Welcome to Bad Christian Books, a podcast about the worst bestsellers Christianity has to offer.
I'm Mary Hall. I'm a person of faith and a current churchgoer.
I'm Sam Okulieto. I am also a person of faith and I do not go to church.
Listeners, please forgive us. We're in a weird state of mind today. It's been a day.
It's been a month. I feel like we should address that we've been away, but we're back just like Slim Shady.
We've been off for several weeks. We had intended on just taking a week off for Thanksgiving, but both of us kind of had some life stuff pop up.
The break gave me so much more time to dive into the prosperity gospel.
So this episode has actually changed pretty significantly since we recorded the first one, but I think it's better for it.
You've had time to cook and we let you cook.
Yeah, now there's a lot of pressure, but that's okay. We'll go with it.
Things cook best under pressure, Mary.
Oh gosh. Okay. Well, since we've been off, what do you remember about our friend Joel and his book The Power of I Am, which was the subject of our last episode?
Well, I remember The Power of I Am. I remember that Joel has nothing to say, but he has so many platforms on which to say it.
A lot of his message boils down to if you fake it, you'll make it.
Fake it, you'll make it, but also you have to like say what you're doing.
Right. And for me, I said, I'm not going to post for over two weeks.
I remember the day that I went into my local Christian bookstore and there was my book.
You're not God. You're just a man.
The Total Money Makeover book which is sold almost 50 times.
The number one bestselling book.
Book.
No, because you gotta read the book.
This is Bad Christian Books.
Okay, so yeah, so Joel Osteen, he is like one of the most known figures in the prosperity gospel.
His whole thing is like this idea of negative and positive confessions that like whatever you say after I am will happen and come to you in the future.
And historians call his brand of prosperity gospel the soft prosperity gospel, specifically because it's not as overtly attached to like a transactional give $1,000 to get healed kind of vibe.
But as we talked about last week, it's still pretty dangerous because of the amount of power it puts into the hands of an individual.
And so today we're going to talk about how we got to Joel, the rise of the prosperity gospel, which is a winding story.
The long and winding road to Joel.
Truly with itinerant preachers, there's some new spiritualists, there's some gurus and televangelists with big hair.
Really all my favorite kinds of people, just the kind of people that I hope to run into at parties and social functions.
Oh, man, I would pay to have to go to a party in which a lot of these people are going to talk about are like all in a room.
That would have to be wild.
And I mean, something we brought up like last time is that the reason why it is so dangerous to put this amount of power into the hands of these preachers and like give them that ability is because as the conduit of God, they can literally ask you for anything.
Today we're going to talk about one of the most flamboyant examples of this, who is Benny Hinn.
And we're talking about his bestseller, Good Morning Holy Spirit.
I've never heard of this guy.
Have you heard of this book?
No, the name Benny Hinn sounds familiar.
It sounds malicious, but it also sounds like Benny Hill.
So I'm like, not sure if I've actually heard of this guy.
You've never heard of him.
Oh, so exciting.
I was kind of like that too when I first started digging into the prosperity gospel, but he was definitely one of the top at the height and he's still going today.
He's still going?
Oh, yes.
Oh, man.
Don't get ahead of yourself.
I'm buckling up here.
This feels like in some adventure movie where you discover this like ancient alien race that's responsible for the whole plot of the movie and then you find out that they're still there.
Actually, though, truly, I had kind of this interesting revelation as I had extra weeks to think about this topic and I went home for Thanksgiving and I was talking with like my aunt and my mom who both grew up a similar god.
It was just really interesting to me how many of these prosperity gospel preachers like say very similar things.
So like what I grew up hearing around my charismatic family, because my entire family on both sides kind of came up in the Pentecostal movement, which we're going to talk about a lot today.
The Pentecostal movement, charismatic assembly god and the like are not the same as the prosperity gospel.
They're two different things.
But because prosperity gospel came out of that same like movement, cultural movement, a lot of the words are like very similar.
And so, yeah, it was kind of eerie for me to like talk to my aunt and my dad even about this and hear some of the things that they heard when they were kids at church camp back in the day.
Church camp is going to come up a few more times in the season because I was working on my notes for Left Behind and I realized that my first exposure to Left Behind was at church camp.
So, ooh, part of the church camp cinematic universe.
Wow, that's terrifying on multiple levels.
So I am going to give a content warning for this episode.
This is our first content warning.
This episode, we're going to talk about some very egregious spiritual abuses as well as fatal illnesses and children.
Hello, listeners.
This is a visitation from Future Samuel.
We will start to delve into some of the content warning elements that we talked about this episode.
But the bulk of the disturbing content is going to be in the next episode, Prosperity Gospel Part 3.
Since you've been visited by Future Samuel, let me leave you a little tidying along your journey.
You matter.
Thank you.
So I'm going to try to keep that to like one section and give you a heads up before we get to the really bad part so you can skip ahead if that's going to be an issue for you.
But before we get there, I want to do something fun.
Are you ready for a game, Samuel?
I'm always ready to play a game.
Is this going to be like a saw kind of game?
Am I going to have to find a key hidden inside of me?
No.
I'm calling this game Gospel or Guru.
Okay.
It's like a Billy on the Street kind of game.
I'm down for this.
Yeah, like I said, because I had all this extra time and because I watch a lot of like cult documentaries and stuff as well.
You know, I just was really struck at how similar the language was between some of these like prosperity gospel preachers and like the most famous cult leaders in America.
And so I'm going to give you a line that one of them have said and you have to say whether it is a prosperity gospel preacher or like a cult guru.
And I will give you bonus points if you can name the speaker.
Okay, you ready?
