kakathiya
BANNED
- Joined
- Mar 19, 2015
- Messages
- 587
- Reaction score
- -2
- Country
- Location
Popular miracle-working faith healer and televangelist, Benny Hinn, 62, is recovering in a hospital after suffering from complications associated with atrial fibrillation after an overseas trip and his family is asking for prayers.
Hinn's daughter, Jessica Hinn Koulianos, made the revelation in a message on the Benny Hinn Ministries website late Monday evening.
"Recently he (Hinn) returned to California after ministering to crowds of over 100,000 people in Brazil, including over 2,000 pastors and leaders from all over South America. It was truly a remarkable nation-shaking event. And while it was a rewarding journey, after he arrived home he suddenly began battling fatigue and shortness of breath. For those of you who know my Dad, you know that he never stops; so when he spent over a week in bed, we knew something was wrong. I flew to California to be with him and insisted that he see a doctor. On Friday, he consulted with his local physician and was admitted to the hospital, where he was treated for lack of oxygen in his cardiovascular system," wrote Koulianos.
where poor people consult this man for their disease he consults his physician for his disease
Here's how a few of these popular TV faith healer stage tricks are done:
The Healing Of The Lame Illusion: A faith healer walks out into the audience, and asks a person siting next to a pair of crutches to stand and walk and to run around on the stage. The audience is amazed and see it as a great miracle.
How It's Done: The crutches actually belonged to the person sitting next to the person. The person asked to get up and run around on the stage never had any problem walking. But caught up in all of the hysteria and wishing to see a miracle, the crowd becomes excited and never notices this simple slight of hand deception.
Making Those Called On Stage Collapse Under The Power Of The Holy Spirit: A group called onstage collapse into the arms of assistants to the TV faith healer when he suggests the power of the Holy Spirit is at work.
How It's Done: A British former faith healer revealed how TV faith healer performers perfect stage show mass hypnosis techniques that will seeming allow those onstage to collapse under a suggestion cue. Other times, if a person fails to fall, the assistant of a TV faith healer uses a technique known in football as the "low tackle" that causes a person to fall backwards into their arms.
Revelations From God: The TV faith healer appears to be receiving revelations from God and seems to know a great deal about a particular person pulled onstage.
How It's Done: TV faith healers such W.V. Grant made extensive use of crib sheets and notes. And extensive use of hand signals to assistants and code words such as "Amen, Amen, Amen" are signs to assistants as well. CNN once reported how faith healer Peter Popoff uses a tiny transmitter in his ear, not to hear revelations from God, but information from one of his assistants.
Miracle Short Leg Stretching: A faith healer handles a short leg of a person onstage, which miraculously seems to grow longer.
How It's Done: This is an old carnival sideshow trick, where the shoe on one foot is pulled slightly off and forward while the leg is pulled forward to give an illusion that a shorter leg has suddenly grown longer. From a forward camera angle this slight of hand trick looks pretty impressive.
Magician James Randi in 1987 also wrote a critically acclaimed book, THE FAITH HEALERS, examining the stage magic tricks used by popular claimed faith healers such as Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts and others. This book exposes even more classic stage magic tricks used by claimed faith healers.
But the least favorite situation for any TV faith healer is to be forced into a "cold reading" of the person they are supposedly healing. With little information, the healer is forced to wing it and ask general questions to appear to have revelations from God. Very important to the faith healer is to always look in charge, and to give an illusion of being an agent of God rather than just some stage magic performer.
The Deceptive Tactics of Christian Evangelism
I like to think of myself as a basically honest person. And you’d think that, given that whole “false-witness” thing, Christians would feel the same way. So why are there so many instances where evangelical Christians misrepresent who they are and what they really want to trick people into giving them an audience?
Last week, the Twin Cities Pride Festival was held in Minneapolis to support and celebrate the LGBT community. And as reported by The Column, the event was infiltrated – there’s no other word for it – by an anti-gay evangelical group called Trinity Works, which came with the express intention of converting people and persuading them to become “ex-gay”. (They also claimed they could miraculously cure AIDS and would be doing so there – a claim that could be lethal if anyone actually believed it.)
