Yeah, you should defend them.
Hinn is a showman. Jackson is another.
Posted on 01/21/2005 2:42:01 PM PST by samsonite
[India News]: Bangalore, Jan 21 : American evangelist Benny Hinn Friday evening began his much-awaited "Festival of Blessings" prayer meeting here, which saw a shutdown call and incidents of stone throwing by protesting Hindu activists earlier in the day.
About 8,000-10,000 policemen have been deployed in and around the sprawling venue to regulate crowds.
Organisers of the show, being held at the Jakkur airstrip on the outskirts of the city, said earlier that about 400,000 people had already gathered for the event from all parts of the country, especially south India. A few hundred also came from abroad.
Speaking to IANS on phone from the venue, they said, "People are still trooping in, awaiting the arrival of Hinn to conduct the mass prayer and deliver sermons. We are expecting 200,000 more people in the night."
The function started with a 2,400-voice choir singing hymns and prayers in several Indian languages apart from English. Giant screens and mega speakers have been installed all over the grounds for a closer view of the massive stage and to listen to Hinn's religious discourses.
Undeterred by the "Bangalore bandh" shutdown call given by the Hindu Jagaran Vedike with the support of the Sangh Parivar, including the Bharatiya Janata party, the organisers are going ahead with the three-day programme, armed with a high court order.
Earlier in the day, the city witnessed stray incidents of stone throwing at moving buses and processions by anti-Hinn activists, demanding a ban on the programme.
According to police, about 60 state-owned buses were damaged in some parts of the city during the day-long shutdown that led to closure of shops and commercial establishments.
Friday being an official holiday on account of Eid, schools, colleges and government offices remained closed, and there was less traffic on roads.
But roads leading to the venue, about 20 km from the city, were choc-a-bloc with hundreds of buses and other vehicles jamming the national highway.
"We have nabbed about 100 miscreants who were indulging in stone throwing and attempting to torch some buses. We have also rounded-up some leaders of the Vedike when they were trying to disrupt traffic and create disturbances," city police commissioner M. Marisamy told IANS.
So mere human beings who happen to have prophetic gifts are infallible? That is what this statement implies.
And why do they have to perform on stage with a big production and offering buckets? Is this how Jesus did it? Why doesn't Hinn just go into a hospital sometime and heal everyone? Because he's a fake...and a lousy one at that.
If someone is actually getting prophesy from on high, then those prophecies won't be false. Benny Hinn has made many, many prophecies, all in the name of the Lord, and none of them have ever come to pass. Benny Hinn is a false prophet. QED.
Yeah, you should defend them.
Hinn is a showman. Jackson is another.
Oh, please.
That's the Benny I thought of when I read the title!
Totally agree.
After a time of worship, with tears streaming down the faces of many in attendance as the presence of the Holy Spirit began to fall, Benny Hinn declared his love for the people and the nation of India.
To honor this great country and the many government leaders who were in attendance, Pastor Benny introduced a special video presentation of the Indian National Anthem. Later in the service, he declared that he had come to India to give of himself and the ministry and that no offering would be taken because partners and friends from around the world were paying for the expenses of the entire event.
After special music from the massive choir led by Jim Cernero and anointed songs from Steve Brock, Sue Dodge, and well-know Indian actor and singer, Vijay Benedict, Benny Hinn preached a message on the healing compassion of Jesus Christ. In great detail he described forty-eight hours of our Lord’s life in which Jesus encountered a steady stream of people in need of healing and deliverance, and everyone of those people received their miracle. With their faith at a high level, those in attendance reached out to Jesus, and miracles began happening all over the audience. Many were able to make their way to the platform to testify of blind eyes that were opened, deaf ears that could now hear, broken bodies that were now made whole, and a variety of physical infirmities that suddenly disappeared when the power of God touched their lives.
The life-changing power of Jesus Christ impacted many hundreds of thousands of lives on this special evening, and anticipation is high for an even greater move of God on Saturday and Sunday. Crowds are expected to increase substantially as word of this service spreads throughout the city.