Let's play.
Number one.
This person once told a journalist, these are my special sunglasses that I only wear in my Corvette.
Kenneth Copeland.
How did you know that?
That was so good.
I watch Vic Berger's videos and everything is terrible.
I feel like that's popped up at some point.
Wow.
I'm very impressed.
I feel like a wizard right now.
Okay, here's the second one.
I'm trying to get a place where everything I touch turns to gold, where everything I wish for comes true.
Prosperity gospel or guru?
This would be a guru for sure.
Wrong.
That is from Charles Ellis, who runs a mega church in Detroit.
Okay, number three.
So you're 50-50.
Number three.
You are in control of your life because you are in control of your choices.
The world is shaped by your choice.
Do not settle for anything that is not perfect.
This sounds like a guru, but this also sounds like Jill Osteen.
But I'm going to say it's a guru.
That's okay.
You were corrected as a guru.
Can you name the guru?
Um, I'm not super brushed up on my gurus.
It's a very recent guru.
Very recently, like within the last month.
Jared Leto?
No, this is, I don't remember which one said it, Jaffa and Shalya from the Twin Flames documentary.
I don't know if anyone's seen it.
It's very good.
This one's a more recent quote.
COVID-19, I blow the wind of God on you.
You are destroyed forever.
Okay, so there is a clip of like three prosperity gospel creatures who are doing this like COVID-19
rap.
Is it from that?
Because Copeland is one of them where they're all like yelling at COVID-19.
Yeah, this-
But it almost feels like a chant.
No, this is a Copeland again.
You are correct.
Man, you say you don't know, you don't know cults, but you know Kenneth Copeland.
He's definitely going to be a topic of a future, a future one.
Okay, next one.
The world is not interested in truth.
The world is more interested in Rolls Royces.
I wanted the world to know that we have 93 Rolls Royces because that is the only way
to make any bridge to the world.
Then I can talk about truth.
Pat Robertson.
No, that is a guru.
That is Osho, the cult leader behind the documentary Wild Wild Country, which is an excellent documentary.
I've seen that.
It's so good.
I'm not as brushed up on my Osho as I am on my Kenneth Copeland.
Oh, that's, that's embarrassing.
Yeah, I think that reveals something about you.
Okay, the next one.
You got to realize you're the devil as much as your God.
Me looking in the mirror every morning.
Are you going to give a legitimate answer?
Oh,
that I'm going to say guru.
That is a guru.
Who, who are you going to guess?
Oh man, I don't know.
There's someone that gurus marry.
Um, what's his face?
Jim Jones.
Uh, no, but you're in the right era.
It was Charles Manson.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Okay, we have a couple more.
Sound is sacred.
Human sounds an expression of our essence through the vibration of our physical form,
the motion of life.
I have definitely heard this one because this is something that like right wing people are
obsessed with is this concept of like resonant frequency.
Um, I'm going to say it's prosperity gospel.
And it is Keith for Neri, who is the cult leader of next year and is now in prison, hopefully forever.
Okay.
Your faith begins to move to act when the power of God supernaturally empties you out of doubts
and fills you with a knowing in that instance, you cannot doubt.
Um, that has to be prosperity gospel.
I don't know.
Oral Robert.
So you got that one.
Oral Robert.
Okay, here's our last one.
Where in scripture does it say I have to drive a Honda?
That also feels like Kenneth Copeland.
No, but close.
That is actually Benny Hinn, who is the person we're talking about today.
You did better on that than I thought.
That was pretty good.
I don't know.
I like no cult and I don't know if I could have like known exactly.
I mean, the point of that is that like the language is so similar.
It's the same.
This was a good one.
So similar, it's the same.
This was how I survived like my stint in corporate America was every moment my supervisor wasn't looking.
I had headphones in and I was listening to podcasts about cults.
Little pre-gaming for bad Christian books.
That's an appropriate way to handle corporate America.
It's almost like I was in a cult.
So yeah, today we're talking about Benny Hinn.
He is a prosperity gospel preacher that rose to fame in the 80s and 90s.
And the reason why I chose him is because he is a prime example of hard prosperity gospel teaching,
which is namely the idea that if you have enough faith and you give enough money,
there's usually or you do some kind of act.
Usually it's money.
You are guaranteed healing.
Samuel, I sent you a link in the excerpts document.
Do you have that open?
Okay, I got it.
Just watch the first half that I have marked for you.
If I turned around in any direction or if I leaned, I'd fall over.
It was like I was a big medicine ball with toothpick legs.
So now I can bend over and turn around.
I love to turn around.
Oh, so he is pushing this lady over.
What's happening to you, lady?
It's just funny now.
For some it's what it's funny.
It's funny.
I can't believe it.
Finally, I don't know what's funny, but it's funny.
I've gone to a few concerts at the Forum in Los Angeles.
Those are the big concert venues that also double as basketball stadiums.
This is the kind of venue that this is in.
It's a massive, massive venue.
It's also from, I would say probably, would we say the late 80s, early 90s?
It's that era of TV infomercial to give you an idea.
I think the graininess of it sort of plays this role where it's like there's a phone
number at the bottom of the screen that you can call, that you can get the same healing.
The Lord is going to use you.
Jesus is going to use you.
You want that?
Lift your hands and ask him.
Use him, Lord.
It's your turn, quiet, I told you.
You want this anointing?
Join hands.
What happened to little boy?
God wants to touch you too.
Lift your hands to heaven.
Touch this choir, Lord.
Touch!
Wow, that's really creepy.
So he raised his hands and said, touch this choir, and the choir all started to like get this like
ecstatic giggle and they all fell.
