Accountability, Repentance and Legacy: Dr. Michael Brown Discusses Pastor Benny Hinn @LFTV

0:00 Hello everyone, I'm Steven Strang and welcome to the Strang Report podcast. Today my guest is Dr. Michael Brown. He's very outspoken. He's outspoken about problems in the body of Christ and today we're going to talk about the criticisms that have recently come against Benny Hinn. And I believe that we do it in a redemptive way. You're not going to want to miss my in-depth interview with Dr. Michael Brown and then at the end of the podcast I'll come back with another word. By the way, if you don't subscribe, you need to and hit the little bell so you know when we're online. Stay tuned.

0:48 Dr. Michael Brown, I appreciate you being in my podcast. You know, Benny Hinn seems to get in hot water. He's been in hot water of some kind as long as I've known him. And lately there have been a lot of critics on the internet and I wanted to talk to you because you've dealt with more controversy in a redemptive kind of way than really any other leader in the body of Christ who comes to mind right now. And how can we, as Christian believers, who believe in the power of the Holy Spirit, who know that the people mess up and make mistakes and say things they shouldn't say, how can we understand what's going on and what can we learn from it? Right. So we have to realize that there's a criticism that's destructive, that only tears down, that looks for the worst, that is not fair, that is not even handed before the Lord, that does not receive good reports but only bad reports that thrives on negativity.

1:47 That's one thing. But there's another criticism which is healthy and life-giving and the Bible is full of examples. I mean Proverbs praises Rebuke all the time, Rebuke a wise man and he'll love you. So there's a criticism that's healthy, that's good, even if we don't like the way it comes or through whom it comes. And we've had a real problem in the American church in general with so many independent churches. But then in the charismatic church in particular with unaccountability. And we can just speak words out, prophetic words and whether they come to pass or not, we just keep going. And you know, raise funds in ways that are manipulative and we just keep going.

2:30 And there seems to be little accountability and it seems, you know, big ministries just keep going without a problem. But we're living in a different day now and as much as internet can be infested with gossip and slander and all kinds of junk, probably there's not a second that goes by online when someone's not posting a lie about me personally. Because I know it because after those people said this, I think you've got to be kidding me. On the other hand, people are watching and people are asking questions and that's good and that's healthy. So there's kind of like an automatic accountability that's coming up now. And rather than running from it, we should embrace it.

3:13 And where we're being falsely accused, the record can be set straight. When there's something valid that we need to address, let's address it. And the goal is not to please destructive critics who are not going to hear a good word that we say and will never believe our repentance. The goal is to honor and please the Lord and minister to the rest of the body that's watching, that's hurting, that has questions, that's looking for integrity and we have to bring forth fruits worthy of repentance. We should live lives that are above reproach and if something is amiss, certain things that are very small, they're fixed in private.

3:54 Certain things are bigger, they're fixed with a group of people. Certain things are bigger, they have to be fixed before the whole body of Christ. But let's live in the light as opposed to thinking we can just skip by. It's painful, it's difficult, but it's ultimately for the good. Well, that's so well said and of course I agree with that. And the Bible itself says that people act differently when there's light instead of darkness. And there are people that will get away with as much as they can until somebody calls them on it. That's probably part of human nature, part of the carnal nature.

4:36 And I can tell a humorous little story about Jan Crouch of TVN. You know, she's in heaven now. But years ago we did a story about her and Paul Crouch in Charisma Magazine. It must have been of the late 80s and they were in Orlando and I had arranged to do an interview and we wanted to get a photographer to take a picture. They were going to do a live telecast from one of the churches here in our area. And Jan did not want to be in the picture and so the cover that we had was just Paul Crouch by himself. And I asked her why and she didn't like what she had on.

5:16 She didn't like her makeup or her hairdo or something. And I said, well, you're going to be on national television looking like that. She said, well, when it's in print, it's permanent and in her mind, it was just different. And now that had nothing to do with right or wrong. That was just her, her personality and makes me think of Paul Crouch. He used to, you know, people attack Paul Crouch all the time and he was a little bit like you. He had a thick hide and it didn't really bother him. But he would sometimes gripe about what he called heresy hunters, you know, and this was really before the internet, before we had access to the internet.

5:58 And I remember that one of my mentors told me that heresy hunters in the body of Christ are like white corpuscles in the bloodstream. And if you know anything about white corpuscles, they're the, they're the cells that eat up the disease. But if the white corpuscles expand too much, if they develop too much, they overtake the body and becomes leukemia and it kills the body. And I think that heresy hunters have a value in the body of Christ. But when it says constant negativity that you are referring to, it can be very, very destructive.

