DR. MICHAEL BROWN DEFENDS WORD FAITH HERETIC BENNY HINN
Apprising Ministries has been pointing out this growing syncretism of heretical Word Faith mythology into apostatizing evangelicalism for well over two years now. Having been swept into WF fables in my early Christian walk, I’m in a kind of unique situation in that I’m very familiar with the major WF players.
Imagine my surprise when I first realized that the Elephant Room 2 council of Evangelical Ecumenical Magisterium (EEM) leaders James MacDonald and Mark Driscoll would feature reputed modalist T.D. Jakes—a most notorious prosperity preacher and royalty in WF circles.
As I recently pointed out these key EEM figures completely ignored the WF preaching of Jakes and would basically pronounce their blessing upon him; even though e.g. James MacDonald Was A Bit Late In Mainstreaming T.D. Jakes within evangelicalism as a whole.
However, what ER2 did accomplish was to open a door for Jakes to slither into the young, restless and reformed camp; and with him other WF preachers as well. You say, “No way.” Well, consider Mark Driscoll Defends His Christian Brother Joel Osteen.
Just about a year ago Matt Smethurst, “associate editor for The Gospel Coalition,”1 wrote the post Driscoll, Who Do You Think I Am? It’s a promotional interview for Driscoll to plug his latest book at the time. Let me draw your attention to Smethurst’s question where he asks Driscoll:
You observe that “appreciated people” exchange grumbling for praying, competing for celebrating, bitterness for thankfulness, performing for serving, and boasting for encouraging. What’s an “appreciated person”? Isn’t that what Joel Osteen wants me to be? (source)
In Mark Driscoll’s answer it becomes crystal clear that Driscoll is defending Joel Osteen as a legitimate Christian minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ:
I am aware of the theological differences that exist between our tribe and Pastor Joel. I also know my Reformed brothers like to treat Pastor Joel like a piñata, but there are worse things than being happy and encouraging at a time when the most common prescription medications are antidepressants.
A few guys in our tribe could learn to talk about something other than painful, arduous suffering once and a while—if nothing else than for the sake of variety. (source)
What talking about “painful, arduous suffering”; I know I’ve not heard any of that from Driscoll’s fellow megachurch EEM comrades. Be that as it may, for Mark Driscoll, here Joel Osteen—whom he acknowledges as a pastor— is merely in a different tribe of Christianity than his Reformed brothers.
Then there’s Beth Moore, actively promoted by the SBC, and her announcement of her recent “worship” at Osteen’s social gathering (it’s not a church in the Biblical sense).2 You may also recall that almost three years ago now I showed you that Influential EEM Member Steven Furtick Calls Joel Osteen A Great Man Of God.
We also have Furtick inviting a number of WF preachers to take the platform at his Code Orange Devival and culminating with his proudly announcing that T.D. Jakes Is My Favorite Preacher in The World. As a matter of fact, it’s gotten so bad already that a year ago we’d see the following: Prophet-Leader Steven Furtick Descends Down To Word Faith Heretic Rod Parsley.
You may believe me when I tell you that WF phonies don’t come any easier to spot than Rod Parsley. Take for example this classic WF ploy from this spiritual snake oil salesmen: Word Faith Heretic Rod Parsley With Prayer Cloth Power! We come now to yet another case in point of how WF heretics are being defended and even promoted by evangelicals you’d hope would know better.
Today Steve Camp, pastor-teacher of The Cross Church, got into a spirited discussion on Twitter with Dr. Michael Brown concerning Brown’s appearance this week on WF King Benny Hinn’s TV show.3 If you don’t know, Dr. Brown is the host of The Line of Fire radio program and is a:
Before we move on, you’ll need to be aware of the article Ignorance Is Not an Option by counter-cult apologist Justin Peters over at the Grace to You blog. Whatever differences I may have with Peters, he is a renowned expert in confronting the heresies of the Word Faith cult.
(source)
For our purposes here, space only allows me to highlight for you that Peters has taken Brown to task concerning Benny Hinn:
One of the common criticisms of the Strange Fire conference held this past October was that the speakers (this writer included) painted all charismatic Christians with the same broad brush by lumping them in with the extremes of the Word-Faith/N.A.R./Dominion movement. Charismatic theologian, author, and radio host Dr. Michael Brown on the eve of the conference posted an open letter to Dr. John MacArthur stating that he “attributes the extreme errors of a tiny minority to countless hundreds of thousands of godly leaders worldwide.”[1]
From this statement it is apparent that Brown does indeed recognize that there are “extreme errors” in the charismatic movement. Not to worry, however, because those who propagate such error constitute only a “tiny minority” of the mighty charismatic army.