Yep, yep, this is the last one.
And this is a family that we're going to be following.
So pay attention to this one.
Mommy and daddy, how long have you been Christians for?
November last year.
November, you converted to Christianity from Hinduism.
You converted me?
No, I didn't.
He did it.
The Lord saved you.
I do not very often lay hands on anyone to be healed.
I lay hands after they've been healed.
But I'm more than glad to do it right now.
Stretch your hands towards this child.
What's his name?
Aishnil.
Can he hear me?
That's the only sense he's got left.
Doctor said he's totally blind.
Just let him go, he's nowhere.
I told him no, my son is not going to go for surgery.
He told me yes, I believe I got treated so many patients from Pastor Benny Hines.
Ministries they came, I didn't do the surgery.
A doctor told you?
Yes.
The doctor said I can't help you, but I know there's a guy named Benny Hines.
My friend, it's not Benny Hines, my dear, it's Jesus God's son.
Okay, well that content warning was merited already.
I mean, this is, I think about the tragedy that I've seen in the world without people like,
like, if you ignore all the scammers and charlatans, the world has a lot of suffering in it.
And then you have hyenas, essentially, grave robbers.
And that's already, that's the feeling I'm getting from this man,
just from watching him interact with these families in need.
Yeah, it was, I watched that with you again.
And obviously, I've been watching this for weeks.
But yeah, it just hit me again, like back to back.
It's hard to understand what's happening.
And so that's what I kind of want to break down in this episode,
is talk about how we got to a place where a guy like Benny Hines does what he does.
Because there is a point where you feel like it's miraculous, right?
Like in the second clip that we played, he just like waves his hands
at the choir and everyone falls over.
And like the look on people's faces is very genuine.
Phenomenon is called being slain in the spirit.
It's this idea that like the pastor or whoever is so anointed by God,
that they just have this supernatural power that like when they touch you or look at you,
you know, you're overcome by the presence of God.
The thing that was so hard about trying to figure out what clips to use is like,
I could go on and on and on.
I mean, I've seen clips with Benny Hines where it's like he's giddy.
Like he's just like flicking his hand at people and people are falling over.
And he like blows on them.
He enjoys the power and you can see it.
It's all an ad, really.
It's a show, but it's also an ad.
I'm reminded of that verse that where Jesus himself says,
all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men,
but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven.
People, a lot of people debate as to what on earth that means.
What does it mean to, you know, it's okay to take God's name in vain,
but not to take the Holy Spirit in vain.
I look at this kind of thing that he's doing.
And there's maybe a counterpoint someone could say where it's like,
well, you don't know that he's doing this with bad intentions.
And it's like, I guess I don't know explicitly,
but I bet we're about to get into some research where we learn what the fruit is.
I look at this and I see this as blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
Yeah, no, I do too.
Well, actually, this was a big point of the conversation I had with my family was like,
what, like physically, what does that mean to blaspheme the Holy Spirit?
And my aunt was telling me that as a kid, she was like terrified
that she would like somehow do the unforgivable sin,
which to me like doesn't even make sense that like.
My mom told me about that too, back in the day.
I was honestly afraid of it as a kid. Yeah, I mean, like it came out of the
Pentecostal movement for sure, but I think people like Benny Hinn,
because that's a huge part of his platform is like, don't close yourself off
to the emotive experience that you're having at my service,
or else you could be blaspheming the Holy Spirit.
And so it's like this. Oh, that's doubly devious,
because I believe that what he is doing is blaspheming the Holy Spirit.
But he's like, if you don't accept what I'm doing, then you're blaspheming them,
which to me almost feels like he knows that's what he's doing.
And he's projecting it. It's like when you see politicians say,
my opponent is doing this because they're doing that.
I mean, there's really no way to describe what we just watched, like in words,
you have to like hear it, see it, whatever.
If people are interested, like just search Benny Hinn healing and like 50 million videos will be
50 million videos will pop up and you can watch them.
But today, the book we're going to read was Benny Hinn's first book,
Good Morning Holy Spirit. It was his most popular book.
Ironically, unlike basically all the authors we've had so far,
it's actually a really well written book. He's a good writer. It's interesting.
And it's mostly his autobiography.
So that being said, it's significantly less problematic than I thought,
because it just tells his story.
Kite- Unproblematic King Benny Hinn.
Sam- Oh my gosh. Yeah, no, don't take that out of context.
It was insanely popular. I found an article from the early 90s,
one year after it published and said it was the best selling Christian book of all time
at that point. Well over a million copies sold.
They did a 20th edition not too long ago.
Upon first glance, it really wasn't that bad. He's a good writer. His life is interesting.
He cites scriptures and they are a decent understanding of what they mean.
The last couple chapters he gets into some weird Trinity, Holy Spirit theology stuff,
we'll get there. But I just kind of want to start by talking about what is Benny Hinn's origin story?
Sam- I'm so excited for this. It's the part of the
prosperity gospel cinematic universe. This is phase one.
Kite- Yes. So, Benny Hinn was born in 1952 in Israel. He was born just four years after Israel
was created as a nation. From my reading, I think he's Palestinian? I don't know. It kind of
fluctuates. His story changes a little bit. He was born just after Israel was created as a country
in what today is called Tel Aviv. There was this historic city called Jaffa that Tel Aviv is the
modern version that had been conquered and destroyed and rebuilt. It's this melting pot
of many different religious diversities, ethnic diversities. His parents had moved there, had been
immigrants. His dad was an immigrant from Greece and his mom was an immigrant from Armenia. They
were Greek Orthodox Christians. He writes that his dad was actually the mayor of Tel Aviv for a period.
