In which our regular writers toss around
subjects a little more volatile than usual.
Tom: Costi’s description of the financial
benefits of preaching the gospel and performing “healings” is a bit jarring,
especially for those who’ve grown up in the family of a full-time Bible
teacher. I don’t recall the 10,000 square foot mansions, the Benzes, the
exotic vacations or the summer homes.
What do
you think, IC? Was my dad doing something wrong?
Earthly Possessions, Happiness and Perfect Health
Immanuel
Can: Pretty clearly, according to the prosperity gospel. If
God doesn’t “bless” you with earthly possessions, happiness and perfect health,
it’s really your fault, you see. You must have sinned. Or lacked
faith. Or not had the “second blessing” (tongues). Or not given
generously of your funds.
Tom: That’s a bit of a downer, but I’ll try to get over it.
Well, there are a few things I like about
Costi Hinn’s testimony of discovery about what the Bible really teaches, not
least the bit about his wife and how the whole family tried — and
failed — to make her speak in tongues.
IC: Yes. I like how he looked at what scripture actually said, and
when he saw that it did not match what he was being told, he knew he had to
pick a side. And to his credit, he picked the right one. I like
that too.
Out of the Feedback Loop
Tom: Ah, that’s what I wanted to talk about a bit. I notice what made
him reexamine the scriptures for himself was getting married to a woman who was
not part of his regular feedback loop. I think we’ve both experienced church
situations where everybody around you reinforces the status quo to the point
that you feel like you’re in an echo chamber.
Two things are required to break you out of
that: (1) exposure to a different interpretation; and (2) a person
holding that interpretation that you care enough about to really examine their
argument rather than riding roughshod over them or just dismissing them. In
this case, Costi had a new wife he loved, and so he looked at the verse she
presented with enough openness for the Spirit of God to convict him his own
interpretation was wrong.
IC: Good point. Different things can, perhaps, provoke the right
attitude on our part, but you’ve got to take the right attitude somehow …
Questioning the Default Settings
So what is that attitude?
Tom: Humble. Teachable. Willing to question one’s default settings. That
feedback loop I talked about earlier is deadly. We’re seeing it today for most
ideological positions, left or right. Regardless of your upbringing, there are a
certain number of approved sources you are allowed to reference, and when you
step outside that set of appropriate options, you’re in trouble. You’re no
longer an acceptable option.
Here the writer is basically in a cult, and
he was born into it. It’s not something he stumbled into from neutral
territory, but something he imbibed from birth. That’s what makes it all the
more amazing to me that somehow the Lord got him out of it.
IC: Well, that’s the thing — usually, Christian people don’t think
of something even nominally “Christian” as being capable of being a “cult”. They
may be comfortable saying it’s misguided, ill-informed, theologically-wonky, or
even totally wrong-headed; but to call it a “cult” is a bridge too far for
most. But in this case …
Tom: Uh, yeah, it’s a cult. Read the article. He lived it. It’s a cult.
Confronting the Word
I particularly like the part where he was
forced to confront the healing at Bethesda, and the penny really dropped
for him:
“This left three treasured beliefs in tatters. Isn’t it always God’s will to heal? No, Jesus only healed one man out of a multitude. Doesn’t God only heal people if they have enough faith? No, this crippled man didn’t even know who Jesus was (let alone have faith in him). Doesn’t healing require an anointed healer, special music, and an offering collection? No, Jesus healed instantly with a mere command. I wept bitterly over my participation in greedy ministry manipulation and my life of false teaching and beliefs, and I thanked God for his mercy and grace through Jesus Christ. My eyes were completely opened.”
That’s some powerful
stuff.
IC: Very powerful. And in
this connection, I often think that the people who believe in the so-called
“prosperity gospel” have surely never read the book of Job. There you see a righteous man who suffers
terrible earthly circumstances, and is nevertheless a true friend of God and an
example of faith. These cultists have too small a Bible.
Unresolved Questions
Tom: Well, I think the downsizing is a very deliberate thing. He
describes having questions as a kid when the family was being investigated by Dateline NBC or The Fifth Estate and resolving them by telling himself they
were being persecuted like Jesus and Paul. Or asking his father if they could
go and heal a friend with cancer and being told they should just pray at home.
There was a fair bit of reality-warping and scripture-distorting that went
along with being a Hinn. When we find ourselves having to completely ignore
significant themes or books of the Bible, it’s an indication that our theology
is badly bent in some way or other. Alarm bells should be going off.
IC: Yes, I think so.
But I think there’s an inducement for people to keep believing Hinn’s type of
message — about how faith can be ‘used’ to get prosperity, and so
on — since we have a natural tendency as humans to want to bring
circumstances within our control. If there’s a set method for manipulating God
to give us what we want, then we have the means to control him. Hinn teaches
that if we do the right set of things — having faith, claiming promises,
giving money, and so forth — then God is obligated to give us good outcomes.
Making the Supernatural Obedient
It’s
not actually Christian. Really, it’s a form of witchcraft using Christian language. You can tell, because Hinn’s whole focus is not at all how to conform
the human will to God’s will, but rather how to find the right formula to make
the supernatural obedient to our will.
Tom: When you speak of
trying to manipulate God as witchcraft, it might explain why fake
healing — sorry, I mean faith
healing — is regularly associated with the prosperity gospel. It pushes
the same buttons.
IC: Yes. It’s really
expressive of a whole attitude to life. I remember reading a newspaper article
about a big conference — allegedly on the subject of “Christian” business
practices — that one of these prosperity gospel organizations held near
where I was living. They interviewed one person who said, “This conference was
great; it really showed me how to use God in my business.”
Tom: Agh!
IC: That’s it. They’re all about using God in their business. That’s quite
different from a desire to be used by God in his business. And while they insist that the power must come from the
supernatural, the agenda is not. That agenda is very clearly their own.
So
I sincerely doubt whatever “power” they have, if any, has anything at all to do
with the Lord. Because surrendering the agenda is something that, as I read
scripture, he simply does not do.
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