Hoodwinking 101
http://www.lastingfoundations.com/jeremyblog/index.htm#090617
JUNE, 17, 2009
I can now say with complete confidence that the ‘healings’ going on at Toufik Benedictus (Benny) Hinn’s crusades are not genuine.
Over the years, both secular and Christian media have investigated Benny Hinn Ministries, and to date, not one iota of concrete evidence has been provided to aid in the validation of these ‘miracles.’
During the Fire Conference I attended in Kampala, many people were ‘healed,’ but in every case something invisible was supposedly cured. Bad circulation, or stomach cancer, or some nebulous pain only cap the list of visually unverifiable ‘miracles.’
A senior staff member with BHM even told me directly, “I don’t believe all of the miracles.”
I could write for hours on this one point, on the scam of it, on how Benny Hinn and all those associated with him will have to answer to God regarding those whose money they have stolen. That’s not to mention answering for those poor souls who died due to lack of medical treatment after Benny told them they were cured.
But these things have been written on at length, and a simple Google search will bring up ample reading material. Instead, I want to examine the machinery used to get people to believe this fraud is genuine.
The closest thing to which I can compare Benny’s conference is a rock concert. It starts with some lesser-known opening act (in this case a local choir), which is used to warm up the crowd. After roughly an hour of people singing and jumping, the main act takes center stage. Never in my life have I heard a concert crowd applaud and cheer as loudly as the Miracle Center Cathedral folks did for Benny Hinn.
Summertime in Kampala gets hot. I think it was only about 90 degrees that day, but the humidity was pushing 90%. Ten thousand people, all dressed in their Sunday best (I was in a full suit and tie) are then crammed into an auditorium with no air conditioning. Bottom line, the heat is stifling.
The doors to the event were opened many hours in advance, and in a country where people are typically late nearly, everyone had arrived at least two hours before the event started. With the exception of those lucky few in the front row, there was no water available. No one at all had food. So, by the time Benny actually took the stage, the entire crowd had been without access to food or water for roughly three to four hours.
The African people do not yet have the same skepticism most Americans do when it comes to televangelists. That skepticism is beginning to spread among the younger generation here, but as many pastors have told us, if someone from America says it on TV, it’s still taken as gospel by most people here. Benny Hinn is widely known from his This is Your Day program on TBN, and most of the people at that convention know only what they’ve seen on that program. They don’t know about the controversy. They don’t know that he has been investigated by a number of different organizations. They don’t know there’s no real evidence for his ‘miracles.’
They just believe.
There’s the scene. A larger-than-life figure purporting to bring a ‘healing anointing’ with him walks into a sauna-like room filled with tired, hungry, thirsty, desperate souls. Then he says the magic words…
“Oh my, I came here tonight intending to teach, but there’s just a tremendous spirit of healing here tonight.”
Pandemonium erupts.
Some people think that Benny’s organization plants all of the people that get ‘healed.’ I don’t believe that’s the case. They may plant some, but I don’t think they need to plant all of them. In medicine, there’s a phenomenon known as the Placebo Effect. In studies with patients who have terrible pain, they have given sugar pills to these patients telling them it’s a form of morphine. An overwhelming percentage of them report feeling a marked decrease in their pain. They believed the pill would make them feel better, so they felt better.
The vast majority of the ‘miracles’ that took place in Kampala can be explained by the Placebo Effect. You get a huge, hysterical crowd together, get them tired, hungry and thirsty so their mental acuity is somewhat dimmed, and tell them that, “Someone over to my left is feeling electricity going up and down their left leg. A circulation problem has just been healed.” Electricity is so vague a term that any number of people might feel it under those circumstances, and a ‘spirit of healing’ would have nothing to do with it.
This went on for well over an hour. When the crowd would get tired of standing, Benny would get animated and tell everyone to lift their hands to heaven in thanksgiving. Suddenly everyone would rise again. If someone tried to sit down, Benny would call to them directly and implore them to rise. In this manner was the hysteria prolonged.
But even this must be controlled. Benny carries with him some massive bodyguards, and these fellows, with earphones tucked into their collars, control the crowd of people trying to approach the stage to give a testimony of their ‘healing.’ My front row seat gave me a clear view of the largest fellow getting frustrated with lower-level bouncers for bringing the wrong person forward at the wrong time. The cameras never capture this.
I am also not surprised in the least that people fall backwards when Benny touches their chins. Everyone believes something will happen, so the Placebo Effect takes over. This ‘slaying in the Spirit’ is nothing more than exhausted people overcome with emotion. In more than one instance I observed the fellows who were supposed to ‘catch’ the falling people actually gently pull them down when they weren’t falling of their own accord.
The whole thing sickened me. I spent the entire weekend awestruck that these people could allow themselves to be so deceived. I was even more amazed at how comfortable everyone involved was at using the crowd’s belief and emotional fervor against them.
In the course of the weekend, that fervor combined with polluted teaching (see my post Blessings by Bribery for more on this) saw BHM leave town at least $800,000 richer than they arrived.
And in their wake, they leave boys like the one that approached me as I was trying to leave on Saturday night. Being the only white guy there in a suit not with BHM, I was approached by several people over the course of the weekend who thought I was a pastor with the conference.
This boy pulled me over to his friend. This friend was laying on the ground, covered in a blanket, a cripple. The boy implored me to help his friend. I was on the verge of tears as I tried to explain to this kid that I wasn’t with the ministry, and there was nothing that I could do.
“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” Matt. 7:15
If Christ wasn’t talking about men like Benny, then I can’t imagine who would fit that bill.