Sam- Were you able to verify that? Kite- Samuel. Patience. His family had a lot of really high
stature in the community and so his dad had this office. So, there's this really interesting story
of his birth. His mom prayed for years and years for him to be born a boy. She had only had daughters
and in their culture women who had not been able to produce sons had a lot of shame attached to
them and her sisters-in-law had all had sons. So, she had this prayer that if God gave her a boy,
she would give that boy to the work of the Lord. Samuel, does that sound like anything to you?
Sam- Yes. It sounds like a lot of stories, quite frankly. But I feel like there's a Bible story
that this probably corresponds to. But this honestly sounds like pretty much every ancient epic.
Kite- It does correspond to a Bible story. It's almost word for word the story of Leah,
who is one of Jacob's wives. Just keep that in mind. When he was still in Tel Aviv, he attended
a Catholic school. I'm going to read a little bit of what he writes about that time period in his life.
I practically lived at the convent and in that cocoon I became very detached from the world.
I was also separated from the world in an unfortunate way. From earliest childhood,
I was afflicted with a severe stutter. The smallest amount of social pressure or nervousness
triggered my stammering and it was almost unbearable. I found it difficult to make friends.
Some children made fun of me, others just stayed away. I knew very little of world events,
only what my teachers wanted me to know. But I was an expert on Catholic life.
Even as a small boy, I was extremely religious. I prayed and I prayed, probably more than some
Christians pray today. But all I knew how to pray was the Hail Mary, the Creed, the Lord's Prayers,
and other prescribed prayers. Only rarely did I talk to the Lord. When I had some specific requests,
I mentioned it. Otherwise, my prayer life was all very organized, very routine. One maxim seemed
to be, you should feel pain when you pray. And that was easy. There was practically nowhere to
kneel except on the white Jerusalem rock that was everywhere. Most of the homes are made of it,
and the schools I attended had no carpet, just plain white rock floors. I actually came to believe
that if you don't suffer in your supplication, the Lord wouldn't hear you. That suffering was
the best way to gain God's favor. He's one of those. Well, I mean, I think he…
Oh, that's where he came from, not necessarily what he's advocating for.
I think in some ways that story exemplifies why he went so far onto the other side later in his life.
It is a very human thing to be like, everything I learned as a kid is wrong, and then go to the
other extreme. You see people go back and forth, and usually people settle somewhere in the middle.
Fun fact, me doing this show is literally me settling in the middle.
Kite Same, I think. So he grew up in Catholic school until
late middle school or elementary school. His family basically fled to Toronto, Canada. They
became immigrants there during the Six Day War. That's been a lot in the news right now.
The Six Day War is basically this war that happened where Israel solidified its power over
a huge portion of the land that's Palestine today. There was a lot of fear at that time on both sides.
A lot of people left this region of the world during this period. That's the period when they
went to Canada. You know, but he talks a lot about how there was a lot of fear in his family. They
didn't know where they were going. At one point, they thought they were going to go to Europe.
It was obviously like a very fraught period of time for him because his faith was so transactional.
As he was taught in Catholic school, he prayed at that time, he said, God, if you get us to safety,
I will sacrifice a big jar of olive oil and I'll bring it to you. So they went to Canada. He brings
his olive oil jar. And I forget how I forget like he gives it. He puts it on an altar at a church or
something like he he does what he said he was going to do. But it was when he was in public high
school in Canada that he says he got saved, like real saved. There was a group of high schoolers
who asked him to join a prayer meeting before school. He says they were Pentecostal. They were
in that kind of charismatic movement. And he had this very had a very powerful encounter with God
and decided he wanted to know more. I'm going to pause there and Benny's story because I think
we need to talk a little bit about where we are in the prosperity gospel timeline. I read this
really great book. It's a bit academic-y, but it's very good. It's called Blessed, A History of the
American Prosperity Gospel by Kate Bowler. She's a religious historian. And, you know, she really
documents like, from the beginning to today, like, how did this like distinctly American theology?
It was born and bred here. And because of that, it's really impossible to separate that theology
from, you know, the culture around it. Prosperity gospel has its roots in the new spiritualist
movement of the late 1800s. Are you familiar with that at all, Samuel?
Um, I'm familiar with the Great Awakenings, which I assume kind of connect to that. I'm
assume I'm familiar with itinerant preachers of that era, but tell me more.
Yeah, so actually, the new spiritualist movement was a non-Christian movement.
Really kind of a non-faith movement. It was really intertwined with kind of the beginnings
of psychology as a real science, this idea that like, if we find the right formula, we can create
what we want through our thought and through our words.
Almost like the kind of idea of how seances and stuff got more popular during this time, too.
You have people like playing around with the idea of spirituality more. Would that kind of tie in?
Oh, yeah, exactly. I mean, really, it was it was very popular and you see strands of it from like
what Freud was doing into the church. There's like that ethos of like this 1800s
spirituality. So that's kind of where this comes from, then you're saying.
Right, exactly. And so while that is happening, people I think are starting to understand what
today we would call the placebo effect. Well, and I think placebo effect is like
sometimes a derogatory word, but like, I don't think it necessarily has to be. It's the idea
that like what you feel, what you experience as a person, like 100% is attached to your thoughts,
because like your brain is a physical thing that's doing things in your head.
People retrain their brains to do all kinds of things. And that is real science. But this was at
like the very beginning when they were just starting to dabble with it. And I think I saw
a lot of those things through the lens of New Age Spiritualism.
Well, this is the same era that like Pavlov's dog comes from, this idea of classical conditioning.
We're starting to like look at behavioral models more than we did in the past.
