But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. - 2Peter 2:1-3 (ESV)
As we constantly expose, Charisma News is just a virtual cesspool of false signs and lying wonders along with rabid NAR dominionism. The founder and chief architect is Steven Strang. He is a political operative first and foremost. The bulk of his work is in the arena of doing the bidding of his political masters, the Republican Party. The other side of his work however is equally evil, and it is to prop up any false Charismatic preachers that he can. He protects the brand at all costs. He is a ferocious defender of false teachers and abuses the platform Charisma enjoys in the Evangelical world to protect the wolves that are clearly devouring the sheep. The most recent egregious example was his six-month defense of Mike Bickle during and after it became clearer that not only was he a serial sexual assaulter but that at least two of his victims were children. Instead of rightly condemning, Strang used Charisma to defend Bickle, accuse the victim advocates of staging a coup to settle a church fight, and smeared Bickle's victims as just being used by the devil. When the world was realizing the accusations by Misty Edwards were staged, Strang was using them to declare that Bickle was exonerated. Trying to move on from Bicklegate, Strang has new cause du jour - Benny Hinn. Strang had Hinn on to try and rehabilitate his image after it was eviscerated by a four-hour documentary by Mike Winger, exposing just how false and damaging Hinn has been for forty years. That, plus multiple articles on Charisma did not move the needle on public criticism, as Hinn basically owned up to being a false prophet, fake healer, and flock fleecing huckster by saying, "hey I am just human." Whenever Strang needs to bring more street cred into his stupidity, he drags Michael Brown in for a video segment and the most recent is linked above. Keep in mind that this video is supposed to be about Benny Hinn. Let us reason together once more beloved and see all that is wrong with the gatekeeper Michael Brown and his platform, Steven Strang.
"How can we as Christians believers, who believe in the power of the Holy Spirit, who know that 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?" - Steven Strang
As Strang is wont to do, he frames his premise to try and achieve the response he wants to elicit. Now he knows he has a real problem trying to rehabilitate Hinn's image, so he starts by pretending this is just about people messing up. Little ministry oopsies we all should be given a spiritual mulligan on. This is similar to the tone deaf Hinn recently telling Strang that it was a shame that people only focus on the negative. I remember once I was having a disagreement early in my conversion with a brother on some point of doctrine and my defense was that I heard my pastor preach what I was saying so it couldn't be wrong. I was sure. He convinced me to go back and check and oops, my pastor simply said, "I said that? Yeah, that's wrong." That my friends is what an error looks like. It is a mistake. It is a mess up. If the only thing Benny Hinn ever did was falsely prophesy that Fidel Castro would die in the 1990s, no one would be bothering him today. If he only participated in those early TBN praise-a-thon scams but realized it was wrong and never did unscrupulous fundraising again, no one would be bothering him. Benny Hinn has not made oopsies. He is a wolf who has laid waste to countless people and their faith. We can tell however from Strang's opening here that he has no intention of having a serious conversation. He just wants to try and minimize the damage Hinn has suffered these past few weeks.
"We have to realize there is a criticism that is 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. That's one thing. But there is another criticism that is healthy and life-giving. The bible is full of examples. Proverbs praises rebuke all the time. So, there is a criticism that is healthy and good. We have had a real problem in the America church in general and in the Charismatic church in particular with unaccountability. We can just speak out prophetic words and whether they come to pass or not we just keep going. We raise funds in ways that are manipulative and we just keep going. There seems to be little accountability and it seems big ministries just keep on going without a problem but we are living in a different day now and as much as Internet can be infested with gossip and slander and probably all kinds of junk." - Dr. Michael Brown
If Dr. Brown was there to witness the pronouncement of woes upon the Pharisees by Christ, he would admonish Jesus for being unloving. Note here he is being asked, what can we learn from the four-hour documentary by Mike Winger absolutely exposing all the falseness of the wolf Hinn. His answer has nothing to do with Hinn. Instead, he uses the question to launch into an attack on discernment. Let's be clear. Exposing wolves and false teaching is only negative to the wolf. It is a great positive to the body of Christ. It only tears down the wolf. The Lord never commands us to pet the wolves killing His sheep. We are not told to test everything and be gentle with it all. No! We are to hold on only to the good. Dr. Brown was asked about a voracious wolf in Benny Hinn and his answer was about discernment ministries and gossip and slander on the Internet. Absolutely disgusting. He would continue:
