For the next month I’ll be inactive from this blog. When I get back I plan on finishing the review of Hanegraaff’s book. Until then, take care!
One of the most significant words that has caused a lot of confusionis the word “faith.” The word used in a WoF context is by far no exception. As Hank Hanegraaff describes, it is taken to mean something immensely foreign to the Christian faith and made to look like a New Age “force.”
Hank in his chapter titled, “Faith in faith” tells the story of Larry and Lucky Parker. It is an incredibly sad story of two parents who didn’t give their son Wesley insulin that he needed so that they would demonstrate their faith and heal him. Their son died. This is yet another demonstration that what you believe greatly effects your life as well as the lives of others around you. What the faith teachers dish out should not be accepted uncritically. Quite frankly, it is hurting others. I was one of those people years ago. I have since been educated and now am happily free from such heresy. Praise God!
Chapter 5 “Force of Faith” shows that WoF teachers actually think that faith is some sort of metaphysical force. He says,
Copeland goes so far as to say that “God cannot do anything for you apart or separate from faith” because “faith is God’s souce of power.”
Just think of it–God cannot do anything for you apart from the force! Without the force of faith, God has no power at all toward you. Already one thing should be clear: Copeland’s God is no God at all. The true omnipotent God of Scripture is hardly impotent. (page 96)
When I was involved in the WoF movement I did not know about this. I suspect that if I remained in it long enough I would have. It is examples like this as well as other beliefs that contradict Scripture that made me leave it. Quite frankly, I couldn’t take the cognitive dissonance anymore.
Hanegraaff goes on to explain positive confession. Basically, this teaching states that words are containers of the force of faith. You can think of it as a gift wrapped in a box. As soon as the box is opened (i.e. speaking words) what is inside is released. This doctrine gets quite dangerous as Hanegraaff shows on page 99:
When Savelle was asked if a person can change his world through “the word of faith,” he responded that we can talk our world into existence.
Question: does this sound eerily similar to Genesis 1 where God created everything by speaking? That’s because it is. WoF proponents hold on to another doctrine called “little gods” in which all believers are exact carbon copies of God, only in smaller form. More on that in part 3.
Hank Hanegraaff does an excellent job in refuting a common proof-text used by Faith teachers. In the KJV of Hebrews 11:1, the word “substance” is used to describe faith. Hank has this answer:
the word translated “substance” in the King James Version is more accurately rendered “assurance” (see NASB). Far from being a tangible material, faith is a channel of living trust–an assurance–which stretches from man to God. (page 100).
Basically, faith is intangible. It is not some metaphysical substance that God and man must use in order to operate in this universe. To even suggest this is to believe that a metaphysical substance of faith is greater than God.
In chapter 6 titled “Formula of Faith” Hanegraaff has a subtitled section called, “Writing Your Own Ticket” where he describes Kenneth Hagin’s formula of “Say it, Do it, Receive it, and Tell it.” Basically, Kenneth Hagin describes a vision where Jesus gave him this formula and said, “it would be a waste of time to pray for Me [i.e. Jesus] to give them the victory. They have to write their own ticket” (page 105). As I pointed out earlier, this is operating on a principle that a metaphysical substance is greater than God Himself.
In another subsection titled “Further Occult Connections” my heart was absolutely wrenched when Hanegraaff talked about Pastor Cho of Yoido Full Gospel Church. This is the largest church in the entire world that is located in Seoul, South Korea. He said this,
Cho is acutely aware that pagan religions harness this power. As such, he claims that God told him that Buddhist and Yoga aderents worked miracle cures because they, unlike their Christian counterparts, had more fully developed their fourth-dimensional powers. (page 111)
One of the things that really tends to anger me is when this type of teaching is taken to the rest of the world, particularly the East. I’m thankful that there are people over there who don’t believe this stuff and work to turn people to the truth. However, my heart aches for people caught up in it who needn’t be caught up in it in the first place. This stuff is being brought in from the West (especially America). Having traveled to the East twice, I can say that people over there want a lot of what we already have and are interested in the West.
One of the most entertaining chapters of the book is chapter 7 “Faith of God.” Hank turns the dilemma into story form by asking the reader to imagine himself/herself as a detective investigating the claim that the word “theou” in Mark 11:22 means “of God” and should be translated “have the faith of God.” When “theou” is translated directly by itself, it comes out as “of God.” However, Hanegraaff uses A.T. Robertson (a prominent Greek scholar) to explain why the grammar matters in this case:
In essence, Robertson says an objective genitive means that the noun (in this case, theou) is the object of the action. So, in Mark 11:22, God is the object of faith. This requires that the passage be translated “Have faith in God.” (page 118)
Quite frankly, I can’t read Koine Greek, so it helps me to go to Greek scholars who know their stuff in order for me to understand what the original text is saying. However, I do understand an intermediate level of Mandarin Chinese. If you speak another language, you probably already know the difficulties of translating the other language into English. For example, the two words 一点 (yī diān) mean by themselves “one hour.” It is often used to say, “one o’clock.” However, 一点 can also mean “a little bit.” When taken in proper context, that’s exactly what it means. Whenever studying a text in a foreign language, context and grammar is always crucial. It is especially this case in which Holy Scripture is being studied.