Yeah, exactly. And you're right that at the same time that this was happening,
we were also having the itinerant pastor, these like mass evangelism, like tent sermons,
it rose at the same time that the Pentecostal movement, the beginnings of it was rising,
which was also in the 1800s. That movement was very much attached to this idea that like,
God is still speaking today. And you can experience God today in a powerful way.
That's not just like, oh, I read my Bible. It's like I can enact change in my world
through my prayer. So you can see how like when those two things overlap,
there's some really dangerous gray area there. It did stay fringe for a while. But something that
was fascinating to me is that Kate Ballard documents in her book that like prosperity,
thinking slash attachment to the Pentecostal movement kind of ebbed and flowed as our nation
as a whole experienced tragedy, and then economic growth, you have spikes in kind of the prosperity
gospel thinking coming into more mainstream churches, you have a spike after World War One,
you definitely have a spike attached to the Great Depression. And then after World War Two, you know,
it kind of seems like an oxymoron. But it's like as people were financially strained or had some
kind of like crisis, these preachers came in and milked the hope that people needed and were
desperately seeking. We're totally not seeing that happen again, as we face, you know, terrible
economic times once more, there's nobody trying to take advantage of our vulnerability now.
I mean, yeah, like that was something that was so mind blowing in this book,
literally over and over and over and over, like, it's the exact same pattern. But we'll stay in the
50s. I think at that time, the other thing that collided with all of these kind of social forces
was there was this emphasis again, culturally on like the Puritan work ethic, kind of, you know,
coming after World War Two, America won the war, our factories won the war. It's this idea like,
we've always been hard workers, and we work for the American dream. And at that point in time,
I mean, a lot for a lot of white Americans that seem to be the truth, you know, they're able to
have a blue collar job and move into middle class status and buy a house in the suburbs and have
enough to tithe and give to the church. There was this like prosperity after something that was
honestly very dark and evil in World War Two. You have these two wars, both of them were supposed
to be the last wars of all time. You've got the war to end all wars, and then you've got the the
war that brings in the bomb that's supposed to end all wars. People want things to get brighter,
they want things to get better. You want some sort of good news. Yeah. So it makes so much sense that
that would be the, you know, the demand through which they can supply this snake oil. Yeah. Well,
and I think also, like even as we're moving from the 50s into like the 60s and stuff, like you
talked about the Cold War, which started almost immediately after World War Two, I talked to like
my parents who were like kind of the last kids to grow up in it. And they're like, yeah, they're
like, my mom has told me I thought I would die by a nuclear Holocaust before I got to be an adult.
Yeah. Like there was this idea of like this looming threat, but at the same time, like American
industry, we were gonna like beat it through our work ethic and divine blessing, you know, so
there's all these things tied in that kind of led to the place where people like Benny Hinn could
just like skyrocket. Some of the kind of signposts of it is that wealth is a sign of God's favor.
There's a connection between godliness and like business acumen. So like, if you can make money
or you're good, you're, you know, smart financially, that means you're also godly.
And then kind of what we've talked about last time, what we talked about with Dave Ramsey, like
micro and individual solutions exist to poverty, race discrimination, sexism,
name the macro problem, the solution is you get right with God. This prosperity gospel
led to a lot of extremism that we still see today. A lot of extreme theologies came out of this
movement, a lot of the kind of like apocalyptic cults that existed like back in this time came
out of here. There was also a really strong like missional aspect where people were like, okay,
we have to go share this with like everyone ever. That led to mass adoption of this theology within
like the global south, like namely like South America, Africa, Asia, certain parts of Southeast
Asia, that was very tied to colonialism. These countries were responding to this gospel of like,
I can become like the white American, but yet like they're still under the authority of like white
Christians. I mean, there's just some really dicey extreme things that came out of this movement that
we that we still see today. This is the era where Benny Hinn was coming of age. And I think there's
some really interesting things too, that I'm also not getting into with his story, because like he
does have this background of being a immigrant of color coming into Toronto. He does talk a lot about
after he became a Christian, he really had a ton of conflicts with his parents. His parents being an
immigrant family, Greek Orthodox, there was a lot of shame that his parents felt on having the son
who was like preaching in hippie churches. You know, I mean, his father even got to a point where
his father said, stop talking about Jesus in our house. It really drove him to spend a lot of time
by himself praying. And being in scripture, he talks about in his room, you know, hours upon hours,
because he just was so ostracized by the rest of his family. But there was a key moment that changed
his life pretty significantly about this time. And that was a healing service done by Catherine
Coleman. I had not heard of her previous to this, but she was a healer woman preacher. She has a
law fire. And he was invited to come and hear her speak in the US by a friend. So there was like this
group that was going, I think from their church. And they had to be at the church by 5am, because
the church would be packed. So he describes the story, there's, you know, the bitter cold,
and he started inching through the crowds to try to get a seat at the front. He writes,
What shocked me was that hundreds of people were already there. And the doors when it opened for
two more hours. Being small has some advantages. I began inching my way closer and closer to the
doors and pulling Jim right behind me. As I stood there, I suddenly began to vibrate as if someone
had gripped my body and begun to shake it. What is happening to me? I wondered, is this the power of
God? I just didn't understand. And so he is, you know, three hours, he waits there three hours in
this crowd to hear this woman speak. And as soon as the doors open, he runs to the front, him and
his friend Jim get a third row seat right on the aisle. Catherine appears on the stage and,
uh, Samuel, I'm gonna have you read excerpt two from the doc. This is what he writes about what
happened to him as Catherine was speaking. As the singing began, I found myself doing something I
never expected. I was on my feet. My hands were lifted and tears streamed down my face as we sang,
How great thou art. Suddenly I felt a draft. It was gentle and slow, like a breeze. I looked at the
stained glass windows, but they were all closed. The unusual breeze I felt, however, was more like
a wave. I felt it go down one arm and up the other. I actually felt it moving. The Lord was closer to
me than he had ever been. I felt I needed to talk to the Lord, but all I could whisper was,
Dear Jesus, please have mercy on me. Then I heard a voice that I knew must be the Lord.
