BENNY HINN’S MEDIA EMPIRE: IMAGE AND PRESENCE IN GLOBAL TRAVIS WARREN COOPER INDIANA UNIVERSITY [email protected].

Western world. He learned English by watching The power of charisma is precisely its infectious, non- films in the language with no subtitles. Based rational capacity to capture attention and to rivet it to on those visions of sounds and images he the person who radiates it–whether it is Luke absorbed via television, this essay will Skywalker or Darth Vader, good or evil; Princess Diana or Princess Leia, real or fictional. Television and demonstrate, Hinn also cultivated his identity in film are the visual mass media that make this happen. relation to them. “When we played cowboys They do this by enacting the enchantment of an and Indians in the yard,” he remembers, “I immediate connection.1 always pretended I was an American, and David Morgan bragged about my knowledge of the United States—even though it was limited to what I If that reality is so strong, so deep, and so personal, had seen on the screen.”3 After Catholic school then how real is the one who gives it? It’s a significant question. How real must be the messenger if the lessons on the weekdays followed by tutoring message is so real?2 sessions, the children “rushed to the television Benny Hinn set.” He and his brothers would finish the day out by watching a program before bedtime. n his autobiographical account, He Touched Western televised media, as his autobiography I Me (1999), Toufik Benedictus (“Benny”) attests, shaped the young Hinn and made an Hinn nostalgically describes his childhood to impression on his outlook.4 the reader. On Saturday mornings, his mother, Fast forward some two decades, from the Clemence, made sandwiches and lemonade for late 1950s and early 1960s to the mid-1980s. the family to take to Bat Yam, a famous beach The little Palestinian boy from Jaffa, religiously just south of Jaffa, , where the children Greek Orthodox and Greek-Armenian by enjoyed the pleasures of the coast: swimming, heritage—the child who idolized the larger- sunning, and kite-flying. After returning home, than-life stars of American television, enacted in the afternoon, the Hinns viewed weekly Gunsmoke episodes with his siblings, and movies for kids including Laurel and Hardy, aspired to be an American—has, in a way, Hercules, Tarzan and The Lone Ranger. His achieved his goals. In 1967, after the Six Days’ dad, Constandi, served as the projectonist. War, the Hinn family immigrated to , “Glued to the screen,” Hinn reminisces, “I’d Ontario, where his father secured a job selling watch those movies and dream of leaving Israel insurance. Hinn gradually involved himself in and moving to the West. ‘That’s me,’ I would the local “Jesus Movement,” and began to say to myself. ‘There I am right there!’” attend meetings. He worked American cinema first exposed Hinn to the with Kuhlman’s ministry between 1977 and 1981 and also began his own independent preaching ministry around that time. By 1983,

1 David Morgan, The Lure of Images: A History of Religion and Visual Media in America (New York: Routledge, 2007), 224. 3 Benny Hinn, He Touched Me: An Autobiography 2 Benny Hinn, Good Morning Holy Spirit (Nashville, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1999), 18-19, 22. TN: Thomas Nelson, 1990), 124. 4 Hinn, He Touched Me, 18-19, 22.