6:38 What do you think? Yeah, that's why I say there's destructive criticism and there's constructive criticism. And sometimes constructive criticism can come from a destructive critic. But I do question those whose whole quote ministry is to expose error because it tends to be selective. In other words, they'll normally do it in the camp they don't agree with instead of starting in their own camp. To me, if you're really going to do it, if you're going to have a quoted discernment ministry, start in your own life, then start in your own camp. That's why most of the books I've written dealing with sin and the body have dealt with within my own family, the charismatic church where I've lived and ministered all these years, not exclusively but largely.

7:20 So let's clean house here. So there is something where it is straining on a net and swallowing a camel. In other words, John 5 hears the lame man walking and Jesus tells him to carry his mat, but it's the Sabbath. So the religious leaders don't say to him, praise God, you're walking. It's a miracle. What happened? Oh, by the way, don't carry the mat. But what happened? This is a miracle. No, instead they say, who told you to carry the mat? They don't see the miracle. They don't see the healing. They don't see the works of God manifest through Jesus. Instead, they see someone violating their traditions. So there is a destructive criticism and I've outlined it in some of my previous books during the Brownsville revival.

8:02 I wrote a whole book on that, republished as the revival answer book about a right and a wrong kind of discernment. But again, often what we do as leaders is we insulate ourselves from criticism by writing everything off as heresy hunting. We insulate ourselves from accountability by saying, well, I'm not going to deal with the critics. Okay, fine. Martin Luther King famously said, if I respond to my critics, that's all I'd have time to do. So we have important work to be doing gospel work. Let's give ourselves to it. But let's give ourselves to it with godly accountability. And listen, if I'm attacked for doing good, I rejoice.

8:44 If I get slandered and maligned, my wife and I smile about it. But if I did something foolish, let's say God forbid I got nasty to a caller. That would be grievous to me. I would have to fix that immediately and publicly and ask, try to reach out to that person and say, that was so wrong of me. That was not Christlike. If I wrongly prophesied Trump was going to have eight straight years in the White House, that's a grievous thing. How did I get it wrong? What did I do? You better believe I'm going to zip it and not be just going around with the next prophecy the next month and really try to get to the bottom of it. And how did I get deceived, etc.

9:24 So many times we're superficial in our responses. So yes, heresy hunting is dangerous in many ways and often is not even handed. Does not use equal weights and measures. As I said, strains out a knot and swallows a camel. And often it's nasty and mean spirited and destructive and lacking in love and lacking in brokenness. But to say it again, our big problem in the charismatic church, especially with major ministries, our big problem is not heresy hunters. Our big problem is lack of accountability.

10:04 And here, let's go back to the issue with Benny Hinn. So years back, my producer used to give me clips that I played on the radio examples of bad teaching and little God stuff. So I played clips from Benny Hinn. Then someone said he doesn't teach that anymore. And I found that interview that you did with him in 1993 where he renounced it and said it's an error. I was wrong. I don't teach it anymore. He also mentioned that he used to teach that Jesus suffered in hell for a redemption. And he said he studied the Bible and he saw that's not so. Jesus didn't say on the cross to be continued. He said it is finished. Wonderful.

10:44 And to my knowledge, he has never taught those things again. So that's honorable and ethical. But it was also in that 93 interview that he said that he was in error about the prosperity message and that he was in the Philippines and so the poor believers there and recognize that his teaching on prosperity was wrong. He never said he was wrong to teach principles of sewing and reaping which are biblical, etc. But that the way he taught things back then was wrong and he wouldn't do it anymore. But then he would be the first to say he then went on and did it for many years after that. And then in 2019 on a podcast with you categorically said he would never do certain things again or ask for a specific amount of money.

11:27 And then subsequently did it again and said he's sorry for it. It was under pressure. I'm not here to beef him up or to accuse him. I'm here to simply say people want to see genuine fruit of repentance. If I really blew it, if I really recognize my error, the Americans tend to be forgiving people. Christians tend to be forgiving people. If we really humble ourselves, take ownership for what we did, acknowledge it. Don't just brush it off as heresy hunting, embrace it, bring forth fruit of repentance. People will welcome that. And those who still reject it, hey, you can't help them. You can't help everybody.

12:08 But others who see genuine repentance, genuine change, they'll rejoice. And that's who we're here to help. Well, you know, you have a great memory. You remember that article from 93, better than I do. And we've had different articles like that over the years. The fact is that a lot of these charges against Benny Hinn could be leveled against a lot of different people. Right now, Benny is the one that everyone's kind of shooting at. But it's hard sometimes to understand how to handle this because, listen, look how Martin Luther messed up toward the end of his life. And Amy Sembel MacPherson had a huge scandal in her day.

