilian evangelicalism is basically Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal.

Peters would get a good audience among followers of Bishop Edir Macedo, the founder of the Kingdom of God Universal Church (KGUC). Macedo also believes that God gives no prophecy or revelation today. He said, “In former times, God used to speak through dreams, visions or prophecies, because there was not His written Word. Today, He speaks through His Word.”

What is to be done to people today who say that they had a prophecy or revelation? Macedo answers, “If someone learns that there is a ‘prophet’ or ‘prophetess’ in KGUC, denounce it immediately to the minister and also to the regional leader, so that we may take immediate measures.”

It would sound ok for Peters, wouldn’t it? After all, this is his theology!

Macedo is relentless in his anti-prophecy stance. Incredibly, he is a neo-Pentecostal (neo-charismatic) leader who preaches the prosperity theology. Yet, whether or not you bring Macedo a prophetic revelation or God’s Word about the value of life, he remains fierce and equally relentless in his defense of abortion and birth control.

If Peters’ attacks were directed to this real strange fire (abortion, birth control, partial cessationism and the Gospel together), it would be fair. But his attacks are directed to other issues and against all Pentecostals. For Peters, all gifts of prophecy and revelations today are “strange fire,” are demonic. Of course, Macedo would say, “Amen!”

There are false gospels and false miracles, but you should never use the false gospels and the false miracles to disqualify the true Gospel and the true miracles.

Because I am charismatic Christian, should I accept all manifestations of supernatural gifts coming from Christians? No. Some years ago, an American preacher said that he received a prophecy about Brazil winning the 2014 World Cup and also about an evangelical woman getting elected as Brazilian president in the 2014 election. His prophecy was interpreted as God supporting Marina Silva, a socialist militant who began in the Catholic Church and today is an Assemblies of God member.

Brazil suffered its worst defeat in the 2014 World Cup. I knew that his prophecy was not correct, especially for its interpretation favoring Marina, who has solid socialist stances. While many evangelical leaders were supporting her because of the prophecy, I was, before the election, exposing Marina and her avid socialism. Eventually, she lost.

Apostle Paul, who had many charismatic gifts, never taught that you should reject prophecies, but that you should be free to prophesize and free to evaluate what each person says in prophecy: “Two or three people should speak what God has revealed. Everyone else should decide whether what each person said is right or wrong.” (1 Corinthians 14:29 GWV)

To reject all prophecies is not the Bible way. To accept all prophecies is not the Bible way. The Bible ways is freedom to prophesy and freedom do evaluate.

In Campina Grande, Brazil, Justin Peters lambasted prosperity theology preachers. He also lambasted the VINACC organizers because he wanted to teach cessationism (the strange doctrine that says God no longer grants supernatural gifts today), but they did not allow him. Even though several VINACC speakers are cessationist Calvinists, its public is mostly Pentecostal. Peters’ cessationism would have been extremely offensive to this public.

Peters’ declarations against prophecy and revelation were recorded in an interview with him in Campina Grande and show how eager he was to teach the VINACC public to reject “heresies,” misinterpreted by him as an acceptance of prophecy and revelation for today.

In his recorded declarations, Peters also attacked Dr. Michael Brown, a Jewish charismatic leader who has been prominent for his defense of the Gospel and Israel. He said,

“A lot of pastors will have invite questionable people to come to their churches to preach. They will go on to questionable or maybe I should say questionable because it could sound like mad, television programs associated with false prophets. One good example is Dr. Michael Brown, who is considered to be one of the intellectual leaders of the charismatic movement. He blasted the Strange Fire Conference that was held at John MacArthur’s church, because he claimed that the Strange Fire Conference plained all charismatics with raw brush and it was really as if the Strange Fire Conference should talk about the strange time fringe of the charismatics. He said that is not who we are. So he blasted the Conference and then three months later he goes on Benny Hinn’s television program and records five programs with Benny Hinn who is one of, if not the world’s most infamous bad influence, that’s the bad way influence in believers. If you can’t tell Benny Hinn is a false teacher then something is really wrong. And so associations pick volumes about who we are and what we believe.”