Symposia 6 (2014): 1-19.© The Author 2014. Published by University of Toronto. All rights reserved. 2 SYMPOSIA

“Pastor Benny,” as his audiences know him forms that allow Hinn to market novel around the world, established the World instructional services and prayer rituals via Outreach Church in Orlando, Florida; by 1992 it burgeoning technological apparati, including reached more than 7,000 members. Hinn also but not limited to smartphones and tablets. Such continued to travel widely as an itinerant devices and media expand the repertoire of the evangelist and healer, and claims to have televangelist in the service of the cultivation of preached the largest healing service in world presence. history, in which some 7.4 million people attended.5 In the 1990s, he achieved celebrity Sensational Forms and a Brief History of status in the world of Christian religious Televangelism broadcasting. Hinn became a performer on the silver screen. The categories of religion and media are After setting Hinn’s ministry in historical complexly interrelated constructs. As media context, this essay traces his meteoric rise to scholar Daniel Stout argues, “the elements of charismatic stardom and celebrity status, religion (i.e., ritual, deep feeling, belief, and focusing on the revivalist’s adoption of various community) are experienced through the media technologies and media forms for neo- of popular culture.”7 Before situating Hinn’s evangelical purposes. This essay proposes the experiential uses of popular media in the history categories of image and presence to elucidate of American televangelism, however, a brief both the ways technology and media have account the analytical scope of the essay will shaped Hinn as well as, more importantly, the aid the reader. Although the arguments posed in manner in which he implements the instruments the following refer frequently to religious into his ministry and outreach endeavors in an groups and/or subgroups such as effort to assist others in the experience of divine “evangelicalism,” “,” or “Protest- healing or the cultivation of empowering antism,” the primary interest here is on the ways presence. Television, this essay ultimately evangelical entrepreneurs use media forms to argues—conceptualized as a fluid, permeable, construct, facilitate, and embody both per- and connective medium in the minds of its formances and discourses as religious. In other users—serves well as a conduit of charismatic words, the intent is not to generalize the orality and operates as a highly compatible and following findings as equally characteristic to even complimentary system to that of the the above Christian categories, but to focus on “densely populated cosmology” or pentecostal- particular developments and themes within the experiential worldview of Hinn and his umbrella terms. followers.6 The essay concludes by analyzing a Further, one might describe the method- number of new Internet-enabled social media ological framing of this essay as falling under the rubric of what anthropologist Birgit Meyer describes as sensational forms, that is, “relatively fixed, authorized modes of invoking, 5 G. W. Gohr, “Hinn, Benedictus (‘Benny’),” in The International Dictionary of Pentecostal and and organizing access to the transcendental, Charismatic Movements, ed. Stanley M. Burgess and thereby creating and sustaining links between Eduard M. van der Maas (Grand Rapids, MI: religious practitioners in the context of Zondervan, 2003), 713-715. particular religious organizations.”8 Elaborating 6 The cosmological system of prosperity preachers, writes historian Kate Bowler, is populated by “unseen forces, spiritual power and supernatural beings, and expressed by ritual objects.” Ritual objects, in the case 7 Daniel A. Stout, Media and Religion: Foundations of of Hinn’s ministry, include television sets and Internet- an Emerging Field (Florence, KY: Routledge, 2012), 2. enabled devices. Blessed: A History of the American 8 Birgit Meyer, “Religious Sensations: Why Media, Prosperity Gospel (New York: Oxford University Aesthetics, and Power Matter in the Study of Press, 2013), 190, 160-161. Contemporary Religion,” in Religion: Beyond a COOPER / BENNY HINN’S MEDIA EMPIRE 3 on the concept, sensational forms also include: although the ideology of some evangelical i) social transmission and sharing; ii) groups tends to be “nostalgic and traditionalist,” practitioners carrying out practices; iii) the their methods have been “innovative and formation of religious subjects (or even technologically sophisticated”13: cultivation, as this essay will refer to the Preachers had been among the first process); iv) the production of certain feelings; Americans, back in the 1920s, to exploit and lastly, v) inclusion of the responses of radio. By 