by Lorette C. Luzajic
Part 20 of the Pillars of Faith series

Body Count

The Bible says not to “touch God’s anointed,” and that’s how faith healer con artist Benny Hinn gets away with murder. Kings and prime ministers welcome him as royalty, giving him the poorest countries so he can take whatever Indian farmers or Kenyan coffee growers have left. The Pentecostal prosperity pastor is filthy rich, now raking in around 100 million a year.

He has zero issue asking for what he wants: in one case, for a $36 million dollar jet. People drop dead at his Miracle Crusades, but with that kind of income, his audience pays his settlements. Skeptic Magazine (Vol 14, #4, 2009) reported that Ella Peppard fell down at a revival, and was denied medical intervention by Hinn, who declared God would heal her. She died.

Hinn settled out of court with millions paid for by the hopeless and the gullible desperate for God to bless them if they give. Hinn has a trail of people who have died or been injured at his crusades the globe over. Skeptic also noted that in 2004, three patients left their hospital beds in hopes of a miracle at a rally, and all died during the revival. Hinn didn’t even bother trying to heal them. At that same event, ten fell out of trees where they were hoping for a better view of God’s anointed. All were badly hurt with broken bones. Hinn did nothing except ask for their money. Then there were the cancer victims who gave up treatment to trust in the Lord, and they also died.

Death Threats

Despite Hinn promising doctor’s notes and other proofs, investigators have not found one who has truly been healed. But Hinn threatens critics like myself with death. “I curse that man who dares to speak a word against this ministry… ” he said to thousands. He also said, “I speak this under the anointing of the Spirit… Don’t touch God’s servants; it’s deadly… You’re going to pay.” He has threatened to harm the children of his critics, all under the “anointing” of course.

No one really knows much about Toufik Benedictus Hinn, born in Jaffa (now Israel). He was part Greek and part Armenian, and moved to Toronto in his youth. He was born-again in 1972. The Lord healed him of a childhood stutter, and he decided to be a miracle maker. “Everything I say happens,” Hinn has also said. In October, Daniel reported on Hinn’s failed prophecies — that God told him the homos would burn, Castro’s death, and other things that did not come to pass. Who was lying — Benny or God?

DOA

Some things are just plain weird. Hinn has said if we placed the hands of the corpses of our beloved on the TV screen during his crusades, there would be a mass resurrection. He says God literally enters him to perform healings and prophecies, and says he doesn’t remember the things he says or does when he is “drunk” on the holy spirit. He also speaks to the dead. Weirder still, two in his inner circle died from heroin overdoses. On the night of one OD, Hinn was shown on video passing a pipe of something intoxicating to his brother in Christ.

Then there was another brother in the Lord caught having gay sex with the chauffeur, and also the case of PI Mario Licciardello. The former cop was hired to help Hinn root out corruption. Mario saw so much of it that he threatened full disclosure. He died suddenly of a mysterious heart attack before his story got to court. Hinn allegedly settled with Mario’s widow — but why? And then, there was the worthy orphanage cause that never materialized, for which Hinn bilked the masses. Without flinching, Hinn said God told him not to build it after all.

Psycho

I’m no shrink but Hinn is mentally unhinged. But it would be unfair to equate him with other sufferers of schizophrenia, because Hinn is also a psychopath. He has learned to mimic human emotions, which he does not have, to further his own power and profit. He fancies himself Hitler in sheep’s clothing.

His biggest rush is not the jet or the hotels, but the millions of minions bowing their heads to the lord their god Pastor Benny. We still live in terror of questioning even obvious abuses of the gentle words of Jesus, for fear of eternal hell. Only in this environment could a deceiver like Hinn thrive. The more things change, the more things stay the same.

Lorette C. Luzajic writes about all kinds of interesting people at Fascinating People.

by Lorette C. Luzajic
Part 18 of the Pillars of Faith series

No Joke

Skewering Pat Robertson, The Most Dangerous Man in America, in 700 words or less is no easy task. Where does one begin? Books, like the above by Robert Boston, have already been written, and there may not be enough trees to cover all the facts.

