Paula White

TMZ

After becoming an official White House staffer, Paula White started to experience dramatic, inexplicable medical problems. Her teeth began to fall out. Her fingers and toes became gangrenous. Her painted fingernails and toenails became leprous. Her hair morphed into writhing snakes. 

An anonymous informant at the NSA told TMZ that Melania became jealous at the amount of time Donald spent with Paula. So Melania contacted a gypsy in Slovenia to cast a spell on Paula. That's when the symptoms appeared. 

Apostate swimmers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGmtR2D6pCU

Ravi in the dock

Accusations swirl around Ravi. These are usually from critics with an ax to grind. Here's a list of allegations from a more reputable source:

https://virtueonline.org/duplicitous-world-christian-apologist-ravi-zacharias

That said, I don't know if Virtue has any independent knowledge, or if he relies on the sources he cites at the end of the article.

"Daddy wounds"

Driscoll's interview is getting some buzz:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKnSBxFqVXM&t=3s

Among other things, he says:

Reformed theology is, I have a dad who is powerful, he is in charge, he is non-relational, he lives far away, and don't make him mad because he can get angry really fast and hurt you…So almost every theological group within Christianity is somehow a rejection or projection of their earthly father, and the problem is they're starting with their earthly father and looking up; they're not starting with their heavenly father and looking down and judging their earthly fathers. I've gone so far as to say I think the whole young restless and Reformed movement…I don't hold to the five-points of Calvinism, I think it's garbage, because it's not biblical...God is father, but he's distant, he's mean, he's cruel, he's non-relational, he's far away. That's their view of their earthly father. So they may pick dead mentors–Spurgeon, Calvin, Luther–these are little boys with father wounds who are looking for spiritual fathers, so they picked dead guys who are not gonna actually get to know them or correct them. And then they join networks run by other young men so that they can all be brothers [because] there's no fathers, and they love, love, love Jesus because they love the story where the son is the hero because they're the sons with father wounds…the reason Jesus saves you is to get you to your dad. 

1. There's a grain of truth to some of what he says, but that's distorted by the way he combines it with Joseph Campbell, pop psychobabble, and hasty generalizations. His analysis is absurdly simplistic. 

The miracle of seed-faith

Catholic loyalists remind me of gullible sheep who are suckered into dipping into their life savings, Social Security, pension, or welfare check to pad the wallet of prosperity preachers. Remember "the miracle of seed faith? 

Sharks can manipulate softheaded dupes with an idealistic sales pitch. The sharks don't believe it but the donors do. Cynics in leadership who play the laity for chumps. Just as prosperity preachers have a credulous constituency, that has it's counterpart among the Catholic faithful. 

For instance, Cardinal Dolan has an affable, avuncular TV persona, yet he's deeply implicated in the coverup. Apparently, Cardinal McCarrick oozed empathy on camera. Pope Francis projects saintliness, but behind-the-scenes he's an enabler of the lavender mafia. 

This goes way back. I believe it's well-established that Cardinal Spellman was a sodomite. He had an acrimonious falling out with Fulton Sheen. But Sheen honored the code of silence. 

Billy Graham

A few random thoughts about Billy Graham. I'll begin with a theological criticism, then say some positive things:

i) Decisional evangelism has a fundamentally flawed understanding of conversion. Decisional evangelism basically eliminates saving faith. To make a decision is an act of the will. That pertains to the field of action. Responding to the altar call is an act of the will.

That's not the same thing as faith. Faith requires assent, conviction, an intellectual reorientation. We have a different view of God, assuming we even believed in God. We have a different view of ourselves, especially in relation to God. 

An act of the will is not an act of faith in the sense of assent or conviction. There's no essential change of heart and mind. It's just about something you do. 

Saving faith has a volitional component in the sense of commitment. But that can't be a substitute for believing and trusting in Jesus. Reciting a formulaic prayer (the sinner's prayer), like a magic incantation, or performing a ritual, like the alter call, isn't saving faith. It gives people false assurance.

ii) Graham was a great preacher. He had a fine speaking voice, and he was a natural, commanding public speaker. Intense and singleminded. He also had a nice Southern lilt. 

iii) That said, the South has produced many great preachers. I'm sure many Southern preachers are his equal or superior orators. 

In addition to natural ability, he was saintly. And that lent an aura of holiness and authority to his preaching. 

iv) He illustrates how much God can do with a man of modest intellectual endowment, who's totally devoted to God. Graham wasn't a great scholar, philosopher, theologian, or apologist. But you don't have to be great to do great things. Conversely, many very talented people waste their talent on what's trivial and ephemeral.

v) Graham threw his considerable influence behind the inerrancy of Scripture, at a time when evangelical institutions were drifting. As I recall, he wrote the preface to Harold Lindsell's The Battle for the Bible. I expect that endorsement all by itself gave the book an audience.

vi) Graham supported the prolife movement. That wasn't a given for a Baptist of his generation. Prior to Roe v. Wade, many evangelical denominations were soft on abortion. Walter Martin, ten years Graham's junior, is an example of a Christian leader to came of age when the evangelical movement was soft on abortion, and he was never able to make the transition to a harder line position. 

vii) Graham publicly opposed the candidacy and reelection of Barack Obama. 

viii) As a young evangelist, Graham had a famous falling out with a fellow evangelist turned apostate Charles Templeton:

"I believe in the Genesis account of creation simply because it's in the Bible. I've discovered something in my ministry: when I take the Bible   literally, when I proclaim it as God's Word, I have power. When I stand before the people and say, 'God says,' or 'The Bible says, 'the Holy Spirit uses me. There are results. People respond. Wiser men than you or I have been arguing questions like this for centuries. I don't have the time or the intellect to examine all sides of each theological dispute, so I've decided, once and for all, to stop questioning and to accept the Bible as God's Word." 

"But Billy," I protested, "you can't do that. You don't dare stop thinking. Do it and you begin to die. It's intellectual suicide."

http://www.templetons.com/charles/memoir/evang-graham.html

Templeton was oblivious to the irony of his statement. Atheism is intellectual suicide. Naturalistic evolution is intellectual suicide. If that's the case, then reason is the byproduct of blind evolution. 

And anyway, if there is no afterlife, if everything we cherish is the result of blind evolutionary conditioning, then what's so bad about intellectual suicide? There's no face behind the mask. The mask is it. 

Graham was not a great thinker, but his instincts were right. 

The Ravi imbroglio

Some off-the-cuff impressions of the Ravi imbroglio. 

From what I've read, he's probably guilty of resume inflation. The whole tradition of honorary doctorates is a scam. 

As for the alleged sex scandal, I haven't seen enough details to have an informed opinion on that. And it really doesn't interest me. I'm not responsible for his conduct. It's not my problem. I'm not donor to his ministry.

He's not a lawmaker or public policymaker. So it's not incumbent on me to conduct the kind of examination I might in the case of, say, a presidential candidate. Unless we have a good reason to investigate claims like this, it's like reading a salacious gossip column. 

There are Christian institutions that do have that responsibility. 

It's sad. Because he from the Third World, Ravi can reach people-groups that a white evangelist/apologist can't. They're more receptive to the message from him.

I haven't read much of his stuff. He's a popularizer rather than a great thinker or scholar. I generally read people I hope to learn something from. That's not Ravi. 

In terms of cultural apologetics, Os Guinness is probably more erudite. 

Ravi's out-of-court settlement is counterproductive in the sense that it doesn't lay suspicions to rest since, being confidential, outsider observers don't know which side admitted to wrongdoing. 

Out-of-courts settlements are hard to assess. On the one hand, the accuser might fold because they can't back up their allegations, and they risk a defamation suit. On the other hand, the accused might settle to avoid having embarrassing details come out in court. 

