New to my blog? You may want to think about subscribing to be notified of new posts. Thanks for visiting!
I couldn't help be amazed and disgusted by the circus surrounding the recent visit to Brisbane by evangelical faith healer Benny Hinn. This man is the world's richest TV evangelist, who appears to be blatantly interested in amassing a bigger fortune far more than healing anybody. And yet people are suckers for it. The sick, the poor and the unfortunate will come from miles around and pay to hear this empty and vacuous man preach the 'word of God' to them, which invariably involves donating more money. The man raises over $100m each year in donations from his audiences alone.
The Courier Mail has a good article about his Brisbane show in the paper today - here's an excerpt:
Kelly Smith, a paraplegic, travelled from Ipswich. The 43-year-old recently suffered two strokes and a blood clot, and her husband Gavin has cataracts on his eyes.
"We've tried everything," Ms Smith said. "Feng shui, wind chimes, crystals and positive thinking. We really wanted to give this a go."
Nearby sat seven-year-old Bernie Hudson. The bright-eyed Cairns local, who was born with spina bifida and now suffers scoliosis, begged parents Ken and Karen to bring her along. She sat in her small wheelchair and waited, excited about the possibility of being able to walk.
"She gets up every morning at 5.30am to watch Benny's show This Is Your Day!" Ms Hudson said.
"She watches the pastor healing other people, and thought maybe he could do something for her."
But business comes before miracles when Pastor Hinn is in the building, it seems.
After an hour of songs, Hinn preached a recurring topic. Gold and silver. Silver and gold. The flamboyant non-denominational preacher, who receives an estimated $A110 million in donations per annum, used scripture to encourage crowd members to give. "Do you know how much gold the children of Israel gave Moses to build a tabernacle?" he asked. "Fifty thousand ounces of gold, 150,000 ounces of silver. In today's prices that's over 40 million US dollars in gold alone. I don't know how much that is in Australian dollars, but that's a lot of gold . . . and God blessed them."
Hinn, who owns a $36 million private jet, continued in the same "rich" vein. For 90 minutes he talked dollars. The term "wealth transfer" was uttered 20 times in 10 minutes. "Gold" and "silver" was said 35 times in six minutes alone.
People are looking for light, change and hope today, perhaps more than ever. It's a shame that people like Benny Hinn exist to dash their hopes and muddy the waters of truth even more than they are already.
{ 0 comments… add one now }