Hank Hanegraaff: The Bible Answer Man

Now, I want you to understand that people involved in the faith movement need our help and prayers. Many of them are truly sincere Christians. But like me years ago, they don't understand that what is happening doesn't really line up with the scriptures. They only need to be told the truth in love. Some of them DO question the things they see and hear, but are afraid. It is easier to just dismiss things than to be confronted or shunned by close friends or even family members. Some are deemed spiritual failures, accused of lacking faith or being weak. Others experience demotion in church positions, are accused of backsliding, or tagged as luke-warm. Sometimes curses are pronounced over them in the form of prophecies, often right from the pulpit.



It can be embarrassing and painful to actually leave the faith movement, especially the longer the involvement. It can also be extremely lonely in comparison to the multiple friendships and acceptance one experiences as a part of this movement. One who has been involved in the faith movement for a long time has somewhat been spiritually babysat by the leadership. And when one leaves the movement, one doesn't know what to do or what to believe. She worries and wonders if she has disappointed God in some way. It is also difficult to put it into words. There is so much about it that is deceptive and hurtful. Many former faith followers struggle to tell the difference between true Christian doctrines and faith teachings after the things taught have become life habits. We are programmed to think that anything short of involvement with faith leaders and churches is less than God's best. People map their lives, activities, words, and deeds according to the faith teachings, and eventually, what you can get from God becomes more important than a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. This is why it is so dangerous.

According to the faith teachers, it is because our family moved away, which they said placed us outside of God's "calling" on our lives, that none of the prophecies spoken over us came to pass. When pastors say things like this, it injects fear into the congregation, causing them to cling to the faith teachers. After all, without these gurus, people would be outside of the "perfect will of God." Those who question their teachings or test these things in light of the scriptures are verbally reprimanded for their "unbelief." Thus, members of the faith movement churches become dependent on these so-called leaders in order to know the will of the Lord for their lives. One of the most commonly used phrases to support this is, "Judge not God's anointed." And, the leaders of the faith movement are considered to be the "anointed ones."

Now don't get me wrong. It's not that I don't believe in miracles. I do. You and I are miracles... and we had nothing to do with it. What I don't believe is that God can be manipulated, controlled, or limited (as Kenneth Copeland claims) by us or by our words. God is sovereign and no formula or faith teacher's set of spiritual laws supersedes this. The entire Bible consistently shows us that God hasn't told us everything. After asking Job many questions about creation, such as whether or not he can count the number of stars in the sky, God makes his point. He doesn't tell us the number because God is saying that we're not as brilliant as Him, we're not able to do what He does, we didn't create ourselves, and... we're simply not Him. God's ways are not our ways; His thoughts are not our thoughts.

I have heard a pastor say from the pulpit that the reason a woman with cancer died after he prayed for her was because she lacked forgiveness toward someone in her life. No one knew who that was. His words were meant to reassure his congregation that his teachings about healing are valid, going on to point out that healing can be conditional. But that only took the attention off of the fact that he had the gall to blame a woman with a terminal disease for her own death! He didn't care that his tale would become the last story the congregation was told about her, or that he left her family with a tainted portrait of their departed loved one.

The faith movement, like many of today's cults, uses the scriptures out of context and puts an emphasis on what you can get from God, such as prosperity and healing, rather than on God Himself. It claims that people can use faith formulas to get their needs met, demanding that God act according to their understanding of the scriptures... as if God is a puppet in the sky whose blessing release lever is attached to a set of faith-filled words. God is even said to have no power but that which we give Him. People are then warned not to question those who teach these things, again using scriptures out of context to support this notion.

Dear Friend,

Have you ever wondered how Todd Bentley, Benny Hinn, T.D. Jakes, and a host of other popular prosperity preachers can "slay" devotees "in the spirit" with a mere wave of the hand?

Is this a genuine move of the Holy Spirit as they contend? Or are Benny Hinn and company merely aping the practices of pagan spirituality?

Back in the early 19th century a French physician named Franz Anton Mesmer (from whose name the word mesmerize is derived) caused people to laugh, fall into trances, and jerk spasmodically by simply gesturing in their direction.

Dr. James Braid who has been credited with coining the word hypnosis discovered that through mental manipulation, he could alter a patient's state of consciousness to such an extent that he was able to perform surgical procedures that were virtually painless.

In recent history pseudo-Christian cults have seized upon these principles to advance their pernicious practices. J. Gordon Melton underscores this reality by correctly associating mesmerism (hypnotism) with the mind science cults. Says Melton...

"Mesmerism was developed into a new healing system by Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802-1866), a professional mesmerist who felt that many diseases could be cured by suggestion and were therefore essentially illusory."

As shocking as it may seem, what was once relegated to the ashrams of cultists is now replicated at the altars of churches. And the experiences are so "real" that many key evangelical Christian leaders are convinced they cannot be explained apart from the power of the Holy Spirit.

Tragically, many of these leaders are dangerously ignorant of the striking parallels between their experiences and those of meditators who achieve altered states of consciousness through occult practices. As has been well documented, the dangerous effects may involve depression, detachment, depersonalization, disillusionment, and many equally serious disorders.

And as I have repeatedly warned both preachers and parishioners, God is not obligated to protect people from the consequences of unbiblical behavior. Whether one is a Christian or a cultist, the consequences of swallowing cyanide are identical - and the same can be said of the spiritual cyanide that is daily being dispensed via the "Christian" airwaves.

In fact, that is why I want to place a booklet titled Aping the Practices of Pagan Spirituality in your hands as soon as possible.

This informative booklet can be read in less than an hour. Yet it not only provides a devastating exposé of false practices that have their roots in the world of the occult but it will help you understand how men like Hinn are able to manipulate the masses under the guise of Holy Spirit anointing.

People in crowded churches are particularly susceptible - a fact that has been capitalized on by dictators, political orators, and regrettably by those who take the sacred name of Christ upon their lips. As I note in my booklet, "The effect of suggestion on crowds seems virtually without limit. It can make black appear white. It can obscure realities, enshrine absurdities."

Sadly, however, many who fall prey to the "slain in the spirit" phenomenon are not moved in the least when its deceptions are exposed.

Pagan religions and pseudo-Christian cults have long capitalized on the power of suggestion to promote their practices. Counterfeit Revivalists like T.D. Jakes and Todd Bentley (the new "Lakeland revival") are following in their train.

With the Lord's help, and with the financial support of faithful friends like you, I'm committed to respond to this deception on the Bible Answer Man broadcast and through the various ministry outreaches of the Christian Research Institute.

You need to be equipped with a ready response too.

That's why I've packed Aping the Practices of Pagan Spirituality with solid biblical content and airtight answers to the practices of pseudo-Christian revivalists. Please share it with someone you know who has fallen victim to the skin of the truth stuffed with a great big lie...

...AND PRACTICES THAT DELIVER DISASTROUS CONSEQUENCES!
But don't forget to read it yourself first... because once you do, you'll understand why these practices are so dangerous at this particular juncture in Christian history!

I'll walk you step by step through the most critical errors. And that's just for starters.

In Aping the Practices of Pagan Spirituality, I reveal:

How men like Hinn work their devotees into Altered states of consciousness.
Why Counterfeit Revivalists carefully craft their services to enhance the likelihood that Christians will cave in to the power of Peer pressure.
That Todd Bentley and company bank on the fact that the Expectations of their followers will give birth to the experience itself.
And that while epidemics of laughter, shaking, or being "slain in the spirit" may appear to be spontaneous, in reality they are often the result of Suggestions and subtle stimuli.

While leaders of the Counterfeit Revival create the illusion of slaying subjects in the spirit, in the end they create only disillusionment and self-deception. The power of the Spirit creates life and limb. The power of suggestion creates only a lamentable lie...

...AND YOU AND I MUST EXPOSE IT!

We must stand for truth. And that's why I'm inviting you to do two critical things right now:

Request your copy of Aping the Practices of Pagan Spirituality on the enclosed reply card.
Enclose a generous gift with your reply in the envelope provided.

There's simply no more time for sitting on the fence. We must engage our culture before it's too late.

Against a rising tide of error and confusion, committed believers like you and I must hold out a lifeline to our brothers and sisters whose faith has been shaken. To millions who are without hope and without God in this world, we must offer the hope of genuine revival.

WE MUST ANSWER SEEKING PEOPLE WITH THE TRUTH.

You know they are out there. If you've tuned in to our radio broadcast lately, you've heard men and women from across North America asking probing, urgent questions.

Some callers are even being fooled by close encounters with Counterfeit Revivalists.

For every person who makes it onto the broadcast, there are tens of thousands more listening. To keep providing the answers they seek, we need your immediate help.

Please send the best gift you can. It's summer, and with so many of our friends away on well-deserved vacations, our income has not kept up with our needs. I know the Lord will provide, but I'm asking you to ask Him what your part in that provision should be.

Thank you in advance for your kindness. And remember to request your copy of Aping the Practices of Pagan Spirituality when you send your gift today. I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Because truth matters,

Hank Hanegraaff
President

P.S. Please help today. The need has never been more urgent. Thank you again for your generous support!

Call: 1-888-7000-CRI

or

Mail to:
CRI
PO Box 8500
Charlotte, NC 28271

Printed by permission of the Christian Research Institute, Copyright ©2008

Non-Christians (skeptics like New Agers or Mormons) claim that in the process of copying Scripture the text of the Bible was corrupted.

Is this really true?

Suppose you wrote an essay and asked five friends to copy it. Each of them in turn asked five more friends to do the same, kind of like a chain letter. By the fifth generation, you would have approximately four thousand copies. Now, obviously, in the process, some people are going to make some copying errors. The first five people to copy it would make mistakes, and then most of the people who copy from them will make some more mistakes. Eventually you'd have thousands of copies and all of them flawed.

Sounds pretty bad, right? But hold on. Your five friends might make mistakes, but they wouldn't all make the same mistakes. If you compared all of the copies, you would find that one group contained the same mistake while the other four did not, which, of course, would make it easy to tell the copies from the original. Not only that, but most of the mistakes would be obvious things like misspelled words or words that were accidentally omitted. Anyone looking at all four thousand copies would have no trouble figuring out which was the original.

That's essentially the same situation with the Bible. We've got thousands of copies of the Bible in its original language. Scholars who have studied them have been able to classify them into groups and, in most cases, determine what the original documents actually said. The few cases which are still debated by scholars really don't affect the basic message of the Bible at all.

In fact, interestingly enough, when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered at Qumran, they predated the earliest extant text, the Masoretic text, by almost one thousand years. Yet, in spite of this vast span of time, there was no substantive difference at all. In fact, in looking at Isaiah 53, there were only 17 changes between the Masoretic text and those found at Qumran: 10 involved spelling, 4 style, and 3 involved the Hebrew letters for the word "light" in verse 11. However, none of these differences were substantive. God has indeed preserved His Word.