12:51 There have been things, remember Jimmy Swagger and all that, and of course his ministry bounced back. There are many, many things that we could criticize. And you talk about the lack of accountability. You know, someone said that sometimes the greatest strength is also the greatest weakness. One of the strengths of the Pentecostal Charismatic Movement is this entrepreneurship. The fact that somebody can start a ministry and people can follow and it can become huge. In denominations, that usually doesn't happen because they have too many restrictions and rules and all this kind of stuff. However, when you have a successful ministry that you've built yourself and a lot of people follow you, you can also become a law unto yourself because there's not elders or although there's some kind of board just for legal reasons.

13:41 But that doesn't always keep people on the straight and narrow. I try to look at the big picture, even with this thing with Benny. I believe, I'm telling my own opinion, genuinely loves Jesus. He says this himself. He has also done some things that he felt was necessary to repent of. And I'm wanting the body of Christ to understand how we should do this. And maybe we could pivot a little bit and talk about how other ministries, you know, there are ministries that use some of these fundraising tactics. And why do they do it? It works. It works. Listen, I've attended a church a few times where they take the offering at the front of the church.

14:24 And if they don't get enough money, they take another offering. Now, some of that is kind of cultural, but also, you know, they found that if they take several offerings, they get the money they need. And part of it is that people respond to this kind of pressure. You say that times have changed and I believe that people don't respond to that as much as they used to. And even some of the TV networks don't do fundraising like they used to. They've done other kind of funding. What do you think? Yeah, so a few thoughts here. Number one, there are ways that we can have proper accountability in our ministry if we want to.

15:06 In other words, we don't have to be loan rangers. We can have a solid board that really watches or you ask for outside oversight from other respected leaders. And if something is amiss that they come to you or someone can come to them with concern. Look, everybody with any internet platform today is going to have people attacking them and saying all kinds of crazy things. Like I say, I spot things where people send them to me. You just have to laugh when you read this. I can't believe that anybody on their right mind even believes this. But oh yeah, and Brown is doing this and that's like, oh boy, God help them. On the other hand, I've got accountability in many areas of my life.

15:47 First and foremost with my own wife for 48 years. That'll call me on the carpet day and night for anything that falls short of the standard. The standard of the home. But in all seriousness, beyond that, we need to have people that can say, hey, that wasn't right. Or hey, the way that offering was saying that was wrong. We need to fix that. We need to set that right before God and before people. So we can have accountability. And look, to whom much is given, much is required. If you have a gift, if you have an anointing, if you have a large following, well to whom much is given, much is required. No one is expecting that the God with a storefront church and a budget of $800 a year to be part of the ECFA for financial accountability.

16:34 But if you've got a ministry bringing in $20 million a year or $50 million a year, well there needs to be many, many more levels of accountability there. So let's just use Benny as a case in point. I had heard all kinds of crazy bad things about him over the years. Then a grad from our ministry school got to know him, spent time traveling with him and said, Dr. Brown, I think you guys would really enjoy each other. You should get to know him. He's a really rock solid believer and loves the Lord and loves holiness and discipleship. And then I was invited to be on his TV show. And I thought, well, let me start with a clean slate then. By the way, I wish I didn't do it. It was probably the biggest mistake I've made in terms of a public ministry decision because the amount of flak that came my way and other things came out of it.

17:20 But I thought, all right, let me just start with a clean slate here. We hung out before the show and it was wonderful. Fellowship around the word and around Jesus. It was beautiful. And he had the childlike kind of faith and excitement. And then we did four days of interviews on Messianic prophecy and things like that. They're great shows. They were in terms of content, really, really good word based content. But the reason that I accepted the invitation was the last day I was going to do a show with him on hyper grace. And I thought, even if I catch some flak for being on his show, I want to reach his audience, his TV audience, and talk about the dangers of hyper grace.

18:01 And you had published my book on hyper grace, because my media did. Well, we did the interview. It went really well. But then for a couple of strategic reasons, he decided not to air that show. I had told everyone, make sure you tune in the last day and what is it? It's a fundraiser with Steve Muncie, another corrupt fundraising thing. And I could not believe it. The level of flak and attack I got from the charismatic body for being on the show indicated to me how wild and crazy things were. Subsequent to that, he had a guy on a so-called prophet. It was not a prophet, Brian Cairne. And he does this fundraising thing where if you send in $500, your family will be spared from a natural disaster coming later that year.

18:46 Of course, it never happened. But what a corrupt, manipulative, ungodly, sick thing to do. It was right on his show. And I had been on previously. So now all this, now I'm guilty by association. And I wrote to him with honor and respect and urged him, please repudiate this. Let me work with you to bring reformation to the charismatic movement in terms of fundraising and finances. This is corrupt. This is terrible. And I've gotten severe attack for even being on the air with you. Now all the worse because of this. Okay, so to me, since Benny Hinnis said I shouldn't have worked with certain people.

