"This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted." -CS Lewis
US Sheepherding Experiment
A few years back, I attended a medium sized SBC church with a very conservative approach to Scriptural interpretation. In other words, the teaching in this church didn’t begin to approach anything that remotely resembled the health and wealth gospel. As time went on, I was stunned that a number of people in this church followed such charlatans as Benny Hinn. When I would ask them why, I was flummoxed when they said they believed that Hinn and others like him actually heal people. These folks donated money to his enterprise (I refuse to call it a ministry) and would attend his gatherings. And they also attended BSF, led Bible studies and were involved in leadership in the church.
I happen to know a great deal about Hinn because another former pastor had asked me to do some research on him so in order to address it in a sermon. In 2009, TWW did two posts on Hinn, his lies and his refusal to prove even one of his miracles. Please read these two posts for further information. Link and Link
Here is an except from one post.
“Hinn has claimed to heal thousands of people; however, the proof for such healings is sadly lacking. When Jesus healed the lepers, He told them to go to the priests to verify their healing. Not so with this charlatan. Steve Blow, a columnist for the Dallas Morning news challenged Hinn to prove just one of his healings. Hinn refuses to do so.
Hank Hanegraaff made the same request of Benny Hinn. This time, Hinn actually met with Hanegraaff and handed him “proof” of the healing of an abdominal tumor. The individual’s first X-ray clearly shows a large mass. This person then went to a Hinn “healing” show, and miraculously the tumor disappeared! As proof, Hinn handed Hank an X-ray after the crusade, and the mass was gone!
Well, not exactly. Hanegraaff decided to call the radiologist to ask about the X-rays. It seems Old Benny left out an important detail in the timeline. There was a surgical intervention to remove the abdominal tumor. Hanegraaff revealed this to Hinn who would not comment. Then Hanegraaff shared this information on his broadcast, The Bible Answer Man. Well, Hinn was so displeased that he threatened Hanegraaff. Incredibly, there is an audio recording of Hinn making the threat, and it can be heard at equip.org.”
It deeply bothered me that these regular attendees of my former church supported Hinn and refused to listen to evidence to the contrary. However, as PT Barnum once said “There is a sucker born every minute.” At first, I was prone to ignore such ignorance. However, there is a far deeper issue that we, as Christians, must face. In the middle of severe pain and suffering, people will do anything to try to save a loved one. They are vulnerable during such times and apt to listen and try anything people will suggest.
In my own life, it amazed me how unclear things were in the beginning of my daughter’s illness. Now, understand, I had been a hospice nurse and was not naïve. However, for approximately 2 weeks, after learning my daughter’s diagnosis, I believed her tumor was benign. I still remember the first time I heard that her tumor was malignant. I cried and asked my husband why I didn’t know. He sadly told me that I had been told on multiple occasions but that perhaps my brain could not handle the shock until that moment in time.
One of the saddest tales I ever heard was during a Bible Answer Man broadcast in which a man who was a pastor recounted his painful journey with his wife who was dying of cancer. She insisted on being brought to one of Benny Hinn’s “healing” services and the pastor did so out of compassion. Many people do not know that Hinn has screeners who decided who will be allowed to come on stage with Hinn for his special prayers for healing. They routinely turn away the deathly sick such as those on ventilators. His wife looked so sick, she was turned away. She begged them to accept her but she was sent to sit in the audience with the rest of the spectators who would get a regular prayer for healing. His wife was distraught and died soon after this incident.
Hinn has no interest in healing the really sick because he cannot. He is a wealthy man who has preyed on the desperation of those who are deathly sick and afraid. He has conned them into giving him their money with promises that they will be healed. They are not.
In fact, I am so convinced that he is a fraud that I dare any reader to submit evidence to the contrary. If anyone has proof that he has healed something like a documented case of cancer, re-grown a limb, in other words, a medically documented real illness, I promise to review the medical evidence (Xrays , lab work) and post it, along with my sincere apologies and a donation to the charity of choice.
I am a nurse, my husband is a doctor and we had access to and understood major medical center specialists. Can you imagine a simple couple from a rural area who have not had more than a high school education coping with the realities of a complex diagnosis? No wonder a simple solution like Benny Hinn or a friend’s suggestions to try mega doses of beta carotene or some Mexican herb, sounds much better than scary surgeries and complex chemotherapy.
