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Benny Hinn: Evangelist
12/06/06
by Stretch

The E-board meetings of the Hippo Supreme Council (of which Stretch is a junior charter member) are generally free of theological banter.  Like any high-powered company, the Deadly Hippos have policies against workplace discussion that might result in heated dialogue or hurt feelings.  However, sometimes duty calls us to step outside the lines, and what a shrill song doth the Lady Duty sing.  Despite not knowing where any of my Hippo brethren stand on the issue of the Hereafter, I take it upon myself to bring Christianity to the forefront of Hippo Nation.  

Today I was perusing one of my favorite non-hippo web sites when I came across a startling news item.  On http://monkeysforhelping.blogspot.com , I read the humbling saga of one Benny Hinn, who is currently being prohibited from preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

For shame, capitalistic Americans!!! For shame!

It appears that Pastor Benny will no longer be able to bring the Good News to the third world countries because…well…he doesn’t have a state of the art private jet.  You know, because Jesus would never fly commercial…and because those third world jungles and islands have airports…

In order to keep Christianity from completely dying out, Pastor Hinn asks for 6,000 partners to donate a cool grand apiece, in order to foot the bill for the down payment on this instrument of righteousness. 

From the Hinn web site
Umm, yeah.  The $6,000,000 down payment. 

We aren’t privy to how much the entire jet actually costs, but after a little research, I found a similar plane that listed for the affordable price of 36 million dollars.  My first question was why Benny couldn’t just pay for the plane with his ministry war chest, or with his own million dollar salary.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEM1gz4azmE
--And--http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5t0zb0EROOE

Obviously, that is beside the point, as well as a testament to my lack of faith.  We should focus on the positives of the jet, like the fact that this 36 million dollar investment will help the Hinn ministry to be more financially accountable.  Yep.  You can read that logic here: 
https://www.bennyhinn.org/external/pdf/dove_one_brochure.pdf

This brochure does not mention any of the thousand dollar meals that Hinn and his entourage rack up on the road http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEM1gz4azmE, or the presidential hotel suites that they rent for 10,000 dollars a night, but I am confident that those, like the airplane, are expenses which help to keep the ministry focused on fiscal responsibility.  You see, so great is his devotion, God has granted Hinn a level of wisdom that has enabled him to create a new form of mathematics.  SHAW, do you believe in the power of Hinnematics now? 

Not all televangelists are goobers

I almost did not write this article.  Heaping scorn on men of faith, whether deserved or not, is kind of cliché in current society.  Yeah, Pat Robertson eats diamonds for breakfast.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Robertson  But he also takes fleets of doctors and shipments of food to places that people like me would rather not even take the time to read about.  Even though the Bible gives Christians a surprising amount of leeway to judge fellow believers inside the Church, I generally take a pass.  Yeah, religious leaders are messed up, but what did you expect?  They’re people. 

             That being said, Benny Hinn possesses a certain chutzpah, an unwavering gravitas that affords him the ability to do patently absurd things.  Despite my objections to openly chastising members of my own faith, I think that sane Christians share a duty to expose people like Hinn.  We owe it to our religion to point out the wild inconsistencies of rogue shamans.  Milking old church ladies, Max Bialystock-style, for a 36 million dollar jet is one thing.  Staring straight into the TBN cameras and casually spewing forth zany prophecies—well, that’s just too much.  Here are some of Hinn’s little peccadilloes from years passed, thanks to the web site
http://www.aloha.net/~mikesch/tbn.htm  and from his wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benny_hinn .  These are actual prophecies from Hinn (sigh):

• Fidel Castro will die during the 1990s.  (Well, this could have actually happened.  Maybe Castro is really a highly developed android, like Bishop in Aliens.  We know those Cubans have been sitting on robot technology for years.  Wait, or is that cigar technology?  Well, anyone seen the movie Weekend at Bernies?  Anybody?  Huh?) 

• The East Coast will be destroyed by an earthquake during the 1990s.  (Well, earthquake, hurricane, what’s the difference?  1990s, 2005, same thing.  East Coast, New Orleans, ehh, that’s kind of splitting hairs, right?  See—he was this close…)

• Homosexuals will be destroyed by fire in either 1994 or 1995.  (Wait, this actually happened, and it occurred in 2003.  It was called the movie Boat Trip, and it made me want to kill myself.  After I finished watching that film, I wanted to slap a gay guy in the face.  Also I wanted to slap Horatio Sanz in the face.  In my defense, I think a lot of gay guys probably wanted to slap themselves in the face after watching that movie.)

• Jesus is coming!!! (In, uh, Kenya though, and He’s just popping by to appear on stage with me.  I don’t think the whole rapture thing will happen then.  Just Jesus.  Stopping by because I want Him to.) 

Yes, Benny Hinn once prophesied that Jesus would appear on stage with him during a crusade in Africa.  Now I’m not an ordained minister.  I’m not even a lay minister.  However, I would be willing to bet that the Almighty Creator of the Universe is probably not a yo-yo at the tug and beck of a delusional Greek with a bad combover.   In hindsight, it’s kind of a pity that Jesus didn’t show up.  If He had, maybe Benny could have taught him some of that new math he’s been developing. 

“By their fruit you will recognize them…”  Matthew 7:16

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