I’m not a social media guy but a few of my more technologically astute friends alerted me to a tweet from Brown dated January 2, 2014 in which he stated that he “just recorded five wonderful TV shows with Benny Hinn.”
Benny Hinn? Really? (source)
Yes, Benny Hinn, really; and as you’ll see, it’s about to get worse as apparently Dr. Brown now feels the need to come to Hinn’s defense. I’ll refer you to the rest of this piece by Justin Peters for more on the sordid history and WF doctrine of Benny Hinn. He is truly indefensible and it’s quite interesting Brown doesn’t seem to see this.
Camp begins by asking Brown about his appearances on Hinn’s program this week and where they can be seen:
Brown did elaborate on a bit of what he covers with Hinn:
(source)
I’m not going to cover the whole exchange between Steve Camp and Dr. Michael Brown; however the following is representative of their discussion, and is important to note. Camp gets to the heart of the matter concerning Brown’s appearance with the heretical Hinn; Brown’s responses give us real reason for concern:
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Sadly, these words by Brown are quite typical of those who support people like Benny Hinn. It just serves to show how heretics like Hinn and T.D. Jakes operate. Whenever they’re in a more traditional evangelical setting they quickly trot out their file card orthodoxy and sound exactly like orthodox believers.
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However, later when they’re back in their natural habitat, e.g. on TBN, then they put that card back into the file cabinet and simply return to being themselves. Unfortunately, this is how such as these end up fooling the naive. One would expect someone like Dr. Michael Brown would see through it.
Instead, Brown tosses Camp a red herring; however, as I see it, this only serves to make it look more like Brown’s coming to Hinn’s defense:
But this is to ignore all of the legitimate criticism of Benny Hinn prior to this series of shows with Brown. No one credible is saying that Hinn is always heretical all of the time. Camp commented:
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This is a fair question. But Brown would choose to play the pious card rather than deal with the substance of what Camp had been saying:
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No, Dr. Brown; may the Lord forgive you for trying to imply that someone like Benny Hinn, who has perverted the Gospel and bilked millions of dollars from professing believers in the Lord, is orthodox. Again, considering Brown’s apparent attempt to defend Hinn, Camp asks a fair question.
(source)
Yet, as far as I was able to determine, Brown never does answer: Is Benny Hinn a legitimate preacher of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and an orthodox teacher of God’s Word. Maybe we really shouldn’t be surprised that Brown wouldn’t want to be critical of a spiritual flake like Hinn.
Brown has often been seen sharing the platform with people as spiritually whacked as his longtime friend, New Apostolic Reformation’s Rick Joyner (see video below). For example, the following from The Elijah List, which promotes all kinds of lunacy in the Lord’s Name:
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In closing this out for now, and in the interest of fairness, let me point out that Dr. Michael Brown also addressed some of this on his radio program today:
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Dr. Brown responds to an article by Dr. James White on the anointing of the Spirit, asking what we can expect (according to the Scriptures) when the Holy Spirit moves. Dr. Brown will also catch up with the latest news and take your calls. (source)I’ll leave you with an example of the “ministry” of Benny Hinn. Below Hinn’s with his protégé, rising WF star Prophet Profit Manasseh Jordan. Watch as Hinn claims that he actually prophesied Jordan’s birth, as if Jordan’s some special prophet along the order of a John the Baptist. Note also how they take the Lord’s Name in vain:
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Further reading
- DR. MICHAEL BROWN SAYS FRIENDS MIKE BICKLE AND LOU ENGLE “TRUE MEN OF GOD”
- DR. MICHAEL BROWN DEBATES PHIL JOHNSON ON “STRANGE FIRE” CONFERENCE
- LOUIS GIGLIO STANDS WITH PHIL PRINGLE, BRIAN HOUSTON, AND KONG HEE AT C3 CHURCH
Endnotes
- http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/author/mattsmethurst/, accessed 1/13/14. ↩
- See Beth Moore Worships At Joel Osteen’s Church As Pastrix Christine Caine Preaches ↩
- http://www.bennyhinn.org/bhm-weekly-listings/, accessed 1/13/14. ↩