Folks, we are called to support and lift up our weaker brothers and sisters when they go through trials. Better yet, it is incumbent on us to make sure that pastors teach so well from the pulpit that the “least of these” understand straightforward Biblical teaching prior to an emergency.
With this in mind, I approached a pastor at that former church and asked him to address the subject of these con artists. He said it was completely unnecessary because he taught through the Bible and anyone listening to him should be able to figure it out. Quite simply, he refused to do so and denied that anyone in HIS congregation would believe such stuff. Yet they did. So he was either a lousy teacher or had an extreme case of cognitive dissonance!
Since that time, I have met a few other pastors who refuse the opportunity to directly address this issue. By refusing to speak plainly about such matters, such pastors are complicit in the rise of the televangelist swindlers. They are also guilty of not helping their followers to avoid unbiblical and dangerous methods in dealing with pain and suffering.
The apostles and prophets seemed far more proactive in addressing false teachers in the church. They warned us that we must be on guard against false teachers who were, and are, a very real factor in church life. But, the manly men pastors, who spend so much time worrying about limiting the role of women in the church and defining their “own authority and anointing,” give barely the time of day to the clear and present danger of wolves among the sheep. Some appropriate verses from Open Bible. Com LINK
Matthew 7:15 ESV
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
1 John 4:1 ESV
"Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world."
Romans 16:17-18 ESV
"I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive."
2 John 1:10-11 ESV
"If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works."
It appears that many pastors prefer to point fingers at the ills of the world such as homosexuality, atheism and abortion and ignore the very wolves who roam within the church, devouring the weak and naïve. I think it is time for the “patriarchs” to get off their thrones and go to war.
Lydia's Corner: Judges 17:1-18:31 John 3:1-21 Psalm 104:1-23 Proverbs 14:20-21
At my also conservative, preach-through-books-of-the-Bible with some “systematic” topic sermons, congregation over the years my pastor has always taken care to point out where Scripture’s teaching on suffering flatly contradicts the health and wealth Gospel, including clearly indicating where faith healing isn’t promise. Perhaps the difference is that we are consciously cessationist? But even if we weren’t a solid view of the suffering promised to Christ’s servants would fairly well contradict someone like Hinn.
Watcher
For some, it is necessary to refute the actual faith healers. For example, when your pastor has taught on this subject, has he taken the time to call out a person like Hinn by name and explain how there is not one documented healing attributed to him? This goes beyond mere theology and involves lying, thieving and preying on the naive and desperate. I am talking about application of the Scriptures to real life chicanery.
Dee,
Here is peek look into the world of Peter Popov, televangelist and faith healer as exposed through James Randii. The video starts off with a short James Randi bio, then discusses and shows during a live session just how many of these faith healers work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7BQKu0YP8Y
I think for this topic we are probably all on the same page 🙂
Dee, yes, in my pastor’s case he’s called a few famous guys out by name. He’s not shy about denouncing charlatans.
I do think, though, that a good handle on what the Bible says about suffering is key for a congregation, especially in a country where suffering is viewed as an aberration, which it is due to the fall, rather than a part of life, which it also is due to the fall. Having an associate pastor who struggled through cancer (and whose mother-in-law died from it shortly after he was healed through the means of modern-day medicine) and has written a book on (and taught on) what suffering teaches us have given many in the congregation a solid grounding for their own trials. It’s been a blessing.
I have a little bit of a different take on the subject, I think. My mother’s introduction to evangelicalism came as a result of seeking out why I had been healed as an infant. I was given APGAR scores of “2” out of “10” (an standardized assessment of a newborn immediately and a few minutes after delivery), due to aspiration of amniotic fluid. My grandfather went to buy my burial plot, because my death seemed sure. I lingered for almost two weeks (after 3 days of violent seizures from the massive brain damage). A friend of my godparents prayed for me, a woman from the United Pentecostal Church, and I was completely healed and discharged on day 14. My mother ended up getting born again about 5 years later as she searched for answers.
I had the idea that I would grow up to be some kind of Kathryn Kuhlman, as I so wanted to give back to the world what had been so graciously given to me. I became heavily involved in the Word of Faith movement and lived in the Bible Belt during that time, and our church was on the speaking circuit for many big names of the day. I would listen to the Bible via subliminal tapes (4 X normal speed) and regular ones, and studied like crazy, but so many of my hospital patients died. I became disillusioned.