It's hard to believe Ravi is quite such a babe-in-the-woods. He's 71. He's a man of the world. He hasn't led a cloistered life. 

Extortion lawsuit

http://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2017/december/ravi-zacharias-sexting-extortion-lawsuit-doctorate-bio-rzim.html

Shoe-leather evangelism

Recently I've been listening to some Francis Chan clips on YouTube. I should preface my comments by saying my knowledge of Francis is quite cursory, so it's entirely possible that what I've seen and read doesn't reflect a representative sample, in which case my observations may be off-the-mark. Those who are more conversant with his ministry than me can correct or supplement my observations:

i) He strikes me as one of those communicators, like Jeremiah, St. Paul, and some of the Psalmists, who wears his heart on his sleeve. That makes him very engaging.

ii) Apropos (i), some preachers have a textual or doctrinal emphasis, whereas he seems to have an existential emphasis. Up to a point that's good. We're supposed to internalize the Gospel. Become what we believe. There's a danger, in theology and apologetics, where orthodoxy can be a substitute for application. 

The church needs different kinds of preachers. Preachers like Francis fill a necessary niche.  

iii) Apropos (i-ii), from what I've seen, he likes to use personal anecdotes as sermon illustrations. That's very engaging. Everyone likes to hear a good story. It can be edifying and inspirational. 

That said, over-reliance on personal anecdotes can be hazardous. That might contribute to pastoral burnout. 

If you keep dipping into the well of your personal experience for sermon illustrations, it won't be long before the dipper scrapes bottom. Each individual only has so many fresh, exciting anecdotes to share. In general, life is fairly mundane.

To vary the metaphor, over-reliance on personal anecdotes is like self-cannibalism. If you over-use your own experience, it's like feeding off of yourself, because you only have so much to spare. 

Imagine being stranded on a desert island. There's nothing to eat. To forestall starvation, you begin consuming "expendable" parts of your own body. You have ten fingers. Ten toes. Two arms. Two legs. How much of yourself can you consume and still survive?

I'm not saying for a fact that he has that problem. Perhaps his experience is sufficiently varied that he doesn't run dry. But there is a risk, if a preacher feels the need to spice up his sermons with new, thrilling personal anecdotes, that he will eat himself alive (as it were).

iv) Apropos (iii), Francis has a particular skill set. It would be a mistake for a greenhorn preacher to imitate Francis. As a natural public speaker, he can pull things off that somebody without his talent can't get away with.  

v) Apropos (iv), because the church has many members, the strengths and weakness of one member ought to be balanced out by the strengths and weaknesses of other members. Everyone has limitations. Don't try to be more than you are. Rather, make the most of whatever you are. 

vi) Apropos (v), Francis can reach many people in some demographic groups that old square white guys like John Piper, John MacArthur, and Charles Stanley can't. We need the variety.

vii) From what I've seen, Francis seems to have an appetite for modern miracles. And he has some striking anecdotes of special providence. For instance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0L9VX-AJFQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cxr6n7PPsMY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQR6kszYWVI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcFMGKLTI5k

That's encouraging. There is, though, the danger of becoming deflated if you feel that you need to witness a new miracle every so often. Like, "Okay, God, that was sensational! But that's so last week. What have you done lately?" 

viii) Apropos (vii), the church needs people like Francis to shake things up. Keep devotional life from becoming too mechanical, perfunctory, complacent, set in our ways.

On the other hand, a large part of perseverance, of spiritual maturity, is coping with the hum drum of so much we have to do. Life can be grueling enough without having Olympic expectations. It's an achievement just to get across the finish line. 

ix) Francis has been criticized for quitting a megachurch that he started. I think one reason he quit is that he has a heart for personal evangelism. He feels a duty to connect with people face-to-face and one-on-one. That's not something the senior pastor of a megachurch has time for. The pastor to parishioner ratio prohibits much individualized ministry. That's delegated to associate pastors who do visitation and small-group ministry.