1950 they were also coming to penitents to religious objects and materials (e.g., terms with the new medium of religious architecture, iconography, or even television, and by the 1970s they had images).9 Central to the purposes of this essay, complemented televangelism with Meyer classifies televangelism’s production of satellite feeds, direct-mail fund-raising, televised emotion and the emotional experience and computers. Evangelists unself- of viewers as a new category of sensational consciously used the best technologies forms in which the technology encourages mass of their day to produce shows with audiences to participate, emotively, in the names like Charles Fuller’s Old- televised rituals.10 The following account, then, Fashioned Revival Hour on radio or narrows in on the methods by which religious Jerry Falwell’s Old-Time Gospel Hour institutions (and in particular, Benny Hinn on television.14 Ministries) produce not only “distinct sensory Itinerant revivalists or evangelists, including regimes” but cultivate “specific bodily and Benny Hinn, act as quintessential examples the sensory disciplines” as well as “particular entrepreneurial use of technology for evan- sensibilities.”11 gelical purposes, supporting historian Mark Hinn joins the ranks of historic Noll’s description of evangelicals as “culturally televangelism’s technologically progressive adaptive biblical experimentalists.”15 entrepreneurs. Historically, evangelical leaders Evangelicals, and especially pentecostals, have recognized the power of technology but have been at the forefront of this technological have put technology to use in varied ways, innovation that potentially solves the itinerant leading scholars to document a paradoxical preacher’s dilemma of reaching the masses.16 development in the history of American religion.12 As historian Patrick Allitt notes, 13 Patrick Allitt, Religion in America since 1945: A History (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), xii. For more on the ideologically powerful and Concept, ed. Hent De Vries (New York: Fordham symbolic roles that television plays in some societies, University Press, 2007), 707. see Pierre Bourdieu, On Television (New York: The 9 Meyer, “Religious Sensations,” 707-708. Jay Press, 1998), 50; Razelle Frankl, Televangelism: 10 Meyer, “Religious Sensations,” 709-710. One might The Marketing of Popular Religion (Carbondale: also clarify that sensational forms are in no way limited Southern Illinois University Press, 1987), 153. only to Christianity. For an example of the ways a 14 Allitt, Religion in America, xii. particular media form might affect the everyday socio- 15 Mark A. Noll, American Evangelical Christianity: religious lives of religious constituents, see Charles An Introduction (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, Hirschkind, The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons 2001), 2. and Islamic Counterpublics (New York: Columbia 16 Scholars have proffered scores of definitions for this University Press, 2006). ambiguous Protestant movement. This essay follows 11 Meyer, “Religious Sensations,” 716. historian Randall Balmer’s qualification that 12 For an example of the typical progression evangelicalism’s defining characteristics include 1) evangelicals take in terms to popular culture, and in “the centrality of conversion”; 2) “the quest for an this case contemporary music, see Jay R. Howard and affective piety”; and 3) “a suspicion of wealth, John M. Streck, “The Splintered Art World of worldliness, and ecclesiastical pretension.” See his Contemporary Christian Music,” Popular Music 15:1 “Evangelicalism,” in the Encyclopedia of (1996): 37-53. Evangelicalism (Louisville, KY: Westminster John 4 SYMPOSIA

Sociologist Razelle Frankl traces the roots of role in shifting from the media of radio to televangelism to the urban revivalists of television in the 1950s.20 According to Frankl, nineteenth-century America, evangelists Graham’s technological innovation had positive including Charles Grandison Finney, Dwight public results: “With this one step, the religious Moody, and Billy Sunday, each of whom tradition, which had lost much of its credibility employed “novel techniques” to bring the by the 1920s, in the aftermath of the Scopes gospel to the cities. George Whitefield, in the trial, gained new legitimacy and recognition.”21 eighteenth century, also engaged in creative Television—one element within a much larger evangelistic strategies, rocketing himself to social, religious, and political transition that celebrity status during his day and constituting a included post-war revival(s), Cold War politics, prototype for later revivalists to follow.17 etc.