Upon studying the origins of the Word of Faith movement, I learned that Kenyon took Mary Baker Eddy’s materials and further Christianized them. Mary Baker Eddy was essentially just a trained hypnotist, and she studied under one of Mesmer’s students named Phineas Quimby. Per my best understanding, much of what amounts to faith healing today (something I believe is very different from the healing I had in infancy) is little more than hypnotherapy. The effects of a healing hypnotherapy session last about three days, so by attending a mid-week service along with Sunday services, a person can “keep their healing” of this type, as per the sermons that address how one can “keep a healing.” I guess I’d rather prefer to just leave Jesus and Christian Science (Baker-Eddy) out of it for the hypnosis-based healing, as it is just hypnosis with Kenyon’s added “improvements.”
As for the Kansas City Prophet business, the other arm of faith healers that arose from William Branham, they represent another type of healing. An entity used to appear to Branham on stage and would tell him who to call out of the crowd for a healing. I don’t want to really know what was going on there. Their “prophets” today admit to getting info from an entity named “Emma”…
I believe God does heal and does give people faith to be healed, but I think that the hypnosis-based faith healing is a whole different variety and essentially cheapens real miracles. But most of the people who follow Word of Faith today never heard of Kenyon, or they regard him as a prophet, never learning of his appreciation for the work of Baker Eddy or her own history. For certain illnesses, I think hypnotherapy can be very helpful, but I believe that calling it Faith Healing is a bit disingenuous. I feel better about employing hypnosis as hypnosis which harnesses the healing power of the mind as opposed to making it over to sound like a purely Christian enterprise. A sovereign God doesn’t need to use hype to heal. Hypnosis requires it as an essential element of anticipation, a part of the process.
I have neurogenic pain in my elbow and the upper part of my forearm due to a traffic accident years ago (incl. a broken neck which is healed except for predicting the weather). After the neurologists tried several drugs, which had bad side effects and really did not dull the pain enough to be worthwhile, a friend recommended a Christian Christian psychologist that did hypnosis (he was a former Baptist who had joined the Disciples of Christ). The hypnosis does not eliminate the pain, but does make in less and takes away the awareness of the pain, since this pain has no warning value. He left me with a post-hypnotic suggestion for the pain, and a post-hypnotic suggestion that allows me to self-hypnotize under appropriate circumstances, which allows me to re-up the pain management suggestion of an evening when I go to bed. Also means I do not suffer from evening insomnia!!
Yes hypnosis works, and the miracle is in the way we were created.
This is a very important post.
I have found that Independent Baptists and other types of evangelicals are not afraid to call these guys frauds.
SBC pastors of yesterday would not be shy about doing so either. Criswell, for example, was a stalwart against the Charistmatic movement.
The problem is clearly routed in the cessationist issue. Since the Jesus movement of the late 60s and the early Christian Contemporary Music scene, large groups of Baptists and other evangelicals who were not charismatic have been cross pollinated with less vibrant forms of charismatic theology and practice. As a result, charismatic “light” practices are not preached against, even if they are not shared or advocated by a large percentage of people.
My friends in ministry, for example, do not speak in tongues, claim to pray in heavenly languages, or engage in so called “faith” healing. But they are all want to critically examine those practices, and have chosen to basically ignore those issues and hope they go away. Instead, they emphasize the text of scripture and major doctrines. My friends are deathly afraid of being called “cessationist”.
A couple of years ago I preached a sermon on Acts 2 filling in for the pastor who was there. One of my basic points was that Acts 2 was a historical moment in time that was 1000s of years in the making, and that great damage has been done to the church in trying to recreate Acts 2. We are not called to do that. I also said that while scripture is not specific in this, it is very clear that the first apostles had unusual authority and gifting that we simply do not regularly see today. I did not spend much time on that point, but it was clear. The pastor was so surprised that I went right at it like that.
The SBC had a big row a few years ago over whether to appoint missionaries who claimed to have a so-called “prayer language” that they claim is given by God, is not another human language, but is not their spoken tongue. At issue in that matter was primarily denominational polity (whether to have requirements in addition to matters addressed in the Baptist Faith & Message, the denomination’s doctrinal confession).
