Benny Hinn and My Bad Theology

The atmosphere was electric. Thousands of people filled the room with songs of praise to the Lord. Worship alone had to have gone for at least an hour, weighing heavy the people’s emotions. As the smoke machine filled the room with a light haze, ecstatic tounges permeated the air, and a sense of desperation so thick you could cut it with a knife. Welcome to a Benny Hinn healing crusade. No, this was not at an arena but my local church.

The moment was cultivated for “the healing ministry” to take place. My thought was, the “glory of God” is here. Think of 2 Chronicles 5:14, where the presence of God filled the temple, and the priest could stand to minister because of His glory. It leaves you to believe what you are experiencing and seeing are all the “glory of God.” The ongoing singing, desperation of people, and the” anointed man of God” cascade into a moment of such emotional high all logical and biblical reason is thrown out the window. They don’t tell you how they turn away people with actual sickness and debilitating diseases.

The fever pitch moment came to such a high, and it was at that moment Benny Hinn stepped on stage. In classic Benny Hinn fashion, the key and music shifted to the Hallelujah chorus. The crowd literally in the palm of his hand. It was his moment to say, lead and do what he willed. He whispered to the audience, “Quiet everyone, the sweet presence of the Lord is here with us.” This one phrase hushed a room of thousands of people. It became so quiet; you could hear your heart beating. The silence seemed to last for a lifetime, but in a moment, Benny Hinn yelled, “touch.” Instantly, like dominos falling on demand, the first row, then second, and a wave swept across the building; adult men and women were falling out across the room.

See, we read in the Bible descriptive things and believe they should be prescriptive to us. Notice the only place you read in Scripture people falling back of any sort were the roman soldiers when confronting the Messiah, in John 18:6. Rightfully so, here was Jesus the Son of God, declaring he indeed was the I Am. Yet, we don’t see this occurring elsewhere in the ministry and life of any of the Apostles.

Several years later, reading and studying for myself, I learned, this whole thing was a gimmick, led by a false teacher and charlatan who was a prosperity gospel peddler. The same Benny Hinn said Adam could fly, and he needed a holy ghost machine gun to mow down his detractors.

However, I fell that day too. I sensed and felt emotions that I could not explain. I had to take my selective experience and put it under the authority of the Scripture. It was hard for me to accept later on that this experience may not have been the power of God I was experiencing, but the power of the group moment, mixed with lousy theology from false teaching. Our selective experiences are not a theological truth, nor should our experiences be elevated above that which is true.

Here is my more significant point. We can be taught wrong and believe it to be accurate, not because we can back it up from Scripture, but because an “authority,” “prophet,” “apostle,” “pastor,” said so. Yet, we never check or test to see if what they are teaching is biblical or sound. So we believe that people being “slain in the spirit” is what the early church experienced. Never looking at passages such as Galatians 5 to see the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Notice, we don’t see “slain” as a fruit of the spirit. Again this is one of many examples I could give. We haven’t even touched on dimensions, decree, and declaration, or demonology.

Our experiences are not what determines what is true. The word of God is the standard. It is the plumb line by which we measure everything. For some of us, we need to take a lot of the heterodox teaching we have received and place it under the light of the Scripture. If what you were taught or experienced does not have even a biblical doctrine that supports it, you must change your thinking. Romans 12:2 tells us, “Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God is.”

My foundation was a mix of biblical truth and error. Over the years, it was a challenging process to take things I held dearly and allow the Scripture to examine my theology. You may not have a Benny Hinn story that cascades into dismantling the false teaching in your life, but all of us should test and discern. Your church may not be inviting Benny Hinn, but today it is those who have taken his teaching and have run with it; folks like Todd White. One has to question how a church can say they love you if they allow false teachers to teach you. As the people of God, we live by Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone), not Sola experiences.