It was ever so gentle, but it was unmistakable. He said to me, My mercy is abundant on you.
Little did I realize that what was happening to me in the third row of the first Presbyterian
church in Pittsburgh was just a foretaste of what God had planned for the future. I sat down crying
and sobbing. Everything stopped suddenly. I thought, Please Lord, don't ever let this meeting end.
I looked up to see Catherine burying her head in her hands as she began to sob. She sobbed and
sobbed so loudly that everything came to a standstill. The music stopped. The ushers froze in
their positions. And for the life of me, I had no idea why she was sobbing. I'd never seen her
minister do that before. What was she crying about? Then she thrust back her head. There she was,
just a few feet in front of me. Her eyes were aflame. She was alive. In that instant, she took
on a boldness I had never seen in any person. She pointed her finger straight out with enormous
power and emotion, even pain. If the devil himself had been there, she would have flipped him aside
with just a tap. Still sobbing, she looked out at the audience and said with such agony,
Please. She seemed to stretch out the word, Please don't grieve the Holy Spirit. She was begging.
If you can imagine a mother pleading with a killer not to shoot her baby, it was just like that.
Okay. Even now, I can see her eyes. It was as if they were looking straight at me. I was afraid to
breathe. I didn't even move a muscle. I was holding on to the pew in front of me, wondering
what would happen next. Then she said, Don't you understand? He's all I've got. I thought,
what's she talking about? Then she continued her impassioned plea saying, Please don't wound him.
He's all I've got. Don't wound the one I love. I'll never forget those words. I can still remember
the intensity of her breathing when she said them. Then she pointed her long finger down at me and
said with great clarity, He's more real than anything in this world. When she looked at me
and uttered those words, something literally grabbed me on the inside. All the way back to
Toronto, I kept thinking, I don't know what she meant.
I've been listening to Left Behind on audiobooks. So apologies if that was a bit of an impersonation
of the guy who does that audiobook, but I was like, it fits so well for this.
I was gonna say, I could hear that you've been practicing for your own audiobook reading,
because that was great. That was everything I hoped you would put into that performance.
Thank you.
So this is essentially Benny Hinn's origin story. He has this encounter with the Holy Spirit that
reveals to him this special truth. Kind of what you were talking about earlier about grieving the
Holy Spirit is like the unforgivable sin. That's what he's talking about here that she said,
Please don't wound him. Specifically, please don't wound the Holy Spirit.
Which is really eerie because it's almost like her, like,
it does almost feel like maybe she was speaking to him where it's like, I don't mean, it's like,
not to harp on this, but it does feel like what he's doing is really damaging in terms of people's
connection with the Holy Spirit. And it feels like she was giving him a warning that he then took the
opposite lesson from.
Maybe. I don't know a ton about her, but I have to say I've seen videos of her.
Oh, is she kooky too?
There's some kook. I was having a Fox Mulder moment. I wanted to believe, you know.
Yeah. Well, I will say for everything that is in the prosperity gospel nonsense, and, you know,
no church is perfect. But they did allow women to preach and be their own preachers. And I think
that's great. She's definitely like had a very strong business ministry, whatever you want to
call it.
I got good news and I got bad news. I'm not complimentarian. That's the good news. The bad
news is all of this.
Yeah, it's like we allow women to grift others too. So yeah, he comes home from this experience.
And so this is the moment where he says that he encountered the Holy Spirit as its own distinct
personality within the Trinity. I mean, this is where the title of the book comes from.
Because he says the next morning he woke up, and every morning since then has woken up and said,
good morning, Holy Spirit. And really the rest of the book is about how to become a friend of the
Holy Spirit. That's like kind of his thing. There is like some truth there, which is why, you know,
I think he is compelling to some degree. Like, as someone who grew up in a caravan, he's been
grew up in a charismatic, holy faith focused church, you know, I do think God can speak to you.
And I do think there are times that churches maybe shut themselves off from that. And that's not
like a criticism to those churches. Just like, I do think that is there is a reason that the
Pentecostal movement was a thing. So like there is a piece in them that's true.
I think this might be an area that you and I are actually pretty aligned on with this idea of like,
if you believe in God, then he is active in the world. Like he's speaking to people, he's
always speaking. This is like an area that I really bounced off of Reformed theology.
You know, in high school, I was oftentimes encountering Reformed theology. They don't
believe that God speaks to you anymore. They believe that magically when the Bible ends,
God's word ends. That doesn't make any sense. And I understand why they're so stringent on it.