According to the article, Trinity Works set up a tent along the parade route and advertised that they were giving away free corn and ice water. Festival-goers who went inside, mistakenly assuming it was LGBT-friendly, were ambushed by proselytizers who told them their lifestyle was sinful and they were going to hell. In addition, also according to the Column story, some of the Trinity Works proselytizers roamed the grounds wearing the same color shirts as event volunteers, while others “posed as medics and evangelized to people who sought assistance” (!!).
The evangelical group claims to have won 80 converts. In reality, what almost certainly happened is that they simply found Pride attendees who identified as gay Christians and got them to say a prayer, assuming this meant that those people would immediately adopt Trinity Works’ entire worldview and all their beliefs about the sinfulness of homosexuality. (They wouldn’t be the first Christians to believe that getting people to say the right magic incantation will immediately change their entire personality.)
This isn’t the first evangelical group that’s tried to get unsuspecting people in the door under false pretenses. It’s a common tactic of so-called “crisis pregnancy centers“, evangelical front groups which mimic family-planning clinics that provide contraception and abortion. These groups go to extreme lengths to lure in vulnerable women who are seeking to terminate a pregnancy, only to give them a heavy dose of shame and anti-choice pressure and frighten them with lies about the dangers of birth control. Some of them pretend they do offer abortion, trying to string women along past the legal deadline for abortion in their state. (By contrast, for pregnant women who actually do want children, they offer no real medical care or assistance.)
In response to women who were deceived by these front groups, some cities have passed laws requiring crisis pregnancy centers to clearly disclose that they don’t offer abortions or other actual medical care. The CPCs are fighting these laws in court, claiming that it infringes their “religious freedom” if they’re prevented from lying to women to get them in the door. (Thanks to Irin Carmon for this link.)
While outrage at these deceptive and unethical evangelistic tactics is amply justified, we can take another lesson from them: it’s a sign that anti-gay, anti-choice evangelicals are losing the culture war and know it. After all, if your strategy relies on getting people to give you a hearing under false pretenses, it’s at least a tacit admission that you know your message would be rejected if it were stated openly and that you expect people to hold unfavorable impressions of you and your beliefs. Granted, these Christians may be taking their cues from the Bible, which seems to endorse this lying-to-get-your-foot-in-the-door strategy (1 Corinthians 9:19-22, in which Paul boasts that he can be “all things to all men”). But even so, it seems safe to say that a preacher who was confident of a good reception wouldn’t feel the need to stoop so low.
- See more at: The Deceptive Tactics of Christian Evangelism
Hinn's daughter, Jessica Hinn Koulianos, made the revelation in a message on the Benny Hinn Ministries website late Monday evening.
"Recently he (Hinn) returned to California after ministering to crowds of over 100,000 people in Brazil, including over 2,000 pastors and leaders from all over South America. It was truly a remarkable nation-shaking event. And while it was a rewarding journey, after he arrived home he suddenly began battling fatigue and shortness of breath. For those of you who know my Dad, you know that he never stops; so when he spent over a week in bed, we knew something was wrong. I flew to California to be with him and insisted that he see a doctor. On Friday, he consulted with his local physician and was admitted to the hospital, where he was treated for lack of oxygen in his cardiovascular system," wrote Koulianos.
where poor people consult this man for their disease he consults his physician for his disease
Here's how a few of these popular TV faith healer stage tricks are done:
The Healing Of The Lame Illusion: A faith healer walks out into the audience, and asks a person siting next to a pair of crutches to stand and walk and to run around on the stage. The audience is amazed and see it as a great miracle.
How It's Done: The crutches actually belonged to the person sitting next to the person. The person asked to get up and run around on the stage never had any problem walking. But caught up in all of the hysteria and wishing to see a miracle, the crowd becomes excited and never notices this simple slight of hand deception.
Making Those Called On Stage Collapse Under The Power Of The Holy Spirit: A group called onstage collapse into the arms of assistants to the TV faith healer when he suggests the power of the Holy Spirit is at work.
How It's Done: A British former faith healer revealed how TV faith healer performers perfect stage show mass hypnosis techniques that will seeming allow those onstage to collapse under a suggestion cue. Other times, if a person fails to fall, the assistant of a TV faith healer uses a technique known in football as the "low tackle" that causes a person to fall backwards into their arms.
Revelations From God: The TV faith healer appears to be receiving revelations from God and seems to know a great deal about a particular person pulled onstage.