Well, Jesus did use a big stage once and his only props were a few fish and few loaves of bread. But the buckets were part of the act then too. ;-P
30-year Southern Baptist physician is advocate for the unreached across India
By Mike Creswell
Dec 13, 2004
Long-term care
During the course of 30-plus years in India, physician Rebekah Naylor has seen the Bangalore Baptist Hospital grow from 80 beds to 160. Each year, the hospital delivers 1,500 babies and treats more than 100,000 patients while steadfastly keeping its focus on telling people about Jesus Christ. by Mike Creswell
Kinship
Rebekah Naylor, who has served in several key roles at the Bangalore Baptist Hospital for more than years, has come to be accepted more as family than foreign staffer, an honorary "auntie" to hundreds and hundreds of Indian young people and children. by Mike Creswell
The challenge at hand
The area around Bangalore, India, is dotted with Baptist churches that trace their origin to the Bangalore Baptist Hospital. Although they are baptizing new believers and starting new congregations, a mind-boggling task remains. In Karnataka state alone, Christians must deliver the Gospel message in 300 different languages and in 33,000 villages, towns and cities linked by few roads. by Mike Creswell
EDITORS’ NOTE: "That All Peoples May Know Him" is the theme for this year’s season of prayer for international missions in Southern Baptist churches across the country. This is the fifth in a five-day series of features Baptist Press is carrying underscoring the challenge of reaching the masses in India with the Gospel. The national goal for this year's Lottie Moon Christmas Offering is $150 million. The International Mission Board relies on the Lottie Moon Offering for 51 percent of its annual income.
BANGALORE, India (BP)--Ask people around Bangalore, India, what a Christian looks like and many would describe Rebekah Naylor, the Southern Baptist missionary surgeon who has labored at the Bangalore Baptist Hospital for the past 30 years.
Some have seen Naylor as the cool, precise medical doctor who has performed countless surgeries and other medical procedures over the years to save lives, deliver babies and relieve suffering for thousands of people.
Others, meanwhile, know of her soft-spoken but persistent sharing of the Gospel, her training and encouragement of Indian Baptists in how to witness and plant churches. In this role she has helped bring eternal life to thousands of people and relieved the spiritual suffering experienced by many here.
For Naylor, the missionary calling and the drive to become physician were one calling.
"I experienced a call to missions specifically when I was 13 years old," she said. "God spoke to me very clearly about personal involvement in foreign missions service."
Her calling intersected with an interest in medicine. "My ambition in medicine was basically to use it as an avenue to share my faith in Jesus Christ," she said, summing up in her typically precise way the vision for her life that she pursued with steadfast devotion over the following decades. Already she had plowed new ground; few women became physicians, much less surgeons, in the 1960s.
By the time she arrived in India as newly appointed missionary in 1974, she had completed medical school and related training. From a comfortable home in Fort Worth, Texas, the medical and missionary newbie found herself stepping through India's poor who slept on sidewalks for want of homes.
BARE FIELD BEGINNING
She arrived at Bangalore Baptist Hospital when it had been open for just six months, surrounded by a bare, 15-acre site outside the city. Anxious though she was, the Indian staff and the 12 patients present welcomed the American warmly.
"The foreign doctors were supposed to know something more than others, so they came hoping that they would find excellent care. They did find excellent care, but they also found people who really cared about them," she said.
As years passed, the city grew out to encircle the hospital compound, and the hospital also grew, from 80 beds to 160. The hospital began to help educate doctors and train Indians to become X-ray and lab technicians.
Today the hospital delivers 1,500 babies a year (an average of about four a day), treats more than 100,000 patients a year and impacts five times that many for the Gospel.
Naylor served in several key roles at the hospital, including administrator, coming to be accepted more as family than foreign staffer. She also became honorary "auntie" to hundreds and hundreds of Indian young people and children.
From its inception the hospital maintained pastoral ministry and outreach. "Its reason to exist,” Naylor noted, “was to tell people about Jesus Christ."
