Benny Hinn: healer or hypnotist? - Investigative Files

Critics, like the Rev. Joseph C. Hough, President of New York's Union Theological Seminary, say of the desperately hopeful: "It breaks your heart to know that they are being deceived, because they genuinely are hoping and believing. And they'll leave there thinking that if they didn't get a miracle it's because they didn't believe." More pointedly, Rabbi Harold S. Kushner stated on A Question of Miracles (Thomas 2001):

I hope there is a special place in Hell for people who try and enrich themselves on the suffering of others. To tantalize the blind, the lame, the dying, the afflicted, the terminally ill, to dangle hope before parents of a severely afflicted child, is an indescribably cruel thing to do, and to do it in the name of God, to do it in the name of religion, I think, is unforgivable.

Amen.

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to George E. Abaunza, Professor of Philosophy at Felician College in Lodi, N.J., for sending me a copy of the video A Question of Miracles. I also appreciate the input of Jim Underdown and other members of the Center for Inquiry--West's Independent Investigations Group who attended a Benny Hinn Miracle Crusade in Anaheim, California, August 17, 2001. Thanks are also due to Tim Binga for research assistance, Ranjit Sandhu for typing the manuscript, and Robert A. Baker for reading it.

References

Baker, Robert A. 1990. They Call It Hypnosis. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.

Benny Hinn: Pros & cons. 2002. Internet posting: www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/exposes/hinn/general.htm.

Condren, Dave. 2001. Evangelist Benny Hinn packs arena. The Buffalo News, June 29.

Frame, Randy. 1991. Best-selling author admits mistakes, vows changes. Christianity Today, October 28, 44--45.

Hinn, Benny. 1990. Good Morning, Holy Spirit. Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

-----. 1999. Kathryn Kuhlman: Her Spiritual Legacy and Its Impact on My Life. Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

Nickell, Joe. 1993. Looking for a Miracle: Weeping Icons, Relics, Stigmata, Visions & Healing Cures. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.

Nolen, William A. 1974. Healing: A Doctor in Search of a Miracle. New York: Random House.

Randi, James. 1987. The Faith Healers. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books 228-229.

Spraggett, Allen. 1971. Kathryn Kuhlman: The Woman Who Believed in Miracles. New York: Signet.

Thomas, Antony. 2001. A Question of Miracles. HBO special, April 15.

Underdown, James. 2001. Personal communication, October 23.

Joe Nickell is CSICOP's Senior Research Fellow and author of numerous investigative books.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group