I can understand if Francis felt his church outgrew his sense of vocation. He wanted to get back to shoe-leather evangelism. And he has a knack for that. Can you imagine John MacArthur or Charles Stanley doing street evangelism in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco? Likewise, Francis recently addressed a high school audience. Even though he's already 50, he's naturally in his element with that demographic. 

And it seems to recharge his batteries. Gives him a chance to see God at work, transforming individuals. 

x) Francis became uneasy with his celebrity. In part, I think he felt unworthy. People were coming just to hear him.

And it's true that, ideally, people should come for the message, not the messenger. If, however, the messenger is what draws them to the messenger, then I don't think a preacher should feel guilty about their motivations. 

There a paradox about great actors and speakers: they have a natural talent, but once they get a reputation, it's hard for them not to become self-conscious of their talent. Instead of just doing what made them famous before they became famous, there's a temptation to live up to their reputation. They may lose some of the focus and spontaneity  that made the popular in the first place. 

For instance, Laurence Olivier was widely regarded as the greatest actor of his generation. Yet he got to a point in his career when he suffered from crippling stage fright. How can the world's greatest actor suffer from stage right, you ask? By having that hanging over your head every time you walk out on stage.   

It's a greater challenge for conscientious preachers, since their aim is not to impress an audience. They don't want to be the center of attention. They don't want to be the object of adulation. It's a dilemma for great preachers. They should just accept the fact that God is using them as instruments. God usually works through creaturely media. And he created the medium. 

Jen Hatmaker

I'll make a few observations about Jen Hatmaker. I never heard of her until she became instantly notorious for endorsing the LGBT agenda. 

i) From the little I've read, she's a 44-year-old mother and the wife of a megachurch pastor. She graduated from Oklahoma Baptist U. Don't know what her major was. According to one background story:

The writer and speaker calls their weekends a "crazy chaotic show, from Friday to Monday," as she flies between Christian conferences before joining her husband, Brandon, at their Free Methodist church plant for worship each Sunday. 

Amid quippy asides and Instagram photos of everyone smiling wide, Hatmaker chronicles her family—three kids "the old-fashioned way" and two adopted from Ethiopia in 2011—on her popular blog. Her 2012 book, 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess (B&H Publishing), remains a bestseller as it follows her family's 30-day fasts to combat excessive consumption. 

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/march/jen-hatmaker-brings-her-super-christian-family-onto-reality.html

Apparently, she has quite a following among some women. One question is: why? Why think she has any particular wisdom to impart? Why think she's wiser than your own mother? 

There are some gifted women. There are women who have useful things to say. Take a Bible commentator like Karen Jobes, or Christian philosophers like Elizabeth Anscombe and Lydia McGrew, or a poet and devotional writer like Christina Rossetti. These women write with insight. 

But what does Hatmaker have going for her besides natural charisma? What qualifies her to teach women? What does she know that millions of other wives and mothers don't know? Why would you buy her books or attend a conference where she's the keynote speaker? She lacks the exegetical expertise of Karen Jobes. She's not a deep thinker like Elizabeth Anscombe or Lydia McGrew. She lacks the artistic talent of Christina Rossetti. What do women expect to learn from her? 

In that regard she reminds me of other women who have a following, like Joyce Meyer and Rachel Held Evans. Apparently, other women feel that they can "relate" to these celebrities. But why would you cling to their every word and let them do your thinking for you? 

ii) Which brings me to a second point. Unless the pastor or televangelist takes precautions to guard against it, televangelism and megachurches can produce a dynamic in which his family are treated like royalty. Simply to be the wife of a televangelist or megachurch pastor makes her the First Lady. Sons and daughters are princes and princesses. Take husband and wife teams like Kenneth and Gloria Copeland (not to mention that both of them are heretical). Queen to the king. 

Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying there's anything inherently wrong with a husband-and-wife team. I had an elderly relative who used to listen to Jill Briscoe. She graduated from Cambridge. She seemed to be very intelligent. Maybe more so than her husband. 

My point is that a woman isn't morally or theologically discerning simply in virtue of being married to a televangelist or megachurch pastor. Likewise, the fact that someone's a natural public speaker doesn't mean they have good judgment in theology of ethics. That doesn't qualify them to be spiritual leaders. That applies to men as well as women. 

I'm reminded of Erma Bombeck. She was a columnist who made a lucrative career writing about her experience as a housewife. Women could "relate" to her. That's because Bombeck was a humorist. 

In addition, is Jen Hatmaker even a good wife and mother? That's not a part-time job. How can she do that when she's jetting around the country on the speaking circuit? Likewise, is turning your home into a reality show really good for the kids? Is it good for them to live in a fishbowl? Is she even a good role model at that level? 

ii) Now I'd like to shift to a related point. And that's the role of emotions. Emotions are important. There's a sense in which we all live for our emotions. By that I mean, we all want to be happy. 

There is, though, a crucial difference between living for emotions  and living by emotions. It doesn't occur to many people that we need to educate our emotions. There's a difference between raw emotion and sanctified emotion. In and of themselves, emotions are not a morally or rationally reliable guide to forming beliefs or making decisions. 

Likewise, it doesn't occur to many people that sometimes we have a duty to override our emotions. Mere feelings have no moral authority. It's wrong to let your feelings lead you. Sanctified reason, reason informed by revelation, needs to be in the driver's seat, and not emotion. 

Trump: televangelist

Much has been made of "evangelicals" who support Donald Trump. Trump supporters are demographically diverse. They include blue-collar workers, Stormfront folk, disaffected LewRockwell.com folk, &c. But what about the evangelicals? To begin with, the category is fairly diffuse:

“Diverse group with differing priorities” indeed. I’m glad to see Chideya note that Evangelicals — especially in the South — are hardly a monolith. Unlike the Northeast, West, and parts of the Midwest, in the South there is no social stigma to labeling yourself an Evangelical, and in some communities non-Evangelicals are in a decided minority. That’s not to say, however, that the Evangelical movement here is culturally dominant. There is a significant gap between those who proudly declare themselves to be Christian and those who actually go to church or participate in church in any meaningful way. And amongst church-goers, there are wide variations in belief and approach. Denominations still matter down here. 

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/431730/donald-trump-revealing-fault-lines-evangelical-movement

But I'd like to make another point: It's not surprising that "evangelicals" who get their theology from Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Jesse Duplantis, John Hagee, Benny Hinn, T.D. Jakes, Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen, Rod Parsley, Paula White et. might be Trump supporters. Trump is pretty interchangeable with the prosperity preachers who litter TBN. Glitzy, worldly, showbiz Christianity. If televangelists like that are your standard of comparison, then you'd feel right at home with Trump. 

Tales From the Darkside

Dear Pat Robertson,

I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I'm all over that action.

But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I'm no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished.

Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth — glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven't you seen "Crossroads"? Or "Damn Yankees"?

If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox — that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it — I'm just saying: Not how I roll.

You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings — just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.

Best, Satan

LILY COYLE, MINNEAPOLIS

Source

(Pat Robertson - false prophet since,what 1975 at least?)

Benny Hinn, Heroin, And A Long Trail Of Other Scandals

Justin Taylor has blogged about a Nightline interview with Benny Hinn. Hinn's performance in the interview is highly unconvincing. Below are some comments I posted in that thread, accompanied by some further comments on drug issues, which weren't accepted by Justin Taylor's blog for some reason. I suspect that something in the HTML coding from one of the links wasn't able to go through.

Ignorant skeptics sometimes compare Jesus Christ to Benny Hinn, on the basis of vague similarities like the fact that both men have been viewed by many people as miracle workers. I have an article here that discusses some of the many differences between the two men.

