Author Frank Viola was recently asked this question from a reader.
“Frank, what do you think about [name] resigning from his church? I haven’t seen you write about it like almost every Christian blogger has.”
Frank’s answer was as follows:
“If Benny Hinn resigned from his ministry, I wouldn’t blog about it nor care to offer a comment.
Why?
Because I’ve never met Hinn. I don’t know him or his work.
What is more, I’ve never followed Hinn nor have I ever found his ministry compelling, interesting, deep, or personally helpful.
The same is true for the person you’re asking me about.
The dial of my “interest level” for both men points in the same direction: Monumentally disinterested.
So there’s my answer.
I’m content to let those who know him and/or followed him opine about it all.
I will say one thing, however, that’s related. But it’s a much bigger subject.
It’s been reported that a group of elders who “investigated” this pastor made a remark that although he had a pattern of verbal assaulting people, emotionally abusing them, manipulation, bullying, being selfishly ambitious, etc. … he was “never charged with immorality,” meaning, what he was charged with was less serious that immorality.
Haaaa?
Verbal assault and emotional abuse and selfish ambition IS immorality in the New Testament.
Immorality means violating a moral code or law.
According to the New Testament, “fits of rage” and “selfish ambitions” are works of the flesh just as serious as the sins that evangelicals get angry over (see Galatians 5:19ff.). In fact, according to Paul, “verbally abusive” people will not inherit the kingdom of God even (see 1 Cor. 6:10).
I’m not making any judgments on whether any of those allegations are true or false or to what degree, though it sounds like his elders were all in agreement with a repeated pattern of verbal abuse and bullying others.
I’m simply saying that the sort of thinking that says verbal assaults and abuse against people isn’t immoral is both unbiblical, and well, flat-out wrong.
That statement clues us into the fact that the Sin Metrics game is still in the drinking water of the evangelical community.
If anything good comes out of this person’s recent “resignation” and what led up to it, I hope it’s that evangelical Christians will realize that slander, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, selfish ambition, etc. are just as serious as all the other sins that Paul condemns in the New Testament.
In 1 Corinthians 5:10-11, Paul lists “slanderers” alongside of idolators, swindlers, sexually immoral people (in Corinth, the sexual sins were incest and visiting prostitutes), and drunkards as being repeated patterns that warrant excommunication.
On that note, I recommend you read (or re-read) Sin Metrics: The Sins that Christians Condemn & Excuse.
That said, I don’t know the man, I don’t follow him, and I don’t know which allegations are true or not, as we are all aware that much of what we read on the Internet about others is false or distorted.
Selah.