How It's Done: TV faith healers such W.V. Grant made extensive use of crib sheets and notes. And extensive use of hand signals to assistants and code words such as "Amen, Amen, Amen" are signs to assistants as well. CNN once reported how faith healer Peter Popoff uses a tiny transmitter in his ear, not to hear revelations from God, but information from one of his assistants.
Miracle Short Leg Stretching: A faith healer handles a short leg of a person onstage, which miraculously seems to grow longer.
How It's Done: This is an old carnival sideshow trick, where the shoe on one foot is pulled slightly off and forward while the leg is pulled forward to give an illusion that a shorter leg has suddenly grown longer. From a forward camera angle this slight of hand trick looks pretty impressive.
Magician James Randi in 1987 also wrote a critically acclaimed book, THE FAITH HEALERS, examining the stage magic tricks used by popular claimed faith healers such as Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts and others. This book exposes even more classic stage magic tricks used by claimed faith healers.
But the least favorite situation for any TV faith healer is to be forced into a "cold reading" of the person they are supposedly healing. With little information, the healer is forced to wing it and ask general questions to appear to have revelations from God. Very important to the faith healer is to always look in charge, and to give an illusion of being an agent of God rather than just some stage magic performer.
The Deceptive Tactics of Christian Evangelism
I like to think of myself as a basically honest person. And you’d think that, given that whole “false-witness” thing, Christians would feel the same way. So why are there so many instances where evangelical Christians misrepresent who they are and what they really want to trick people into giving them an audience?
Last week, the Twin Cities Pride Festival was held in Minneapolis to support and celebrate the LGBT community. And as reported by The Column, the event was infiltrated – there’s no other word for it – by an anti-gay evangelical group called Trinity Works, which came with the express intention of converting people and persuading them to become “ex-gay”. (They also claimed they could miraculously cure AIDS and would be doing so there – a claim that could be lethal if anyone actually believed it.)
According to the article, Trinity Works set up a tent along the parade route and advertised that they were giving away free corn and ice water. Festival-goers who went inside, mistakenly assuming it was LGBT-friendly, were ambushed by proselytizers who told them their lifestyle was sinful and they were going to hell. In addition, also according to the Column story, some of the Trinity Works proselytizers roamed the grounds wearing the same color shirts as event volunteers, while others “posed as medics and evangelized to people who sought assistance” (!!).
The evangelical group claims to have won 80 converts. In reality, what almost certainly happened is that they simply found Pride attendees who identified as gay Christians and got them to say a prayer, assuming this meant that those people would immediately adopt Trinity Works’ entire worldview and all their beliefs about the sinfulness of homosexuality. (They wouldn’t be the first Christians to believe that getting people to say the right magic incantation will immediately change their entire personality.)
This isn’t the first evangelical group that’s tried to get unsuspecting people in the door under false pretenses. It’s a common tactic of so-called “crisis pregnancy centers“, evangelical front groups which mimic family-planning clinics that provide contraception and abortion. These groups go to extreme lengths to lure in vulnerable women who are seeking to terminate a pregnancy, only to give them a heavy dose of shame and anti-choice pressure and frighten them with lies about the dangers of birth control. Some of them pretend they do offer abortion, trying to string women along past the legal deadline for abortion in their state. (By contrast, for pregnant women who actually do want children, they offer no real medical care or assistance.)
In response to women who were deceived by these front groups, some cities have passed laws requiring crisis pregnancy centers to clearly disclose that they don’t offer abortions or other actual medical care. The CPCs are fighting these laws in court, claiming that it infringes their “religious freedom” if they’re prevented from lying to women to get them in the door. (Thanks to Irin Carmon for this link.)
While outrage at these deceptive and unethical evangelistic tactics is amply justified, we can take another lesson from them: it’s a sign that anti-gay, anti-choice evangelicals are losing the culture war and know it. After all, if your strategy relies on getting people to give you a hearing under false pretenses, it’s at least a tacit admission that you know your message would be rejected if it were stated openly and that you expect people to hold unfavorable impressions of you and your beliefs. Granted, these Christians may be taking their cues from the Bible, which seems to endorse this lying-to-get-your-foot-in-the-door strategy (1 Corinthians 9:19-22, in which Paul boasts that he can be “all things to all men”). But even so, it seems safe to say that a preacher who was confident of a good reception wouldn’t feel the need to stoop so low.
- See more at: The Deceptive Tactics of Christian Evangelism