LifeWay Bookstores, the SBC’s bookstore arm, refuses to sell Hinn books, to the chagrin of many people in the SBC.
What is missing in the SBC experience, by my estimate, is a thorough doctrinal debate about these matters and a common understanding.
People are concerned about the stances they take related to these things. First, they don’t want to appear to deny God’s power. Second, they don’t want to lack faith and thus write off the possibility that God might do something extraordinary in them. Third, they don’t want to play God. They don’t want to say what God can and can do and when he can do it. And, fourth, they don’t want to shut themselves off from a large segment of Christianity who claims to engage in these Charismatic practices. Much of the dynamic growth of the Christian faith in the last 40 years has come from the more charismatic sections of the faith.
This gives Hinn and people like him great opportunity. There is no clear dividing line in the Chartismatic world between God really working in some life and a fraud. These people are often fellow travelers. In the SBC men like Jack Taylor and Peter Lord are (or were?) not that much different in theology than a man like Hinn (though very much different in practice).
So, by the time they get to a guy like Hinn, they have made so many allowances for others, it’s hard to draw the line. “Who am I to say that God doesn’t heal people or use Hinn to heal people…”
I have found that there are evangelicals on both the Calvinist and Non-Calvinist side of the divide that are willing to discuss and debate this. And there are those on both sides who would rather not talk about it.
That’s one of the reasons I have watched the CJ Maheney thing with interest. My understanding is that Maheney came from Charismatic Christianity and that was a big part of his background. But my sense from what little I have seen is that he is shedding that. I would say that is true of some other Charismatics I have seen. One church in my area dropped “Pentecostal” from its name (which it had for 25 years) and when I ask people who go there now, “Oh, you go to ______ Church Pentecostal”, they deny it and say that they don’t speak in tongues etc. I would bet a large percentage of those people like Hinn, however.
These are interesting times. I think that there is a balance to strike. We can and should do good exegesis, and we should test what people say about their experiences in light of what the Bible does and does not teach. And we should not be afraid to call out frauds even if their fellow travelers and adherents may be offended. Our doing so will help them as much as our own congregations.
Oh, another thing that I was going to say is that it seems various aspects of the Christian faith are emphasized in different generations. This is an oversimplified explanation, but is a way of looking at things.
Perhaps the stale and dying orthodoxy of many mainline churches in the U.S. in the 50s and 60s opened the way for Christians who were more expressive in their faith (charismatics), and this attracted people who had previously rejected the faith.
The early 60s and 70s saw a great interest in prophecy, as the Arab-Israeli conflict raged, OPEC flexed its muscles etc.
The 80s coincided with an economic boom in the U.S. Health, wealth and prosperity became a big deal.
The successful evangelicalism of 1950 through the 1980s (Billy Graham as a prmie example) began to die down in the 1990s. I can’t imagine a “Crusade” that would attract much attention in my town, and I am in the Bible Belt. This, I believe, has lead to a rebirth in analysis as to why some people do not respond to the Gospel and Gospel pleas, despite the best efforts of Christians, which feeds nicely into presuppositionalism and an interest in Calvinistic theology.
I am clearly seeing a waning (in the U.S.) in Charismatic influence.
Some new emphasis will come around the corner in a few years – or may be rounding the corner now.
Anonymous,
Good posts, maybe it’s time for a new “age of enlightenment” 🙂
Anonymous
I want to make myself clear. I know Benny Hinn is a false prophet. Not only has he not validated one measly healing in his ministry, he has made prophecies like predicting the death the death of Fidel Castro in the 1990s. This is not meant to be a post on the charismatic movement. Hinn is just a charlatan. I judge him on that criteria only. Each person who always claim to any miraculous gift is open to question.
As for Mahaney, he will never renounce one thing he has taught. he will just say that it was “misinterpreted”.
As for the latest and greatest trend in Christianty it is quite evident. They are Calvinism+++ and complementarianism.
Karlton:
Thanks. Who knows???
Dee:
You have been clear. No question. And right on this one.
But you asked why pastors have not addressed Hinn.
I say it is not because they don’t know enough about Hinn.
It’s that Hinn is connected to a larger group of people and issues that make addressing this very hard for the reasons I stated.
Poor little me and others with just a high school diploma. I guess we are the stupid ones who follow the frauds. Do you really believe that?