MANY CHURCHES
Today, Indian Baptists point to a map of Bangalore dotted with Baptist churches, most the result of the hospital's outreach. When workers went to one community a couple of miles from the hospital years ago, there were no Christians and no churches. Within a year there were 20 baptized believers. Today, Trinity Baptist Church is a thriving congregation that has started 18 other churches and is working in many other communities to start more.
When a man died at the Baptist Hospital some years ago, the staff presented the man's wife and family a Bible. Though they grieved, they began reading this strange book they had never seen before.
It was only years later that the hospital staff learned the family had turned to Christ and that all the children had become ministers.
Naylor has a treasury of such stories.
One family she ministered to was that of Mutes Khan, a Muslim social worker and community leader. Naylor got to know the Khan family when his first wife developed breast cancer. After his wife died and he remarried, Naylor delivered his new son.
As the Baptist Hospital was looking to extend its medical care to villages outside Bangalore, Khan wanted someone else to take over a small medical clinic he had developed. Because he had come to know and trust the hospital through Naylor, he donated the clinic to the hospital in 2003.
Although Khan remains a Muslim, he has heard the Gospel from Naylor and works to maintain good relations between the two faiths. That's important in India, where militant Hindus, Indian Muslims and Christians frequently have clashed in recent years.
A NEW VISION
Despite a career most missionaries and physicians would envy, in recent years Naylor has realized that even the many churches started through the hospital's ministry will never be enough to reach all of India. In Karnataka state alone, 52 million people represent 300 language/cultural groups. Missionaries have learned that when a group begins to respond to the Gospel and start new churches, the growth stays within the group and only rarely crosses into another.
To reach the lost people in this one state, Christians must deliver the gospel in 300 different languages and in 33,000 villages, towns and cities linked by few roads.
"I think this gives you just a small picture of one part of India as to how difficult it is and challenging it is to access all these different communities and people groups and languages and to communicate effectively," Naylor reflected.
Beyond the people group divisions, she said India's social castes create still more barriers. "It is difficult for a person of one caste to reach into another,” she noted, “but I firmly believe that this can happen."
Naylor’s experience has made her into a cheerleader for the whole nation and its peoples. "When we think of all of India, our vision is that we would like to see at least 1,000 workers come into India," she said. Southern Baptist workers have identified 50 mega-cities (with populations over 1 million) and 1,100 unreached people groups in South Asia, most in India.
"In order to engage them with the Gospel, I think it's evident that many, many, many workers are needed," she pleads.
India's millions are open to the Gospel, Naylor said, and they constitute an open door.
"They are waiting to hear. They are ready to respond."
--30--
Mike Creswell, a former overseas correspondent for the International Mission Board, now is a communications staff member with the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina.
http://www.bpnews.net/printerfriendly.asp?ID=19711
(After the show)
with tears streaming down the faces of many in attendance
(Many camera-seekers emoted brilliantly on cue)
as the presence of the Holy Spirit began to fall,
(Just before the commercial break)
Benny Hinn declared his love for the people and the nation of India.
(And asked for lots of money and recognition by mental dwarves.)
Hinn isn't preaching the gospel - he's one of the false teachers we were warned by Christ to look out for.
Wow, you are I are in total agreement! I knew there was a reason we both liked this site.
I don't believe those either.
missyme, I would ask you to take the opposite tack. You have had a wide range of Freepers, from many different denominations and faiths, call into doubt what Benny Hinn is doing with his ministry. I know that if I had taken a certain position on an issue, and had freepers from so many diffrent walks of life say I was on the wrong path - well, I would seriously examine that path or position.
You are defending something you believe in strongly, and we all have done that - but I would hope you would look at what some of your fellow freepers are saying about Benny Hinn, and take a minute and consider what they are saying. They are worth such consideration, even if you end up disregarding what they are saying. Dan and I are very far apart on matters of Christian faith - but if he told me I was off base on something, I would give sober consideration to his counsel, because he has proven over the years that he offers a sound, different point of view that can give a different perspective than what I alone might consider. That is one of the key powers of this website, and I would hope you would avail yourself of it in this discussion.
I have know people who put their lives on the line to preach the Gospels. Benny Hinn is a bunko man who discredits the faith he professes to preach.
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