From:  (Andrew Bromage)
Newsgroups: aus.religion.christian
Subject: Re: PENTECOST is a fake!
Date: 18 Sep 1998 07:50:58 GMT

G'day all.

John Leister <> writes:

>In my opinion the majority of the Pentecostal thing with the likes of
>Benny Hinn and his ilk is  a fake based largely on emotional
>manipulation and greed. Sure God is still there and prayers get
>answered but largely this is a fake. IMHO

The IMHO is noted. :-)

Benny Hinn and his ilk aside, my personal take on this and other
movements within Christianity is that they are almost always based on
some real backlash to a deficiency in the more "mainstream"
Christianity which got out of hand.

In the case of Pentecostalism, it's the lack of recognition and use of
spiritual gifts.  Certainly I don't think Pentecostal churches are very
good at "doing theology" (coming up with such terms as "baptism in the
Spirit" to describe the first time someone SITs, for example).  However,
those churches which have become institutionalised and bureaucratic
should sit up and take notice that churches _should_ be run by spiritual
gifts.

Similarly (and acknowledging that I don't know of any Benny Hinn-like
liberals), I think one major contribution of the liberal movement is
that (most of) the church now takes matters of justice seriously,
something which was seriously neglected in the early part of this
century.

So, basically, I don't think it's fair to write off Pentecostalism in
four lines.  It reeks of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Cheers,
Andrew Bromage