—offered a new and exciting medium and Itinerant revivalists’ most important legacy, garnered respectability for brave entrepreneurs Frankl continues, “was their revivalist ethos, or such as Graham. A few of these evangelists, use of ‘appropriate means’ to stir religious intent on distancing evangelicalism from enthusiasm.”18 Continuing in this innovative Fundamentalist Protestants, experienced public tradition of marketing the gospel to mass favor not had by evangelicals since the Bryant- audiences, Billy Graham, Rex Humbard, Oral Jennings embarrassment. Not unlike his famed Roberts, and Robert Schuller constituted the revivalist predecessor, Whitefield, Graham first generation to employ the medium of preached to the masses; but in terms of audience television for religious purposes, certainly a building, television enabled Graham in novel paradoxical development considering that early ways. The itinerant revivalist could now be in pentecostals’ long lists of taboos included home more than one place at a time, and not just his movie watching and other popular forms of voice, carried over radio waves and dis- entertainment.19 Television aided these seminated via speakers. The preacher’s entire prominent evangelicals in a project of bringing sensuous persona could be projected visually the movement out of the shadows of the across space and distance in sound and image American religious public and into the center. form. Among the televangelist forefathers, Billy Other evangelists followed the lead of Billy Graham played probably the most important Graham and Oral Roberts’s successful tele- vision ministries including , Billy Joe Daugherty, Kenneth Hagin Jr., Jesse Knox Press, 2002), 204. By (lower-case) Duplantis, Jerry Savelle, , Marilyn “pentecostalism,” this essay refers to “both Hickey, Kathryn Kuhlman, and Pat Robertson. Pentecostals [i.e., adherents to classical Pentecostal Most of these preachers identified as pente- denominations that trace their origins to the Azusa costal-charismatic revivalists and historians Street Revivals] and second- and third-wave note that successfully produced programs, such Charismatics (both Protestant and Catholic) who as those by Roberts and Kuhlman, brought emphasize the ongoing activity of the Holy Spirit.” See “America into the crusade tent through live Candy Gunther Brown, Global Pentecostal and 22 Charismatic Healing, edited by Candy Gunther Brown television.” Hinn himself qualifies as a second (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 4. 17 On Whitefield’s innovative and often “theatrical” preaching models, see Harry S. Stout, The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern 20 Frankl, Televangelism, 73. American Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids, MI: William 21 Ibid., 74. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1991). 22 D. J. Hedges, “Television,” in The International 18 Frankl, Televangelism, 4, 23-61. Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, 19 For more on early pentecostalism and taboos, see ed. Stanley M. Burgess and Eduard M. van der Maas Grant Wacker, Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003), 1118-1120. American Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Kuhlman, like Graham and others, also engaged in a University, 2001), 128. project of making pentecostalism respectable in a COOPER / BENNY HINN’S MEDIA EMPIRE 5 generation televangelist in that he modeled his the media also came with a cost; it was ministry largely after the work of Kuhlman, expensive.25 from the Roberts generation of televangelists. Another strategic move on Hinn’s part Hinn, like many of these preachers, would go helped drive him towards celebrity status. In the on to make healing the centerpiece of his mid-1970s, Paul and Jan Crouch, hosts of television ministry.23 Before turning to the roles Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), sent the of image and presence in the production of preacher a “standing invitation” to guest speak sensory regimes and healing ministries— on their show, Praise the Lord, whenever he component or correlate terms to sensational was in the vicinity. In 1983, after Hinn forms—an overview of Hinn’s technologically- established the “Miracle Life Center” in mediated autobiography will set the context. Orlando, Florida, Paul asked him to record and forward tapes of the services so that TBN could Hinn on Television produce them on the air for a broader audience. With this TBN partnership, Hinn’s publicity After the death of Kuhlman in 1976, Canadian escalated, a product of both televised screen media outlets caught wind of the claims of time and word-of-mouth. Television media, miracles taking place in Hinn’s “Miracle while pricey, proved effective. “I meet people Rallies” and began to give press time to the almost every week whose lives were touched by young revivalist.24 In 1977, still in Toronto, those Sunday telecasts,” recalled Hinn. Hinn “contracted for a prime-time slot on a Television was a fluid medium; it spread easily major station—Sunday nights at 10:00 P.M. and had the potential to communicate widely. following 60 Minutes. He called the program, First-hand reports confirmed this for the up and It’s a Miracle, and the show became Hinn’s coming preacher. Of course, Hinn had been first substantial exposure to the globalizing aware of television’s power since childhood but world. This step was his entry into televised capitalized on it now in his attempts to spread stardom, his graduation into an inchoate form of the gospel. If one has the right connections— religious celebrity. It’s a Miracle, though— and can afford to hire a basic film crew—one while promoting Hinn’s revival services and can publicize any message to the world.26 showing the signs and wonders of fervent Shortly later, in 1984, Hinn purchased a pentecostalism to the world—also brought the 2,300-seat auditorium in Orlando to support his fledgling ministry into great financial debt. burgeoning congregation. “Since our Sunday Television, Hinn learned, was a crucial medium morning services were being televised by TBN through which to spread (the good) news. But nationally and via satellite to several foreign countries,” Hinn reported, “there were visitors in practically every service. ‘We didn’t just come to Orlando to see Mickey Mouse,’ they would tell us. ‘We watch you every week on public, cultural sense. For more on her implementation of the technologies of print and television, see Candy 25 Hinn, He Touched Me, 124, 133. In 2012, for Gunther Brown, “Healing Words: Narratives of instance, Hinn asked viewers to increase financing. Spiritual Healing and Kathryn Kuhlman’s Uses of Print “Send your money,” he asked, “because we’ve had to Culture, 1947-1976,” in Religion and the Culture of cancel some stations, and we can add them back on.” Print in Modern America, ed. Charles L. Cohen and See “Restoration and Restitution, Part 2” (July 10, Paul S. Boyer (Madison: University of Wisconsin 2012), accessed July 9, 2012, Press, 2008), 271-297. http://www.bennyhinn.org/media/2012-7-10.asx. For 23 Bowler, Blessed, 141. more on monetary considerations and accusations of 24 Outlets included the Toronto Globe and Mail, the financial impropriety against Hinn’s lifestyle and Toronto Star, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, consumerist choices, see footnote 80 below. Global TV, and Toronto’s Channel 9. 26 Hinn, He Touched Me, 144. 6 SYMPOSIA television and couldn’t wait to get here.’” the air, and the power of God is released Already, Hinn was gathering an international through television.30 audience. He stationed in Orlando, but the silver For Hinn, television takes on specialized screen became his pulpit and satellite theological and experiential significance in his technology his microphone.27 positing of the medium’s function in So far this essay has portrayed Hinn’s supernatural terms. Hinn posits in many of his employment of media in the service of religion writings and sermons “the spiritual” as the apex as consistently pragmatic. In other words, if level of personhood and ontology.31 Television, winning souls via preaching the gospel is one’s as he and his viewers envision it, operates as a goal, then television delivers an obvious and mediator, transmitter, or conductor of the practical method by which to do so. In such a spiritual. manner, television offers a brilliant solution to While preparing for a conference in the ambitious itinerant’s dilemma. But Hinn’s Singapore, Hinn reported that God spoke to use of television stems from more than him, saying, “Take the message of My saving pragmatics; television is central to his identity and healing power to the world through daily and calling. Hinn theologizes television; he television and healing crusades.” The medium reiterates the medium as a sensational form, to of God’s message to Hinn is not stated, but the recall Meyer’s term, in that for him television command is clear. Hinn will begin a daily serves as both a divinely sanctioned method and telecast. In the recounting, the command is also conductor of divine presence.28 In social specific: “On the program, pray for the sick, scientific language, evangelical implementers of give praise reports, and show My power.” Hinn such technology valuate or singularize moved forward in obedience, into, as he puts it, television media; media take on special or “uncharted waters” and scheduled crusades all unique significance as leaders authorize and over the United States and the world. Realizing endorse its application in both practical and the serious financial implications of such an theological senses.29 In his early publications, endeavor, Hinn called TBN to ask for a daily such as War in the Heavenlies (1984), Hinn slot in the programming. Remarkably, Crouch anticipates the use of television: replied, a program that had been on air for the Not only do I believe we are going to last several years had surprisingly ended see millions saved. Listen to this. I production, leaving a half hour slot open in the believe we are going to see the power of daily schedule. On March 5, 1990, Hinn’s This God restored in our churches in such a is Your Day (first titled Miracle Invasion) aired way that the dead will be raised. Not internationally via TBN satellites.32 The formal only will the dead be raised in church, association with TBN was Hinn’s first but the dead will be raised through admittance to the arena of Christian television Christian television. I believe the dead broadcasting. The contract served as the will be raised as Christian TV comes on beginning of his media empire. Media, for televangelists—at first print, radio, and television, but now the Internet as well (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, email newletters, and websites such as Bennyhinn.org)—serve as valuable tools through which one might carry 27 Ibid., 154. out the purposes of God. “Why am I so 28 To employ Bowler’s language, television became for Hinn a means by which penitents might “tap into that [divine, healing] power.” Blessed, 141. 30 29 Ann Taves, Religious Experience Reconsidered: A Benny Hinn, War in the Heavenlies (Dallas: Heritage Building-Block Approach to the Study of Religion and Printers and Publishers, 1984), 15 (emphasis added). 31 Other Special Things (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Bowler, Blessed, 148-149. University Press, 2009). 32 Hinn, He Touched Me, 158-161 (emphasis added). COOPER / BENNY HINN’S MEDIA EMPIRE 7 committed to reaching the lost through every Christian only by practice, or to adopt a term means possible?” Hinn asks, rhetorically. The popular in recent social scientific studies of answer to Hinn’s question comes in the form of identity- and self-formation, cultivation of self, a biblical citation: “Jesus said, ‘This gospel of identity, and ability. Cultivation, in short, has to the kingdom will be preached in all the world as do with the developmental process of a witness to all the nations, and then the end devotional faculties within a person or the will come’ (Matt. 24:14).” The subtitle of one developing of aptitudes or skills, in a religious section in Hinn’s autobiography is also subject, pertaining to some devotional practice significant: “By All Means.” Television media like prayer or communication with the divine. are a means through which biblical narrative Psychological anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann, comes alive. Television seeks actively to bring for example, demonstrates in her recent study of the gospel of the kingdom to all nations, quite charismatic evangelicals how through extended literally, via international satellite television and persistent practice novice penitents become broadcasting. Media, according to neo- spiritual adepts.34 Such evangelical devotional pentecostal itinerants like Hinn, function as practices, to return to Meyer’s theory of divine tools.33 In Hinn’s language, the observer sensational forms, has much to do with the witnesses a subtle apotheosizing of favored developing of “specific bodily and sensory media forms; television becomes a divine disciplines” along with “particular sensi- means through which God’s saving and healing bilities.”35 For Hinn, who underscores his power might be broadcasted globally. Focusing teachings with quasi-mystical experientialism, on the concepts of image and presence, themes presence is a habit, posture, or mode of common within Hinn’s teachings—and prolonged divine encounter to be practiced and especially the cultivation of the latter in maintained as a skill or ability. penitents who also happen to be media and Ideally, for the Christian, presence ought to technology adepts—elucidate the issues at hand be an everyday phenomenon and Hinn’s and further demonstrate Hinn’s application of writings demonstrate the ubiquitous role that media and technology for the service of media might play in the process. As Hinn evangelicalism. Additionally, the concepts attests, “if you are filled with the Spirit and you demonstrate the ways that media and absorb yourself in His presence, you will seek technology, as metaphors, shape both Hinn’s Jesus and glorify no one but Jesus.”36 Occuring own conceptualization of religious experience through experiential encounters with the Holy as well as his ability to explicate experiential Spirit, presence is ongoing, processual, and has teachings to his audiences.

Image, Presence, and Technological 34 Metaphors Tanya Luhrmann, When God Talks Back: Understanding the Evangelical Relationship with God One theme central to the idea of religious media (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012). For more on cultivated spiritual practices, see Margaret R. Miles, and to media in general is the idea of presence. “Image,” in Critical Terms for Religious Studies, ed. Hinn peppers his writings with allusions to this Mark C. Taylor (The University of Chicago Press, concept. The term, which in his application 1998), 168; Josh Brahinsky, “Pentecostal Body Logics: refers to the empowering nearness or closeness Cultivating a Modern Sensorium,” Cultural of the Holy Spirit, has much to do with Hinn’s Anthropology 27:2 (2012): 215-238. For related conceptions of media and its theological uses. penitential practices of subject formation in Islam, see Presence is something maintainable for the Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (Rutgers, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005). 35 Meyer, “Sensational Forms,” 716. 36 Benny Hinn, Good Morning Holy Spirit (Nashville, 33 Hinn, He Touched Me, 206. TN: Thomas Nelson, 1990), 60. 8 SYMPOSIA much to do with the idea of prolonged exposure images, entities that appear quite similar to with the divine.37 “Since my first encounter with televised forms of media. Television itself, in the Holy Spirit,” Hinn clarifies, “I have Hinn’s conception, constitutes a medium of experienced a growing reality of His presence. authentic religious experience. Consider the Every Scripture, every encounter, and every following accounts in which Hinn describes revelation makes my walk in the Spirit more visions which prophetically confirmed, in his complete.” His “walk in the Spirit” is something mind, the calling to preach to large masses of perpetual. Through his media empire, Hinn peoples: continues to spread his message, central to On Friday morning and all during the which is the practicing of the presence of Holy day—at school . . . everywhere I went, a Spirit. Between the beginning of July 1, and picture kept flashing before me. I saw mid-November, 2012, for instance, Hinn myself preaching. It was unthinkable, Tweeted about “presence” some twenty times. but I couldn’t shake the image. I saw The following list of selected Tweets is crowds of people. And there I was, illustrative of the visibility of presence in wearing a suit, my hair all trimmed and Hinn’s online networking arenas: neat, preaching up a storm.39 In this instance he describes flashing images, When Jesus sets you free you are free images that reiterate Hinn’s prophetic calling to indeed. The secret to freedom is His preach to the entire world but simultaneously Presence. Bondage, sin & sickness can’t recall his own autobiographical description of exist in His Presence [July 7]. pastimes as a child, at home in Jaffa, watching television. Another vision also centers on the Fear is the first result of self- idea of image or picture: consciousness & boldness is the first That semester we were studying the result of God-consciousness. God’s Chinese Revolution. It could have been Presence brings His power [August 5]. any revolution because that morning I didn’t hear a word the teacher was The presence of God is what brings saying. What had transpired a few power [November 4; November 6]. minutes earlier would not leave me. When I closed my eyes—there was Today, what is your greatest hindrance Jesus. When I opened them, He was still to spending more time alone in God’s there. Nothing could erase the picture of presence? [November 13]38 the Lord’s face I continued to see that day.40 Such accounts demonstrate Hinn’s conviction Hinn’s employing of “flashing picture” that presence must be maintained and cultivated metaphors to describe particular visions or through religious experiences. Words and experiences is especially interesting given that phrases such as power; quickening our spirit; television historians use the phrase “flashing” or cover; saturate; and absorbed recur in Hinn’s “moving images” in conjunction with the early online discourse as well as in print literature, development of the medium as an entertainment thus correlating presence with powerfully form.41 Similar phrases also find themselves embodied experiences of the divine.

