I’ve been interested in televangelists for many years. Not as a believer, mind you, but more as entertainment. I want to talk about two of the more interesting ones I’ve come across in recent years.
First, there is one Toufik Benedictus Hinn, better known as Benny Hinn. I’ve watched him on TV for years, always with a mix of amusement, horror and grudging respect for the balls on this bastard. What made me think of Hinn recently was a radio program I caught on a local evangelical radio station dedicated to debunking Hinn as a dangerous false prophet. Lest you underestimate Hinn, he regularly fills football stadiums around the world with his miracle crusades. At heart, he is an old fashioned faith healer. But he is also a shrewd and ruthless businessman. Watching the masterful pledge drives he hosts on the tacky cable channel TBN is a lesson in marketing genius.
On his many healing crusades, Hinn claims to heal AIDS, blindness, lameness, cancer and a whole host of maladies. He also considers himself a modern prophet, although some of his most outlandish prophesies have failed to come to pass (such as God wiping out the homosexual community, an earthquake that was to wipe out the East Coast of the U.S., and even a mass resurrection of the dead if only family members would put the hands of their dead relatives on the TV screen as they watched Hinn on TBN). I can talk about Hinn all I want, but you won’t understand unless you see Benedictus in action. In the clip compilation below (admittedly compiled by anti-Hinn forces), Hinn starts off trying to explain his powers, and then you see a series of clips where Hinn anoints followers with the “fire of God.” Make sure the sound is up so you can hear Hinn speaking in tongues. Watch through to the end, where he slays the entire choir with the fire of God…
Of course, Benny is not immune from being hit by the fire of God himself…
My other “favorite” evangelist is Jack Van Impe and his cadaverous wife, Rexella. I first caught this duo on late night TV (around 2 a.m.) while in law school. Van Impe specializes in End of Times prophesy. He has a rapid fire, dizzying grasp of scripture citations. His show is set up where Rexella reads the latest news headlines, and then Jack relates them all to prophesy about the end of days. No matter what happens, Jack can find a Bible quote that predicts it. If the convenience store down the street is robbed, somehow Jack can find something in Revelations that predicts it, and then explain how it means that the apocalypse is upon us. One of his preoccupations is that the European Union is the “new Roman Empire,” and that the antichrist will rise from the political ranks of the EU (I assume he will be French). Watch this clip below for an example of Jack's complicated logic…
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6 comments:
Careful, Dez... lest these guys smite you with the wrath of... wrathiness.
Dez, as you know, I am a huge fan of JVI! My dad and I sometimes catch him on TV and have a good chuckle. My favorite was when there was a report of a black hole that was discovered in and around the constellation Orion's Belt. Therefore, JVI says "we now know where heaven is! It is through Orion's Belt!
I have always had this dream of making a bunch of T-shirts with a picture of Jack on the front that says: If you don't know the apocalypse, you don't know JACK!
On this same notes, I just heard a very scary story about the osteens the other day that gave me the willies.
Pockyjack,
Why the tease? What's the scoop on the osteens?
Sorry, kinda a long story.
Basically, as is not a secret, Osteen's wife is jewish. However, HER very jewish brother was at a meeting with a friend of mine who represents one of the major hospital systems and basically threatened to blackmail the hospital if the hospital did not use Victoria as the "new face" of the hospital and commit a certain amount of marketing $$$ to support her. He said if they don't do it they are going to go the other major hospitals and do the same.
Basically the guy just admitted that the whole osteen thing is a business venture. There are more details but that the essence
Evolution, in theory, should make us smarter, right? Well, I have to say that watching that first clip -- thousands of people watching someone knock people out with "the fire of God" and being mesmerized -- makes me not believe in evolution. I mean, really, people.
That was such a good post. Oh, man. Whew! Those videos are hi-larious. It's scary to me how I can't even begin to get into the minds of those audience members to understand how they can have such an experience. I feel like I better understand the mentally ill people I see who think small gnomes are trying to burrow out of their heads and are only kept in place with large doses of heroin.
Interesting about the Osteens Pocky. I demand more dirt.
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