A resource on Benny Hinn that's seldom mentioned is Yves Brault's Behind The Scenes: The True Face Of The Fake Faith Healers (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Dorrance Publishing Co., 1997). Brault attended Hinn's church, and he writes about some of his family's experiences with Hinn and other individuals and ministries.

Hinn promises miracles, then tries to prevent investigation of his alleged miracles.

You can watch a devastating expose of Benny Hinn online, by CBC's The Fifth Estate, here.

Hank Hanegraaff of the Christian Research Institute asked Hinn for his three best-documented miracles. When the documentation was provided, all three were found to be inauthentic.

Hinn has repeatedly been documented to have made false prophecies. He predicted that Fidel Castro would die in the 1990s, for instance.

Members of Hinn's staff have been caught in various scandals. Here's some video footage I saw years ago in another context, in which Hinn seems to be giving some sort of drug to a member of his staff. I've seen this footage from three different sources, but I've never seen any documentation that would give it further authentication. It does look as though Hinn is encouraging some sort of drug use in the video, and his staff does have a history of heroin problems. The video appears to be taken from a story by Tony Pipitone from WKMG, channel 6, in Orlando. There might be additional information that exonerates Hinn in some manner, but the video looks bad, and I've seen it used by multiple sources.

I've found little information about this video online. If you go to this page, and use the Ctrl F feature on your keyboard and search for "Pipitone", you'll see a post by somebody (illusionbuster) who raises some doubts about the negative implications of the video. I find his reasoning unconvincing, though.

I have a longer version of the video that I saw years ago, found at the end of a VHS tape titled The Signs And Wonders Movement Exposed: Ministry And Music, Vol. 1. The tape series (of which the tape in question is the first part) was put out by National Prayer Network in England and features Dave Hunt, Roger Oakland, and some other critics of modern miracle claims like Benny Hinn's. You can watch an online version here. Go to the 47-minute mark in the first video.

At the close of the tape, they run a more extensive version of the video in question. They include footage of Tony Pipitone and some other reporters introducing the story. They explain that the video in question is an "amateur" video. They say that Hinn canceled an interview scheduled with them after seeing the footage. This edition of the video also includes subtitles of what somebody in the video was saying. It's hard to tell who's doing the speaking, but it seems to be David Delgado, who smokes the pipe after Steve Brock hands it to him. According to the subtitles, Delgado (or whoever is speaking) makes the comment "I thought this was vice." He then explains that he had hidden the pipe before Benny Hinn walked by. Apparently, Hinn saw the pipe and gave it back to Brock and Delgado to smoke. In the footage that follows, Delgado is clearly under the influence of some sort of mind-altering drug. But there's no indication of how that second footage relates to the first. It was soon after that when Delgado died as a result of heroin abuse.

Perhaps what Delgado and Brock were smoking, which Hinn gave them, was something more innocent. I don't know. But the video at least raises some significant questions. If Hinn was just giving the men tobacco or something else more innocent to smoke, why did he cancel his scheduled interview with WKMG? It's possible that multiple sources using this video are misrepresenting it in order to make Hinn look bad or that multiple sources have misunderstood it. But I find that unlikely. The people behind the VHS tape mentioned above don't strike me as the sort of people who would do that. The most obvious explanation of the evidence I've seen so far is that Hinn gave his staff a mind-altering drug to smoke. Why else would the people who put the video together run footage of David Delgado under the influence of something mind-altering just after running the video involving Hinn? If there's no connection between the two clips, then it's misleading to run them together in that manner.

But even if there's a more innocent explanation for the video, it would just mean that one scandal surrounding Hinn's ministry has been taken off the list, while many others remain.

A Devastating Exposé Of Benny Hinn

CBC's "The Fifth Estate" recently ran one of the most devastating televised exposés of Benny Hinn I've seen. You can read about it and watch it online. (I recommend reading the "Story Update" section at the bottom of the page.) The program features Justin Peters, a Christian who recently completed a Master's thesis on the life and ministry of Hinn. The producers of the program also interviewed (or were in contact with) more people who were close to Hinn and are now willing to publicly criticize him.