Bill,
in a word…yes
Pick your category, foolish, deceived, deluded, gullible, naive, dull, doltish, credulous, unsuspecting, unquestioning, uncritical..people who follow charlatans like Peter Popov, Benny Hinn, Oral Roberts, Kathryn Kuhlman and others have simply abandoned common sense and critical inquiry in the hopes that some magic fairy dust can turn their lives around and undo what nature has written…wake up and smell the roses.
(P.S. the ‘ability’ to believe in this kind of nonsense is not related to level of education, but seems tied more to insecurity, desire to be part of a group and lack of critical reasoning skills…or refusal to engage those skills for whatever reason).
Bill and Karlton,
I side with Bill. The person that thinks that he is invulnerable is the MOST vulnerable person in terms of mind control, thought reform, spiritual abuse, undue influence and waking hypnosis.
I defer to the late, very wise Robert Lifton who was a Harvard trained psychiatrist and Margaret Singer who served with the APA: They both said that in terms of cults and cultic influence, the person who thought that they were invulnerable and were invulnerable because of their education were ripe for manipulation.
Undue influence works because it involves manipulating thoughts, emotions and behaviors. If you are human, you have these these traits, and they all make us open to influence. Also, if you can control the information that a person receives which informs these three, you can dominate the person. A manipulator needs access to only one of these areas to get control over the entire person.
When you are off balance after a loss or a major life change or event, you have less stability, and this makes you more susceptible to undue influence. Most people get involved with groups after a family member has died, after they’ve moved, after they’ve started a new job, etc. We are human and we have needs, and these needs can create a set of circumstances that makes us less aware and in touch with our inner resources, or we may loose our situational support that would otherwise give us better perspective.
Bill
This had nothing to do with who has a high school diploma versus higher education. I spent about 20 years tutoring children from low income, at risk backgrounds who, by high school, could not do simple multiplication. In my years as a public health nurse, I met many people who fell through the cracks who didn’t have even the basic understanding of surviving in a tech based world. It is hard to describe the number of people with social issues who have serious and difficult problems functioning in simple day to day matters.
I feel for these folks and they are the focus of my comments. If they go to church, abstract sermons on systematic theology do not resonate. Some of them have children who become seriously ill and they don’t have the background from which to make a sound decision. These are the people who are preyed upon by the unscrupulous faith healers. They also have a hard time evaluating the needs of their children in such a situation.
I am talking about those who are harmed by the system. I promise you I was not debating a particular educational level.
I will guarantee you that there are many so called educated people that follow these religious quacks. There are fools and then there are educated fools. Nothing is more dangerous than being an educated fool. The woods are full of them.
I lived about 3 hours away from my parents for about five years, and during that time, my mom asked me to drive her to Benny Hinn meetings. Near the end of my four year involvement in an abusive shepherding church at the time, I looked to the Pentecostal experience to help me cope with the abusive situation, so I was very willing to do the driving for my mom at the time. We would sign up to be in the choir so that we could “be closer to the anointing.” I actually did not have this kind of experience there, and I actually became increasingly cynical by doing so.
In nearly every service I attended in ’96 and ’97, Benny all but came out and said that Jesus was reborn in hell without saying as much, going on and on about how He became sin for us with a focus like I’d never heard before and did not like at all. Later, I heard tapes where he came right out and said that Jesus’ spirit that had become literal sin died in hell and had to be raised from the dead in the spiritual sense by the Father. I found this very easy to believe after hearing several teachings in person where Hinn taught this stuff, but not quite as obviously as he did on the tape I heard later.
Anyway, I went to a “partners meeting” with my mom, about two months after completely getting out of my church. I had not really started and didn’t have the where with all to process the whole of my religious experience which was strongly based in faith healing. I was absolutely sick and profoundly depressed, and we went to attend a very small Hinn meeting in Manhattan. There was absolutely no focus on Christianity, just more talk on his doctrine about Jesus becoming sin for us in a way that deviated from substitutional atonement and propitiation into something very weird and mystical. I also was not responding to Hinn’s cues for the “anointing,” so my mother seemed convinced that I was demon possessed because of my involvement with a Charismatic church.