19:27 Okay, let's name them. I shouldn't have worked, not me, but let him say it. I shouldn't have worked with Mike Murdock. I shouldn't have worked with Todd Coons. I shouldn't have worked with Steve Muncie. I shouldn't have worked with Barron Kanz. The fundraising was corrupt and sinful and wrong. And I repent of it. I want you to know all the money is accounted for. How it was used for the gospel, but I regret the way it was raised. Or if it was raised for personal enrichment, then that has to be fixed. The same way with false prophecies given. I want you to know that I'm not spending a day with Mike Winger, who's not a heresy hunter, by the way, it's not the main thing that he does.

20:07 And he is charismatic, not super zealous charismatic, but charismatic. Put out a four and a half hour video. Spend time with him. I've talked to him on the phone after his video and we've interacted. Spend a day together. And say, okay, I want you to know, I want you to be able to talk to me plainly and raise your issues and questions. And just off the record, the two of them behind the scenes. I want to share my heart with you and I want you to understand who I am. And then whatever comes out of it comes out of it. But this is what we have to do. We have to have the private conversations and then we have to demonstrate public fruits of repentance. I've gotten attacked by the critics because I said to my knowledge, Benny Hinn is a believer.

20:50 I get people furiously flipping out. How could I possibly say, well, to my knowledge, what he believes and my time with him, he's a believer. But I have issues with XYZ to the extent that he can say, yes, XYZ, that's wrong. These were things in the past. I understand why the skepticism because I've said things in the past and fallen back. I can only say I'm going to demonstrate the reality of my repentance by the fruits that come in the future. Let's do something tangible and let the private conversations come. I'm not saying you sit with every critic, heresy hunter, but I've interacted with people, Steve. They've said to me, I tried to sit with someone, so I reached out to this church.

21:30 I was writing a whole book. I just wanted to have my questions answered and they refused to meet with me. I understand, look, I get attacked all the time. I understand you can't meet with every critic or try to pacify, but there's some people we should talk to. Some dialogue we should have. We're not above it. We're all just servants and we're all accountable. Let's sit in private and have those difficult conversations and maybe some good will come out of it. Maybe we'll each understand each other better. Maybe a joint statement will come out of it. I met with Joseph Prince in Singapore because he was the main subject of my hypergrace book. We agreed to say, okay, these are the things we do agree about holiness.

22:12 These are the things we do agree about grace. These are the things that we recognize as counterfeit grace and then the other things are issues that we have between us. But to me, that was constructive to sit and have the conversation. Well, that's the goal of this podcast, to be constructive. So as we wrap up this podcast, what do you believe in just a few words that the body of Christ, spirit-filled people, whether they're charismatic or not, believers in Jesus, what do we learn from what we've been talking about, especially with Benny Hinn? Yeah, so the same spotlight before God is on all of us. In other words, Benny Hinn may have a bigger platform than someone else, but in God's sight, we're all under a holy spotlight.

22:57 Where we've blown it, get things right with God. We have to get things right with people. Do it. Every one of us has blown it on some level, a word, a thought, somewhere. And I've had to repent many times. I've had to ask people's forgiveness. Get low. Don't be afraid to get low. Get low, get washed, get cleansed, and move on. And then it's done. It's done. I don't listen to the accuser of the brethren. I don't listen to them say, well, 30 years ago, you said something, you shouldn't say, or you did something stupid. No, no, everything is clean, dealt with before the Lord. We move on. And if there's something major, if there's a scandal, like, happen tragically with a friend, like, Bickel, and, okay, well, now we've got to face the music.

23:41 We're talking about major things, major consequences. They can't be swept under the rug. So let's humble ourselves. Let's get low. As we do, God gives grace to the humble. He forgives. He restores. And for me, although I wish I never made any mistakes in my 52 plus years in the Lord, I wouldn't be who I am without having walked through some of those mistakes, having to humble myself. Having to ask forgiveness of God and people and move forward. So let's grow. Let's recognize the life-giving nature of constructive criticism. Let's be clean and let's move forward with a clean conscience. And God will bless us as we do. I hope that you enjoyed my interview with Dr. Michael Brown.

24:23 I believe that he brings such clarity and he's got a real heart. You could just tell it came through even though he name names. I think it's important that we deal with these difficult issues in the body of Christ. And I believe that it's important for us collectively to learn from what has been happening. By the way, if you agree with me, I hope that you'll subscribe to my Strang Report podcast. We're on every Tuesday and Thursday at 4 p.m. Eastern time. When you subscribe, you'll find out when we're going to run the other part of my exclusive interview with Benny Hinn.