Last year, I wrote a post comparing Benny Hinn to Jesus Christ. See also here.

1 Corinthians 14:20

Justin Taylor recently posted a link to this article. I recommend watching all three video clips. The NBC story is primarily about Benny Hinn's finances, but there's some material on his miracle claims as well. Some of you may be interested in an article I posted here earlier this year about the purported miracles of Benny Hinn as compared to those of Jesus Christ. Here's another site that has some material on Benny Hinn, from somebody who used to attend his church.

Jesus Christ, Benny Hinn, And Santa Claus

In a thread below, John Loftus writes:

"Who investigated the stories written by the four evangelists?...And isn't it likely that the four evangelists painted a picture of Jesus that, rather than acturately describing what this Jesus did, told stories like Clement More did? I believe Jesus existed, but with all of the pseudepigraphal writings in the first few centuries, including the Gospel of Judas, how do you say with a straight face that Jesus' reported miracles were ever investigated in the same way as Amazing Randi, or the Myth Busters or Mike Wallace or any investigative reporter today would do, reveals an ignorance based in blind faith."

And an anonymous commenter writes:

"I'd really like to see an elaboration on this claim [that there's a significant difference between how Jesus Christ and Benny Hinn carry out their respective ministries]."

I'll give several examples of the differences between the two:

- Jesus' purported miracles are of a different nature than Benny Hinn's. Jesus is thought to have fulfilled significantly detailed prophecy. Nothing comparable to Jesus' fulfillment of Isaiah's Suffering Servant prophecy or Daniel's 70 weeks prophecy, for example, can be claimed for Hinn. Hinn's alleged miracles are of a more limited variety. He doesn't claim to walk on water and calm storms around him, for example. Hinn mostly claims to perform healings.

- The purported supernatural elements of Jesus' life are supported by better evidence. Some of Jesus' prophecy fulfillments are of a nature that allows their fulfillment to be verified from non-Christian sources, and they concern matters that are rarely disputed even by atheists, agnostics, and other critics of Christianity (the timing of Jesus' life, the fact that He died by means of crucifixion, etc.). I'm not aware of any purported miracle of Benny Hinn that has comparable evidence. Similarly, men like Peter and Paul were willing to suffer to a large extent, eventually being martyred, for their belief in having seen the risen Christ, whereas I'm not aware of anybody suffering in a comparable way for a comparable claim about eyewitnessing a miracle of Benny Hinn. (And it can't be argued that men like Peter and Paul may have suffered for reasons not having to do with the resurrection appearances. For an explanation, see here.)

- None of Jesus' miracles have been documented to be fraudulent, whereas some of Hinn's have been.

- Jesus never had to retract a miracle claim, whereas Hinn has.

- Jesus' enemies didn't deny that He performed apparent miracles, but rather attributed those purported miracles to a source other than God. Hinn's enemies, on the other hand, widely deny that he performs miracles.

- Jesus and the early Christians didn't try to prevent people from investigating their claims in the manner in which Benny Hinn and his associates have tried to prevent people from investigating theirs.

- Jesus didn't have the sort of financial corruption and other discrediting background characteristics that Benny Hinn has been documented to have.

- Jesus had reasons to be careful and honest that Benny Hinn hasn't had. Most likely, Hinn will never be beaten and crucified. Hinn is living in a society with significantly more freedom in relevant contexts, enemies who have significantly less ability to harm him, significantly more apathy regarding opposing religious claims, etc.