On top of that, Pat hides his sins easily in broad daylight, bumbling his way through fundie TV so we assume no one takes him seriously. Hasn’t everyone been rolling their eyes at the mere mention of the 700 Club for decades now?

I’ve been recently called out for my mean-spirited attacks on these poor, innocent, easy targets who are so woefully misled and far out that they threaten no one. Who listens to some jerk blaming immigrants and other heathens and homos for hurricanes, who calls them “termites” and calls for a “Godly fumigation”? Clearly, anyone who famously states that women seeking equality are actually socialists looking to “leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians” is a joke and nothing more. Pat’s prophecies have come and gone with the wind, and his conspiracy theories about the Illuminati and Masons were nowhere near as riveting as Dan Brown’s.

Blood Diamonds

But it’s no joke. Marion “Pat” Robertson is an extremely influential man in matters that extend beyond spirituality and blundering racist faux pas. He has a political agenda, twisted morals, huge media power, insatiable thirst for money at all costs, tremendous business acumen, and influential henchman saturating every aspect of American life, from dieting to banking to war. And then there’s the little matter of blood diamonds.

I encourage all of you to look up Pat’s proclamations on the evil Hindus, Satanic atheists, homosexual Scots, the “rightful” dominion of Christians (but only some kinds of Christians), the evils of yoga,  the voice of God as special immunity for people blowing up abortion clinics, his calls for various assassinations of leaders he doesn’t like, and how his own half-million dollar racehorse had nothing to do with gambling, which he speaks against. And how “Women should listen and learn quietly and submissively.” Or how the special energy shake God used to nourish him made him capable of 2,000-lb leg presses, nearly 1.5 times the power of the world record champion.

The Elephant in the Room

But these sheer idiocies with which we cull hilarious lists really detract from the sinister reality behind the scenes. The media mogul formed the first Christian Broadcast Network and today pumps his belligerent 700 Club mumblings to a million people a day. Other programming goes around the world in some 50 languages. Founder of the Christian Coalition for America, The American Center for Law and Justice, and big wig at the Moral Majority and umpteen other rhetoric-spewing think tanks, Pat’s putting your grandma’s money toward making sure justice exists only for his approved brand of Christians and no one else. (And for his private jets.) Pat’s ties to, funding for, support of, and influence on political players is huge. He has been involved in politics himself, and is extremely influential in pushing his creationist, dominionist, racist, anti-women, anti-progress agenda from behind the scenes.

What a Relief

Pat has close business ties to shady political figures linked to genocidal warfare. Indeed, he’s a good friend of Zaire’s (now Congo) Mobutu Sésé Seko. Mobutu was the totalitarian dictator of Zaire from ’65 to ’97, a man especially fond of public executions for anyone whom he didn’t like.  Pat sunk some 8 million into blood diamond mining, given permission to mine by his friend Charles Taylor, Liberian warlord. (Pat has said that the investment was for “evangelism.” Riiiiight.) Taylor has recently been arrested after living in hiding, and faces 11 charges for war crimes, including arming, funding, and instructing rebels to pillage, rape, steal, and hack off people’s arms and legs over diamonds. Even Bush was against Taylor, and Pat lambasted him for not supporting Taylor, a “Baptist, Christian president.”

Considering that Pat’s “Operation Blessing” supposedly helps genocide and war victims in Rwanda, Congo and west Africa, isn’t it a little bit, um, wrong, to invest money in a major cause of said holocausts? Pat came under fire when it was observed that his planes, supposedly carrying refugees toward relief, were actually transporting his mining gear and profits! It was ruled that Pat had indeed diverted donations, but he saved his arse because the planes had a few relief supplies on them.

I don’t know about you, but I prefer my atheist and homo friends over greedy torture-mongers and genocidal maniacs, or preachers who cover their bloody tracks.

Lorette C. Luzajic writes about all kinds of interesting people at Fascinating People.