LIBERTY UNIVERSITY JOINS HANDS WITH BENNY HINN
(Friday Church News Notes, April 11, 2014, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Benny Hinn recently announced that he is partnering with Liberty University to “form a powerful, worldwide ministry connection that will touch the world” (bennyhinn.org). The phony-baloney, Pentecostal Word-Faith heretic says, “Through this powerful alliance between Liberty University Institute of Biblical Studies and our ministry you can enroll in a Bible survey study course, earn a diploma from Liberty University, and receive your ministerial credentials, licensing, and ordination through World Healing Fellowship.” Appearing with Hinn to announce the program were Dan Reber, Director of Liberty University Institute of Biblical Studies, and Ronald Godwin, Liberty University Provost. Hinn has taught that Adam could fly like a bird and swim underwater like a fish. He claims that his “anointing” comes from visits to the graves of Kathryn Kuhlman and Aimee Semple McPherson. He alleges to have had multiple visions of Jesus, beginning at age 11, plus an eight-hour private conversation with the Holy Spirit. In a 1990 television appearance, Hinn said of his detractors, “Sometimes I wish God would give me a Holy Ghost machine gun, I’ll blow your head off!” Hinn tosses the “anointing of the Holy Spirit” like a baseball and “slays people in the spirit” by blowing on them. Hinn claims that physical healing is guaranteed and we must never say, “If it be thy will, Lord.” Though Hinn claims that thousands of people have been healed in his “miracle services,” repeated attempts by reputable researchers have failed to turn up genuine cases. (For documentation of these things see The Pentecostal-Charismatic Movements, available from www.wayoflife.org.) The yoke with Benny Hinn is the latest example of the slippery slide that Liberty University has been on since the late 1980s when Jerry Falwell renounced biblical separatism and began flirting with contemporary music, ecumenism, and charismaticism. We see the great change in thinking that can occur in just one generation.