It is because of people like Benny Hinn. The thing is, is that you don't have to be charismatic to
be selling snake oil and doing it in God's name. Yeah, it's so interesting you said that because,
I mean, I keep talking about this conversation I have with my mom, but both my parents were,
grew up assembly of God. That's a church that is even more on the charismatic side, does speaking
in tongues and healings and things like this regularly. I'm not saying they're prosperity
gospel, but they are very close. Basically, prosperity gospel is a subset that I think
most Christians would say is not true. Well, some Christians would say is not true, but like,
it is an off shoot. It is an extreme offshoot of like, what was a Pentecostal charismatic
worldview, but because it was an offshoot, you know, a lot of the thinking permeated kind of
across those lines. And my parents actually ended up going from assembly of God to Nazarene,
specifically because of this kind of stuff, because they saw it abused. And that was probably in the
what, like 80s and 90s. I mean, we're talking about this idea that like the Pentecostal movement
happened for a reason. You know, by the early 60s, Pentecostalism, not prosperity thinking,
but Pentecostalism as a movement had exploded. And not just in like your traditional Wesleyan
holiness, if you know what those air quote things mean, churches, but like there were Catholics who
were Pentecostal. There were Baptists who were Pentecostal. There were this like explosion of
like cross denomination groups that were became like very interested in like, what does it look
like for the Holy Spirit to move within our way of doing church. I don't give a little bit of
exposition real quick just to kind of bring people up to speed on Pentecostalism. Oh, please. It
refers to a event that's in the New Testament, the day of Pentecost, which happens after Jesus
ascends to heaven. It's an early, you have the Acts of the Apostles. This is sort of the main
narrative of the New Testament post Jesus. Peter is leading a outdoor service. And there's a bunch
of different people from a bunch of different languages and cultures. And the Holy Spirit comes
upon them. They can see fire on their heads. And critically, they speak in tongues, which in that
story means they can all understand each other. And tongues is brought up a couple times in the
New Testament. And whenever it's brought up, it's either in terms of people of different languages
being able to understand each other, or in one situation that I think will probably permanently
elude us, Paul says you need an interpreter. But Pentecostal refers to essentially trying to
recreate or honor the events of that day, a very formative day in the early church.
Yeah. Thank you for that, Samuel. Yeah, that's a perfect explanation.
I've been waiting my whole life to explain that.
I was gonna say we're such good Nazarenes.
Yeah.
We're being such good Nazarenes right now.
Guys, I did a Nazarene catechism class when I was in fourth grade. Some kids were learning about the
state of Ohio. I was learning about that and the Nazarene Church. So you're welcome. You're welcome, America.
Samuel, I think I have you beat in our category of who's the most Nazarene. I became a Nazarene
twice because I became a Nazarene. I did the membership class and the baptism and all that
at nine. And then my parents forgot and did not believe me when I said I was already a member.
And so they made me become a member again. So I became a member at 12. And then like,
four years later, they found my original like certificate that says I'm a member of the
Nazarene Church from like when I was nine. And they're like, oh, you really did do it twice.
This is so Wesleyan though, because you got sanctified in Nazarene.
Yeah, so so many. Sorry. Sorry for people who have no idea what we're talking about. It's a world.
This is the inside baseball section of this podcast. We hope you guys enjoy your visit.
It can be a downfall of a lot of like Holy Spirit led churches, or spirit led, that might be like a
phrase that some people have heard, is that because you are trying to move by what God is saying to
you today, there's no authority. You know, like there's the it's a lot less hierarchical, it's a
lot less organized. And that can be great. It can also be dangerous, because you can have this thing
where people follow the charismatic person who can perform spirituality. And it can be really hard to
distinguish those things. You know, I think that's like a question that I had as I wrestled with this
content is like, you know, as someone who grew up in the church, you know, like, how do we think
about the genuine emotion that can happen when you have a spiritual experience? And how do you
wrestle with when someone says they're experiencing something from God? How do you like figure that out?
And how do you know what's true? And what's too far? And I don't know. This is something my friends
and I have talked about as we've been kind of looking over our past, you know, our childhood
growing up in the church, for some it's ongoing. But it's like, okay, there is this eerie correlation
of current capitalism's need for constant growth, and the way churches approach spiritual experiences.
If you're looking to have this like spiritual experience every Sunday, you start to kind of
want the next Sunday to be more powerful, quote unquote, than the last one. That kind of linear
thinking, I don't think is very sustainable in one's own emotional life, in one's own mental life.
And I'm thinking of this specifically in terms of church worship. There's a lot of different
schools on it. It used to be more liturgical, it could be kind of stuffy at times. When I came of
age, it was very much about the emotion of it all. I can't really speak for the current era of church,
but I know that when I came of age, it was kind of at the same time as Warped Tour, and they were
trying to kind of recreate Warped Tour, but in Christian youth groups at church, at school
chapels. I think there was a lot of cynicism baked into this need to create a Holy Spirit
experience. But I think an experience with something like the Holy Spirit is found, not created.
Yeah, and I love that. I think you said that really well about expecting an experience.
Right. I mean, I even wrestled with this a lot myself. I mean, I grew up on the mission field.
That was another subcategory that we do not have time to get into, is the crossover between the
prosperity gospel and missions. One day we will tackle missions, but I'm not ready for that yet.
But growing up on the mission field in a Christian Missionary Alliance school, I guess this is what
I would say. We're talking through thoughts, so don't hold me to this forever. But I have experienced
what I believe are supernatural events in my life. Things that have happened that I either
did not have the ability to do, or the knowledge, or whatever. I also have had a lot of spiritual
events that felt manufactured and felt wrong in my soul. And so the challenges, I think for me,
for every Christian, but something I'm wrestling with right now, probably because I'm back
actually in a fairly charismatic church right now, is like, what does that mean? How can both be true?
And at the same time, a lot of those experiences were very formative to who I am on both,
like on all the sides. I don't like saying both sides, on all the sides.
I think it's something I'm still wrestling with. You and I have experienced our share of grief in
these last few years. And I know in my grieving process, one thing that I've thought about a lot,
and I'm actually referring to grieving in terms of loss of a loved one in this situation, but I
think a lot of times dealing with church baggage is also a grieving process. Actually, you know,
I like the word grieving better than deconstruction, I just realized. And obviously, if deconstruction
works for you guys listening, that's perfect. But I think grieving actually works better for me.
