Posted on 01/27/2005 1:26:28 PM PST by pkajj
Bangalore, Jan. 24 -- A three-day faith show here by American evangelist Benny Hinn may have concluded without any major trouble, but it has left behind a trail of controversies. With the Karnataka government going all out to provide the logistics support for the Festival of Blessings that concluded here Sunday night, the high-tech show attracted nearly a million people from all over India and some from abroad.
Though massive protests, a 12-hour shutdown and stray incidents of violence in the city overshadowed the inaugural day, the congregation passed off peacefully during the weekend much to the relief of the organizers and the state government.
While prayers and high-decibel choir sessions under dazzling lights and special effects drew applause, the healing sessions at the end drew protests and questions by rationalists and rightwing Hindu activists on the "miracle powers" of the Israeli-born Hinn.
In fact, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has demanded the resignation of Dharam Singh for permitting Hinn to conduct the festival and "mislead" the people with his healing powers to cure the sick and terminal patients.
Challenging Hinn's claims that several people got cured of their diseases by participating in the prayer / healing sessions with the blessings of Jesus Christ, Hindu activists said an equal number of sick went home disappointed with no change in their health condition.
Refuting the charges, Hinn told the gathering that God alone was the healer and he simply prayed to invoke the Lord's blessings to cure the sick and help the poor as Jesus Christ did over 2,000 years ago. “I am only a servant of Jesus. I came here because people in India also need healing, just like anywhere in the world. God wants to heal. That is why millions of people have come to attend the festival and not for me," Hinn asserted.
After a dozen or so testimonies of "cures", a man jumped over the fence to reach the stage. He explained his "ailment" to the volunteers. "Pastor, this man here has not walked for years. But today, a wonderful miracle has happened to him. He can walk, run, jump... in fact, he jumped over the fence," said an American volunteer whose job is to recount the health problems and the apparent miracles.
"Hallelujah! Shall we have a huge round of applause for this glorious feat of the Lord? I told you, none of you will leave this place sick," pastor Hinn replied. The "cured" man jumped and ran about. Hinn gave him a slight nudge on the chin. But the man did not collapse, unlike many others who did after they "felt" an electric current pass.
Now the inside story: This "healed" man (Raj) was a decoy planted by The Times of India to find out how Hinn's medical team separates the wheat from the chaff. Raj, actually in fine health, came to the meet pretending to have a pronounced limp, and was put in the "sick" enclosure.
As the "healing" session began, this man started screaming that he was cured. Like him, thousands of people claimed a cure and jostled to get onstage. Doctors in Hinn's team explained to TOI that they could make out the "really cured" from those who were not.
"We check them meticulously. We cannot explain these miracles, but they are happening. We can make out who has been cured and we send only those persons onstage," explained one doctor. Raj was certified "cured".
At the conclusion, Hinn thanked the state government, the city police and the Indian organizers for the peaceful conduct of the festival, and told the gathering that he would return to India in February 2006 to hold a similar congregation at Hyderabad.
Hinn's subsequent departure followed all procedures and rules, including processing through emigration and Customs, the organizers maintained. However, Immigration ACP Vijaya Kumar and Customs superintendent Krishna Murthy asked Hinn to bless the niece of a deputy collector of Customs who suffers from a speech impairment.
The officials approached Hinn's aircraft with the child after the plane started moving to the runway for take-off, the organizers said. On being denied access to Hinn, the officials directed the Air Traffic Control to deny the aircraft permission for take-off. Only after the child, Bhavana, was photographed and prayed for by Hinn's security officials was the plane allowed to take off, the organizers maintained.
Gee...now Hinn's security personnel can perform miraculous healings too?
You can't? Sure, Hinn is an arrogant fraud, but how does God get the blame for that? Does He get credit, then, for Billy Graham, Jonathan Edwards, Blaise Pascal, Isaac Newton and Thomas Aquinas? Or does He only get blame?
"seeing this theo-charlatan in action. "
Ahh yes. 'Charlatan' was the word I was looking for to describe this phony - thanks!
I can relate. I ended a debate with an atheist friend (or friendly adversary) 2 nights ago by calling him a hypocrite when he pronounced the tsunami as an "act of God"by asking him if how there could only be miracles of nature, but devastation by God?
Left him sitting there speechless.
"I liked his old BBC comedy sketch show, especially those chase sequences during the ending credits."
Yeah, where he's chasing either scantily-clad women or that little old bald man around! Classic!
And now I have that sax music theme playing in my head...
Hinn will have to answer to God for all he has said and done in this lifetime, as we all will.
But using Hinn as an excuse for rejecting Jesus as Savior and Lord isn't going to cut it on judgement day, and more than Adam pointing the finger at Eve saved him. (I'm sure you didn't mean to imply that it would.)
Right there the man makes a false claim.
Errr.... Benny Hill is the weird dude on TV... he played the toymaker in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang...
Benny Hinn is the weird dude on TV... he plays off the hopes and fears of the ignorant....
LOL
Then the Holy Spirit swooped down and healed the whole family. My friend had total healing in her vertebrate, and her other two grandsons were healed ofstuttering and a heart murmer.
"(Don't hate the player - hate the game!)"
Damn - Hypocrite point for me. You're right!
ROFLOL
If people want to be deceived, that's their prerogative. The government should keep its hands off these crusades.
During my college years, I visited many churches of different denominations, trying to find the one closer to original Christianity. My visits to the uber-charismatic churches remain memorable. Questionable stories of healing every time we met, no critical thinking, no verification process.
One day I read a satire about the these ubiquitous miraculous cures on a magazine, where the author claimed that his daughter was steamrolled flat, but he prayed to Jesus, and he watched his daughter come back to life in perfect health. The funny thing was that his article was not too far from the outlandish stories I had heard at church.
What's your take on the people who've died after discontinuing medication and treatment after receiving healing from Benny? Do you agree with Benny's statement that if they died, they must have lost their faith?
Too funny!
Dang, I knew I was spelling it wrong. I should have read through the replies before posting. Egg on face.
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