Alone with my mom, I had to listen to how there was something seriously wrong with me because I was not flying off my chair and jolting around. On the second day, she kept looking over at me saying, “Don’t you feel the anointing?” So I went up twice for prayer, considering that about 25% of the people at the meeting itself were prayer staff. Because of how lousy I felt and how ill affected I felt, I thought that someone would surely pray with me there. My mother believed that I had a “disease of the soul.”
I waited in line for 45 minutes on my first attempt and over an hour on my second attempt to get prayer and was sent away without so much as a “God help you — be warmed and filled.” The prayer staff would only pray for people who were convinced that they were manifesting a healing (not even just sick people), and after “working with” those people who were open to hypnotic suggestion, they could get these people convinced that they were being healed. The second person who turned me away from the prayer line was almost rude and acted like I was crazy for even being there.
The prayer staff would spend an hour or more with each potential person who felt that they were getting healed at the meeting, and then those people would make it up on to the platform. They would turn very sick people away from the healing prayer line if they were not having some sign of healing. That small meeting in particular was all about picking the right people to put up on the platform with Hinn for the camera — for fodder for the TV show. I refused to go to any more meetings after that.
Need I say more?
Bill,
The seminaries are filled with religious quacks. When I first learned about this aberrant doctrine of the Trinity that is taught as complementarianism, I could not believe that any Baptist would listen to or hear these doctrines. I could not believe that when Bruce Ware stood up at his seminary to teach this stuff that there was not a crowd of good men, young and old, who did not rise up to challenge him. What of the students? I can’t believe that any Believer would believe this doctrine, but whole seminaries sit there silent when these things are taught to them, and everyone says, “Amen.”
You can give old Rushdoony a hard time for his problems, but he was one who was honest about stating that the seminaries were not teaching the Word but were training people to be conformists and making little mini me copies of themselves. Sandlin has written similar things in the past. The seminaries are a mess, and for all the education, these men are probably the most deceived and susceptible to error. They become arrogant in their knowledge, but they do not think. They get brainwashed into doing either what they think they are supposed to believe, or they capitulate to those things that will make them popular so they can grow a church when they get out. These folks are ripe for the picking concerning deception.
You write…
“But, the manly men pastors, who spend so much time worrying about limiting the role of women in the church and defining their “own authority and anointing,” give barely the time of day to the clear and present danger of wolves among the sheep.”
What if these manly men pastors are the wolves? Oy Vey!!! 🙁
Seems to me, those who think they are leaders and shepherds
might be taking God’s name in vain. 😉
Isaiah 3:12
…O my people, they which *lead thee* cause thee to err,
and destroy the way of thy paths.
Isaiah 9:16
For *the leaders* of this people cause thee to err;
and they that are led of them are destroyed.
Jeremiah 50:6
My people hath been *lost sheep:*
*their shepherds* have caused them *to go astray.*
———————
It might be time to turn to Jesus as our Shepherd.
These so-called pastor/leaders ain’t been doin a very good job.
1 Peter 2:25
For ye were as *sheep going astray;*
but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.
And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold:
them also I must bring, and they shall “hear My voice; “
and there shall be “ONE” fold, and “ONE” shepherd.
John 10:16
One Fold – One Shepherd – One Voice – One Leader
{{{{{{ Jesus }}}}}}
Just wondering…
In the Bible, How many people… have the “Title” pastor/reverend?
In the Bible, How many people are… referred to as pastor/reverend?
In the Bible, How many people are… ordained as a pastor/reverend?
In the Bible, How many congregations are… “led” by a pastor/reverend?
Be blessed in your search for truth… Jesus
I know quite a few seminary professors. Yes, a few are arrogant, but most are not. These are people with a deep knowledge of the Bible, the languages and history of the Bible and the people of the Bible. Some have national reputations. And most are humble servants. I would contrast that with most faculty at the university and graduate school level. If you want to find arrogance, that is where it is.
Also check out the Mega church pastorate. For the most part, they are highly arrogant men who talk about being humble.
@ Arce, I would agree with you about professors. Mostly they are people who have devoted their lives to studying the things of God and have the ability to disagree respectfully over controversial matters. I think we need much more of this in the local church. And I doubt that any theologians would endorse the actions of faith healers!!!
Peter and Arce
I think the rhetoric is heating up in some of the seminaries-such as SBTS. Hasn’t Al Mohler declared war on nonYE believers?