I could mention other differences, but these are more than enough to establish my point. And I'm not denying that Hinn has some disadvantages in some contexts. For example, in one case that comes to mind, Hinn was caught making a miracle claim on television that he later had to retract. Jesus wasn't followed by people with cameras and microphones. However, we can't assume that cameras and microphones would have shown Jesus to have been similar to Benny Hinn. We have no evidence leading to such a conclusion. The evidence we do have leads in a different direction. Though having something like a microphone or a television camera would have been an advantage in terms of documenting the details of Jesus' life, much can be reliably transmitted without something like a camera or microphone. Some of the documentation we have for the fraudulent nature of Hinn's ministry comes from eyewitness accounts or reports of what eyewitnesses said, for example, without any audio or video tape.

That's why it's unreasonable for John Loftus to object that we don't know that:

"Jesus' reported miracles were ever investigated in the same way as Amazing Randi, or the Myth Busters or Mike Wallace or any investigative reporter today would do"

Every day of his life, Loftus makes judgments based on less evidence than would be produced in an article or television program by Amazing Randi or an investigative reporter. We don't need a report by Mike Wallace before believing what somebody tells us or before concluding that we weren't hallucinating when we thought we saw something.

Some of the New Testament authors were making claims about events they eyewitnessed. Paul claimed to meet the risen Christ, Luke claimed to see Paul perform miracles, etc. Paul wasn't just a skeptic. He was a persecutor of the church. Even when eyewitnesses aren't writing the documents, there are control factors that can give the documents credibility. We know what genre the gospels were written in, for example. They were written in a highly historical genre. The society of their day had particular expectations for documents of such a genre. They lived in a highly oral culture that had developed better memory skills than we commonly have today. The earliest Christians demonstrably had a high degree of concern for eyewitness testimony. Miracle claims of the nature we see in the gospels were relatively rare leading up to the time of Jesus, even though they later became more popular. That's why people responded to Jesus' miracles with surprise, fear, etc. It wasn't considered commonplace for people to behave as Jesus did. Etc.

I've discussed many of these things in my previous exchanges with Loftus. I've discussed the evidence for John's authorship of the gospel of John, Glenn Miller's refutation of the concept that ancient sources are too gullible for the Christian claims to be credible, etc. Yet, Loftus didn't interact with much of what I said then, and he isn't interacting with much of it now. Instead, he keeps making vague assertions about how gullible ancient people allegedly were, ridiculous comparisons to Santa Claus, etc.

He asks how we can believe that Jesus' purported miracles were investigated as somebody like Amazing Randi would investigate them. He claims that the existence of documents like the Gospel of Judas make it implausible to suggest that there was significant investigation of Jesus' miracles. But why would the existence of some unreliable documents prove that other documents are unreliable also? How does the non-existence of significant investigation into Jesus' miracles logically follow from the existence of a document like the Gospel of Judas? Loftus doesn't tell us. As Evan May explained in another post, Loftus' claim "is like asserting that the Declaration of Independence is no longer reliable since the movie National Treasure hit theaters". If the gospel of Mark was written earlier than the Gospel of Judas, written by a different author, written in a radically different environment, written in a different genre, makes radically different claims, etc., why are we supposed to believe that the two documents are comparable?

Skeptics who have so much difficulty distinguishing between Jesus Christ and Benny Hinn and between the gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Judas should spend more time studying and less time posting in public forums. People who think that making vague comparisons between the gospels and "'Twas The Night Before Christmas" is a good argument against Christianity probably shouldn't be writing books and publishing blogs claiming to debunk the Christian faith.

The Genuine And The Counterfeit

Benny Hinn promises miracles, then tries to prevent any investigation. The contrast between how Jesus carried out His ministry and how Hinn carries out his is stark. This isn't the first time Hinn's security personnel have behaved in a questionable manner. See, for example, Yves Brault's Behind the Scenes: The True Face of the Fake Faith Healers (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Dorrance Publishing Co., 1997). The first article linked above gives an example of a person Hinn claimed to heal who actually wasn't healed, and other such cases have been documented. Hinn has a long history of falsified miracle claims and other forms of corruption. (See, for example, here, here, here, and here.)