In grieving for a loved one or for the church, something that brings me peace is to know that
just because someone intended to make something up, does not mean that what I felt was false,
if that makes sense. That just because it wasn't real to the person giving it to me,
does not mean that it was fake when I received it. And I think, like you, Mary, I believe that
I've had these pivotal moments where I felt indefatigably that God was real. And those
linger with me. I can point to the, you know, the serotonin imbalances of puberty, I can point to
the cynicism of warped tour era worship music, but I don't know that that mitigates the reality
that I felt and where I went with that reality. Because feeling something is one thing, but what
you do based on that feeling, I think determines the reality of it. So that's just some fodder I
wanted to throw out there. My processing is extremely ongoing in this, but I like to share
my notes because maybe that'll help. No, yeah. And I, you know, I've been a health reporter now for
most of my career. And I also have a chronic illness that I have fibromyalgia, which is a chronic
illness where your brain basically hijacks your body and like makes you feel normal sensations as
pain. So I've done a lot. I have a lot of firsthand experience that like things that you think
are true, even if they're not true, like, you know what I mean? Like my neck, there's no reason
for my back and my neck to hurt, but like it physically hurts. And that I, that's true.
Even if it is just in my mind, quote unquote. And so I, something that I've kind of been wrestling
with related to God and kind of this topic is like, like you said, just because whether it was done
intentionally or not, I think there is this like emotive thing that can happen within church. Does
that mean that it's fake? I don't know that I believe that it is because if we are created by
God, God would use how our biology, how our brains work to speak with us.
Well, there's a great verse about it even. So this is Isaiah 55 11. So will my word be which goes out
of my mouth, it will not return to me empty without accomplishing what I desire and without
succeeding in the purpose for which I sent it. It's wordy. The King James says my word will not
return void. It actually, I think it kind of pertains to art even like art. If you think about
it, a lot of art, especially storytelling is a lie, but that doesn't mean it's not true.
Now that can get complicated too. That gets into like double think territory, but I do,
I like this idea that if God is real and we, there are truths that are hidden amongst lies
that the spirit within us is there to receive the truth. I don't know if you've heard of the
I don't want to make excuses for people like Benny Hinn who are selling lies because those can,
people can be confused. Like don't hear me wrong. Don't believe everything you think.
You are capable of being confused. You are not immune to propaganda, but I think if you're
processing these things in a sincere way and you keep circling back to like, man, this thing that
like everybody's telling me I should just throw away because it's false, but it feels true to me.
It's okay to feel the truth of that. This, I mean, I guess this is why we wanted to do the podcast,
right? It's like this kind of stuff here, but this is the stuff that I, that I still haven't
quite figured out. And I think the one thing I will say that I kept coming back to as I was
researching and processing, watching things like those videos we've watched that are just so awful
is like, and I do believe that if you seek truth and you seek God, you will find God, but I do
think there's also this deeply human trap of thinking that whatever God revealed to you
must now be the truth, like the universal capital T truth. That is the same and true
for everyone, for every time, for you, for the rest of your life is like the truth.
This is why I have such a bone to pick with the fundamentalist conception of absolute truth,
because I have a way of looking at the world that works very well for me. But if I went around and
told people they had to see the world the way I saw it, it would be a deeply unhealthy thing.
It would be harmful and it would make, it would take what's good about the way I see the world
and make it into a evil thing. It would make it a bad thing. What will take good and evil out of
the equation. It would make it, it would sour it, it would denigrate it. And you even see this in
people just trying to enjoy movies. It's like different people have different reasons for
liking or disliking a movie. And that's great. It's when people need everyone to like or dislike
a movie in the same way that we get Twitter. Not where I thought you were going to end there,
but I like it. And yeah, and I would be, I think a little bit more on the side of like, I do think
that absolute truth, like that phrase, or as people think about it, I do think that there is
truth that exists. However, I feel that like in today's world, there are, especially like in the
Western world, there are a lot of people who think the way that they view the world is truth. In my
mind, like God is outside of humanity. God is outside of like our culture. So I, you know, I
think while you can, well you can, and that's not to say that you can't like believe that things are
true. I definitely feel like I, on certain the most important things, I know what the truth is.
But I also try to have a spirit of humility to say, God is God. And I am a human with a brain
that doesn't know that my neck doesn't hurt. So like, I could be wrong. And, and that is why I
think I lean on the like, we need to sense the spirit and listen and wait. But doing it away from
humility, and I think Benny Hinn, unfortunately, took a period of time that probably was very
beautiful. Like his young adulthood, alone with God in his room, praying and being in the spirit,
like, that's a beautiful story. But for the next 30, 40 years, he's used up to say like,
this is the way God is. And that's why you should give me money. Being a spiritual abuser is just
some of the worst crimes you can commit, you can commit in the world. And I don't try to be
flippant. But like, I do think this is like someone I watched in one of these like documentaries said,
like, there's a special place in hell for Benny Hinn. And I'm sure next time we will learn all
about the reason why. Yeah, so I think we'll cut here, we're gonna make this now three parter on
the prosperity gospel. And yeah, we'll come back to learn kind of the second half of Benny Hinn's
life. Since we're gonna wrap it up here, we should say, if you have thoughts, did you grow up in a
Pentecostal church? Did you grow up in a church that believes that God only speaks to the Bible
today? We'd love to hear from you. Our email is badchristianbooks at jmo.com, where you are
on all the socials at Bad Christian Pod. Please leave us some reviews, but also please share this.
It's peak prosperity gospel to generate more content than originally expected. But until then,
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