Chapter 8 is titled, “Faith Hall of Fame.” I was particularly shocked at some of the things that the faith teachers have said about Job.
Hinn adds the word “never” to the text in Job 1:21 and thus completely reverses the meaning of the passage [ . . . ] “You know what? We’ve said this a million times, and it’s not even scriptural–all because of Job: The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord’ [See Job 1:21] I have news for you: that is not Bible; that’s not Bible. The Lord giveth and never taketh away. (page 124)
Hinn and others have lambasted Job in awful ways because of his supposed lack of faith before the disaster came upon him. However, Hanegraaff says, “the greatest demonstration of faith is trusting God even when you do not understand” (page 125). This is exactly where the Faith teachers miss the entire context of the book of Job. In the end, God says nothing harsh of Job like the Faith teachers do. Quite frankly, I’ll go with His word about it.
Next time I’ll cover part 3: little gods.
Last night I went and saw Star Trek.
My rating? A+
Go see it for yourself to find out why.
After the general introduction Hank Hanegraaf proceeds to tell a very interesting story in a chapter titled, “Turning Truth into Mythology.” The story presented in this chapter presents a view of what Christianity actually looks like through the Word of Faith (hence WoF) lens. From the very beginning, it presents a very distorted view of Christianity starting with creation. For instance, after the fall of man, the text says this:
God, in a flash, had become the greatest failure of all time. Not only had He lost his top-ranking angel, as well as at least a third of His other angels, but now, in addition, He had lost the first man He had ever created, the first woman He had created, and the whole earth and the fullness therein! (page 4)
Quite distorted, isn’t it? God is portrayed as a failure and it really calls into question His sovereignty. When God is no longer sovereign, then the religion is no longer truly theistic. The religion of WoF is more akin to henotheism since it attributes deity (little ‘g’ in this case) to man.
After reading the chapter “Turning Truth into Mythology” I couldn’t help but shake my head at the unbelievable world-view presented here. If a person takes all that the Faith teachers doctrine as truth, what is presented isn’t even Christianity at all.
Chapter 3 is entitled, “Cast of Characters.” Here Hanegraaf starts by talking about where the WoF teachings originated and goes further into today’s popular teachers. He references Essek W. Kenyon at the very beginning as the father of the Word of Faith movement. Hanegraaf and Justin Peters have both said that E.W. Kenyon was mild compared to some of the later WoF teachers. Hanegraaf goes on to describe other teachers. I found the research on the teachings of Kenneth Copeland to be especially bizarre:
Or compare Copeland’s teaching that God is six feet two inches to six feet three inches tall, weighs about two hundred pounds, and has a hand span of about nine inches with Mormon founder Joseph Smith’s statement that if you were to see God today, “you would see him like a man in form–like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man.” (page 25)
Like I said, theism is losing ground in this world-view.
Some of the other characters that were described didn’t shock me since I already knew about a lot of the information presented (such as Benny Hinn and Todd Bentley). Since I heard about the Lakeland Revival last year I have done quite a bit of research on Bentley. In my honest opinion, Todd Bentley is a very deceived person and has taken a lot of false teachings (and not to mention false visions like the “Emma” angel) hook, line, and sinker. I think that the terrible things that have happened to him and others (such as Bentley kicking a man in the stomach that had stage 4 colon cancer) are a result of bad doctrine.
So far so good. I like the book and I highly recommend it to anyone studying this movement.
Lately I’ve been reading Hank Hanegraaf’s “Christianity in Crisis: The 21st Century.” I plan on reviewing different chapters where Hank makes his arguments.
To begin, the book is written mainly to combat the heresies that have been promoted by Word of Faith teachers. The book hits home with me since I used to believe in some of the Word of Faith theology and eagerly watched Christian television stations like TBN and Daystar. I have since turned away from Word of Faith and I definitely see the damage it is doing to people and churches.
For those unfamiliar with the movements problems, I give you this set of videos to help you start your research.
Today’s Kudos! goes to Phil Johnson at Pyromaniacs for this well-reasoned post on why we need defenders of the faith in these post-modern days. Enjoy!
Last night I saw the movie “The Soloist.” Here’s what I thought:
Cinematography – A
Music – A
Acting – A+
Special Effects – A
Overall – A
Great movie. As a musician I really appreciated the take that The Soloist had on music itself in the character of Nathaniel Ayers. What I really liked was a scene in which Nathaniel and Steve watched the practice of an orchestra. During that scene, colors flash on screen. One of the things that many virtuosos in music have is the ability to associate a note with a color. During this scene each individual note flashes with color as if Nathaniel were imagining the colors in his own mind.
Steve Foxx played the character of Nathaniel Ayers wonderfully. I’ve always enjoyed movies about people who struggle with mental illness. Robert Downey, Jr. also did an excellent job playing a journalist who meets this guy off the street and ultimately becomes his friend. The aspect of friendship is especially wonderful in this movie.
In all, walking out I thought, “Wow, what a beautiful movie.”
First off, I apologize to my readers for not updating more. I’ve been rather busy the past month.
First, to help those who are unfamiliar with the New Apostolic Reformation, I will post several links in order to help you get your research started:
(pro) – http://www.globalharvest.org/apostref.htm
(contra) -http://www.cultwatch.com/superapostles.html
Anyway, I am writing this post to urge my brothers and sisters in Christ in the Pentecostal movement to beware of the New Apostolic Reformation. This movement consists of men like Bob Jones, Rick Joyner, Paul Cain and several others who are calling themselves apostles (even “super-apostles” if I am not mistaken). Why do they call themselves apostles? It’s simply this: They want to undermine the authority (pastors, elders and deacons) of your church and take it over. This is not a joke. As I have researched this movement I have become more and more disturbed by what I have been seeing here.
Let me give some evidence to back my claims. First off, on Bob Jones official website, he makes this claim,
As this apostolic government comes into view and is established, the Lord is releasing new keys – governmental keys of Kingdom authority that will be matched by no other generation.
Source (note: please read the entire article as well).
Are you kidding me? The church right now just isn’t good enough? Was not the teachings of the apostles in the first century sufficient?
If you note the source, you’ll see that the year 2012 is the prophesied date in which this will happen. This means that these people are very rapidly trying to take over and infiltrate as many churches as they can. These people promote very strange religious practices that are not in line with Biblical Christianity. In other words, when they bring in new teachings that are not in the Bible, they claim to have apostolic authority and hear directly from God in order to keep people from questioning their teaching.
Here’s an example from Rick Joyner of very strange practices going on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmdVyg9Noyw
From watching this video, I can’t help but think that this looks more like a non-Christian African tribal ritual than a Christian worship service.
Please consider what I am saying here. Talk to your pastor about these people. If you are a pastor, research this movement and check their claims against Scripture. Warn your congregation about these people. If there is literature from people in this movement in your church’s library, please get rid of it. It can do some great damage to those who are immature in the faith (I am not against people reading their literature, but a church should not propagate it, intentionally or unintentionally, as the truth).
Today’s Kudos! goes to Ben Witherington for expounding on an honest but little spoken of problem in the Southern United States.
Last night I went to Samford University to watch a debate between Christopher Hitchens and John Lennox. Dinesh D’Souza was supposed to speak but could not because his mother is having surgery in India (please pray for her, by the way). The debate was “Is God Great?”
I wasn’t feeling very well last night (nor this morning) but I found the debate quite enjoyable. It was pretty easy to tell who the atheists/agnostics were in the auditorium since they tended to clap when Hitchens made rhetorical points. A few even stood up to clap when he first walked out on stage. Hitchens began the debate and commented on how he would tell his Northern friends that not all people in Alabama are hicks and inbreds (he didn’t put it in those words exactly, it was quite funny in the way that he did put it, though).
I went into the debate deciding to give Hitchens the benefit of the doubt. I’ve read and listened to a little bit of his stuff and wasn’t impressed. After listening to the debate last night I still wasn’t impressed with his arguments. To be fair, I wasn’t always impressed with Lennox’s arguments, either. I think D’Souza would have been a much better candidate had his family emergency not happened.
Some of the main problems with Hitchens’ arguments was misrepresentation of Christian belief. He tended to get mixed up on what we actually believe. For instance, he argued that the universe is slowly dying and even all life on earth will die out when the sun becomes a red giant. After this he challenged whether God was truly good if this is the case. Lennox quite clearly refuted this point by saying that Christians since Christ have believed that the world will end but that there will also be a last judgment. Hitchens also tended to misrepresent various scriptures such as Luke 14:25-27.
An interesting question that Hitchens raised was whether there was anything (morally speaking) that a theist could do that he as an atheist could not do. He said that no Christian had answered him on this. John Lennox answered him by saying that he as an atheist could not atone for the sins of the world as Jesus did. Hitchens retorted that this doesn’t count since the idea of atonement itself is immoral. I think this answer is quite lame since Hitchens himself has no universal moral standard. In terms of morality, it seemed to me that he believed that moral standards were practically axiomatic. I think this is ultimately where his argument fails. If we are the result of an impersonal process, how can the ultimate impersonal reality give us any direction on personal moral values? If I remember correctly, John Lennox made this point and I don’t think Hitchens gave a complete answer to it.