In answer, Dr. Michael Brown clarified that, because Peters tried to misrepresent him in Brazil, he is open to a public debate about these issues. The debate could happen in Brazil. Brown said,

“1) I invited Pastor MacArthur to private discussion or public debate on numerous occasions, but he refused to engage in private or in public; 2) I would debate Justin Peters in a heartbeat as to what the Bible says about divine healing; 3) I exposed false accusations made against Benny Hinn by Justin Peters; 4) my appearance on Benny Hinn’s show is not an endorsement of his theology any more than my appearance on Piers Morgan. Instead, I was able to reach his audience with the message of Jesus the Messiah. Is this wrong? 5) I have exposed errors in the Charismatic church for decades, and I continue to do so to this day, but I am Charismatic because of the plain teaching of Scripture and again. I would gladly debate what the Scriptures say with any qualified non-Charismatic leader.”

Dr. Brown is willing to debate John MacArthur and Justin Peters, in Brazil or in the U.S., about their stance against prophecy, revelation and other supernatural gifts for today. He said:

“I invite Mr. Peters to have a formal, moderated debate with me on what the Bible says – not what people say – about the gifts of the Spirit, including healing and prophecy, being promised by God in His Word for today. Let’s not engage in rhetoric. Let’s look at the Word.”

I do not know if Brazilian charismatics are prepared for such debate.

CPAD, the biggest Pentecostal publishing house in Brazil, has published several books by anti-Pentecostal Calvinist John MacArthur, but it has not published “Authentic Fire,” by Dr. Brown. In contrast, cessationist Calvinist publishers in Brazil will never publish any book by Dr. Brown or by any other charismatic, even though there is no anti-Calvinist Pentecostal version of John MacArthur in Brazil.

CPAD belongs to the Assemblies of God, which has over 12 million members in Brazil. The Presbyterian Church of Brazil, the first Calvinist denomination in Brazil, has 1 million members, but not all of them are cessationist.

MacArthur’s “Strange Fire” has been published in Brazil by Thomas Nelson. Both Thomas Nelson and Zondervan, the two largest Protestant publishing houses in the world, belong to HarperCollins, which publishes the Satanic Bible, by Satanist Anton LaVey.

So the publisher and promoter of “Strange Fire” in Brazil is owned by HarperCollins, which publishes and promotes satanic books. This is satanic fire!

Yet, the publisher and promoter of other books by MacArthur in Brazil is Pentecostal giant CPAD. Does it make sense?

A schizophrenic contrast. Brazilian Pentecostals promote MacArthur. MacArthur does not promote Brazilian Pentecostals. MacArthur uses and abuses the Gospel to attack Pentecostals. Brazilian Pentecostals do not use and abuse the Gospel to attack MacArthur. Are Brazilian Pentecostals spiritual masochists who love to be labeled “heretics” for believing in supernatural gifts for today?

There is a real strange fire when “Strange Fire” and the Satanic Bible are published and promoted by the same source.

There is a stranger fire when books of an anti-Pentecostal Calvinist author are published and promoted by the biggest Pentecostal publisher in Brazil.

Portuguese version of this article: Justin Peters no Brasil: Deus não fala com você hoje por meio de profecia e revelação

Source: Last Days Watchman

Recommended Reading:

Justin Peters: an American Cessationist Teaching “Apologetics” to Brazilian Pentecostals

The Perfect Revival?

A Charismatic Response to “The Growing Crisis Behind Brazil’s Evangelical Success Story”

Liberation Theology and Neo-Pentecostalism: A Leading Challenge to the Evangelical Churches in Brazil

Brazilian Pentecostals: Church Growth Endangered by Socialist Embrace

R.C. Sproul: There Is No True Prophecy Today

Inflamed by American Prophecy, Brazilian Evangelicals Want a Woman for Brazil Presidency