Reposted from:
http://blog.myspace.com/davidaspiring

The Bigger the Lie...

"Fire!" bellows the Pastor.

The usher who has drifted off to sleep, slouched in the seat next to me, wakes startled and then, in order to cover her lapse in devotion begins to convulse "uncontrollably" for a minute or so. This is the kind of comedy I was looking for when I visited the Benny Hinn Holy Spirit Miracle Crusade on Saturday June 9th, 2007.

My cousin and I had turned up to the 12,000 capacity Vector Arena the previous night, half an hour early, to find the gates closed with thousands of people pleading to get inside, some sick, in wheelchairs, on crutches; many Pacific Island families, Indian families, enthusiastic born-agains. On Saturday I tried again, alone, this time two hours early.

Past the crowded merchandise counter, selling anything from T-Shirts to Testimonial DVDs, I entered the main arena and was ushered upstairs. The lower level was already full. I tried to drown out the insipid orchestral noodling with my ipod blaring Kings of Leon and Grand National. I might have been accused of not letting myself be swept up in the "atmosphere".

A boy of about 16 (in gangster attire) glared at me, I smiled, he glared back. The show had not started and already I was uncomfortable. I moved seats, closer to the stage, where I could see the throngs of sick and lame below, a man with his limping child walking away from the stage, a minder for a Muscular Dystrophy patient arguing with a Hinn associate, probably inquiring as to why there was no wheelchair access to the stage...

An hour before the sermon and people were already clapping, the arena was all but full. As the four hundred strong choir belted out apparently well known devotional songs, I viewed more wannabe gangsters who had been dragged along by their mums and girlfriends, and wondered how many had actually brought into this cheap magic trip, this placebo conjurer.

The buying in would follow. One of Hinn's fellow pastors whets the appetite of the credulous 12,000 by telling us that we will be aired on TV in two weeks to 22 million viewers, 6% of the US population. It isn't a slip of the tongue to say that we, the audience, will be broadcast. With the free tickets we will have to earn our keep, and with the lights glaring at every section of the audience it is clear that we are the performance. Pastor Benny emerging in his hygienic white celestial scrubs is merely the director.

Hands go up everywhere when Pastor Benny asks who is from outside Auckland; a good thousand people. "You will all be saved tonight!"

The irony begins right off the bat. "Jesus leads and Satan pushes" states the Pastor repetitively. Characteristic images of Pastor Benny "pushing" his raptured people over, spring to my mind. But aside from his ill-considered slip, Pastor Benny is a memetic mastermind. Memes (a viral idea that passes from one person to the next and so on) are best transmitted through repetition. Parables are repeated to us at least five times. The hypnotic effect of this mind-numbing experience would be very powerful if it were not so obviously contrived.

Hell, the Rapture, Muslim and Jewish conversions, all the favorites covered in odourous and repetitive affirmations of Christian superiority.

"Thank God that you are alive so you can choose Jesus Christ. Imagine all those millions of people burning in the fires of Hell, what they would give for the chance you have now!"

Looking around I see the piled up buckets at the edge of the aisle. But the giving hasn't started yet. A new Pastor takes the floor with a message that "we are on the crest of a great change in this country", with his broad US accent, this Pastor informs us that our country has a "Christian history" and credits much of this to Smith Wigglesworth, a Pentecostal minister who, among other things, claimed to have resurrected his wife on three occasions, attributed all illness to demons (and consequently advised his followers against modern medicine) and was gifted with glossolalia (a condition associated with schizophrenia and speaking in tongues).

This Pastor's final words are "it's time to change this nation!" which receives a resounding appraisal from the crowd, no doubt happy that the speaker has ceased his repetition of the phrase "believe and receive".

The rhetorical value of the following 50 minutes, if deconstructed, could fill a heavy book, but I will attempt to summerise this payment primer. In short Pastor Benny tells three stories (five times each) about people who gave money to their churches and synagogues under the assumption "give, and it shall be given unto you" (Luke 6:38). His illustrations are of affluence infused with piety, and celebrate both. The story is of failure and redemption, and a twist; that to give to a church is not holy; you must give to Jesus directly.

But how do you do that? Pastor Benny unflinchingly directs exactly how to fill in your credit card details. As the envelopes and buckets circulate, no one is, any longer, questioning whether they will give or not, they are too busy thinking about exactly how they will give, and exactly who they are giving to.

Pastor Benny assures the audience that if you give your money to Jesus you don't have to worry how it is used, because, he says, "whoever misuses such money will be judged". Pastor Benny was not deluded; he was simply a businessman, a man who, upon returning to his $9,000,000 mansion, will have no fear of judgment.

The Pastor goes further to warn against giving to churches, ministries or even charities, and follows up by asking all those that haven't been able to give, to stand. He then directs those who have already given to then give those standing some money "in order that they can give to him" (Jesus). This black comedy gets a little blacker

It's about 10pm now and I am impatient to see some healing but the Pastor just keeps on repeating, the hypnosis is visible; everyone moving in unison. The light glaring directly in my eyes is blinding and blue-purple light patches hover around the glowing Pastor. As I stare from my seat the room seems to turn into a harsh grainy black and white film, palms raised to the speaker, but Nuremburg rallies never tapped this kind of psycho-tropism.

"Fire!" The mosh-pit falls back against the sick and injured, and the usher beside me wakes up.

The healing has begun. Pastor Benny rattles off a number of internal diseases (nothing visible of course) that have been miraculously cured, somewhere to his left or "at the back". Then the shocker; HIV cured in someone to his right. Pastor Benny had previously applauded his ministry for their work in Uganda, and I had, at the time, thought that he would not be so irresponsible as to claim that he had cured anyone of AIDS, now I wasn't so certain. I don't need to elaborate on the repercussions of such an action in a country where a quarter of the population are HIV positive.

My eyes wander to see a man being wrestled down the central aisle below by three security guards, one with a hand over the man's mouth.

As the people queue a yelling match breaks out between a minder and one of the Hinn associates. Pastor Benny is clearly not letting someone with Muscular Dystrophy on to the stage. The yelling is drowned out by Hinn's own reaction to the miracle he has just performed: A young woman who, a year after she broke her leg in a car accident, is able to get up off her crutch, and swing it around like a circus performer. Her, quite obvious, limp and reluctance to run across the stage ruins the illusion somewhat, but she does her best.

Other conditions include: Diabetes, Lupus, MS, Ovarian Cancer and a little girl with kidney damage. The Diabetes sufferer and the Ovarian Cancer sufferer were both given tickets to the Crusade by the same doctor. The MS sufferer claims that the lights gave her a migraine, which lasted right up until Pastor Benny started healing people (about 4hours into the event), This young woman came to have her MS cured and instead developed a four hour migraine, yet the crowd remain convinced that this is a miracle. The Pastor's parting advice to the young woman is to "read the bible and don't read anything else!"

Out of respect for the 8-year-old girl with kidney damage and her father I won't go into detail about the inappropriate nature of Pastor Benny's affections for the child that he proclaimed "won't have to visit a hospital ever again". I guess he's hoping, for his sake, that she doesn't visit a hospital at least until he's out of the country.

Pastor Benny continued in this fashion, invoking seizures and collapsing the willing members of the audience with the fire of the Holy Spirit to the point of fatigue.

Leaving the Vector Arena, I declined an invitation to a church sermon with Henry Hinn (Pastor Benny's brother) the following night. Humourless and exhausted, after surviving 7 hours with conman par excellence Pastor Benny Hinn, I was about ready to go home.

If you're interested in donating to the Benny Hinn Ministry aka Jesus Directly, you can check out a report on the financial state of the organisation here.