But Hinn’s conceptions of presence, one might point out, tie biographically to (flashing) 39 Hinn, Good Morning Holy Spirit, 35-36 (emphasis added). For a similar vision accounting, see He Touched Me, 52, 58. 37 See also Good Morning Holy Spirit, 96. 40 Hinn, He Touched Me, 51-52. 38 See https://twitter.com/Benny_Hinn, accessed 41 Jonathan Gray and Amanda D. Lotz, Television November 14, 2012. Studies (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2012), 30; David COOPER / BENNY HINN’S MEDIA EMPIRE 9 employed in Hinn’s highly experiential theorization but adds a layer of complexity by accounts of his own biography. One can viewing the effects of the medium as helpful imagine Hinn as a child, sitting in front of the and to be exploited. television, his perceptions shaped by the The issue of religious experience, however, technologies he was exposed to. When he begs an aside in terms of Pentecostal retrospectively describes his religious ex- epistemological and ontological formation. periences, he casts his recollections in Historian and ethnographer Candy Gunther discursively similar terms. Film media informed Brown argues for the existence of what she Hinn’s worldview, confirming, to at least a describes as “a widely held pentecostal partial degree, claims by scholars of media.42 epistemology that assumes a particular Media theorists consistently preach that hierarchy of the senses—one that privileges technologies and/or media have the potential to hearing above seeing, and in which feeling shape human persons, perhaps even insid- sensory input rather than seeing is believing.”44 iously.43 Hinn’s example gives credence to such Hinn reiterates such thinking in his own stories. In one account, he writes that “when I began my fellowship with the Holy Spirit I talked with Him day and night. Not a day passed that I did Campany, Photography and Cinema (London: not say, ‘Holy Spirit. Precious Holy Spirit.’ And Reaktion Books, 2008), 8; Janna Jones, Past is a Moving Picture: Preserving the Twentieth Century on we began our time of prayer and com- Film (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2012). munication.” “Oh, the sound of His voice,” he Umberto Eco comically depicts the television as “an continues. Evangelical Protestants, and enormous, cumbersome box that in the darkness especially pentecostals, perceive of divine emitted sinister flashes of light and enough sound to communication, including basic theological disturb the entire neighborhood.” Turning Back the teaching or instruction, in aural dimensions.45 In Clock: Hot Wars and Media Populism, trans. Alastair McEwen (Orlando, FL: Harcourt, Inc., 2007), 1-2. Social anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu, while critiquing journalists for their fragmented and disjointed presentation of information to the public, also makes Press, 2009). For religious studies-specific and this connection: “This means that journalists—the day theological works in this vein, see, respectively, David laborers of everyday life—can show us the world only Morgan, The Lure of Images: A History of Religion as a series of unrelated flash photos.” On Television, 7. and Visual Media in America (New York: Routledge, 42 It is no wonder, then, that Hinn’s teaching 2007) and Shane Hipps, The Hidden Power of metaphors—his theological illustrations during Electronic Culture: How Media Shapes Faith, The sermons—are media and technology oriented. George Gospel, and Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, Lakoff has much to say on the subject of cognitive 2005). Hipps, for instance, as in evangelical insider, domain overlap and the normalcy of metaphorical applies a McLuhan-esque critique to evangelical thought and/or language in shaping human churches’ mindless uses of technology. understanding and experience. In other words, Hinn’s 44 Candy Gunther Brown, Testing Prayer: Science and media and technology laden metaphors substantiate Healing (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Lakoff’s case about metaphorical language as a human 2012), 126-127, “Touch and American Religions,” norm. See his “The Contemporary Theory of Religion Compass 3:4 (2009): 770-783 (emphasis Metaphor,” in Metaphor and Thought, ed. Andrew added). The hierarchy of senses draws on biblical Ortony (New York: Cambridge University Press, narratives, and in particular, passages such as Romans 1998), 202-251. 10:17: “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by 43 For a classic reading of technology and media in this the word of Christ” (New American Standard Bible). manner, see philosopher Marshall McLuhan and 45 For a study of religion, socialities, and embodiment, Quentin Fiore, The Medium is the Massage: An especially in terms of Catholic and Protestant Inventory of Effects (Berkeley, CA: Ginko Press, Inc., differences in the use of images in ritual, see Philip A. 1967 [2011]). See also Miles, “Image,” 166-171; Peter Mellor and Chris Shilling, Re-forming the Body: K. Fallon, The Metaphysics of Media: Toward an End Religion, Community and Modernity (Thousand Oaks, of Postmodern Cynicism and the Construction of a CA: SAGE Publications Inc., 1997). See also Leigh Virtuous Reality (Chicago: University of Scranton Eric Schmidt, Hearing Things: Religion, Illusion, and 10 SYMPOSIA another This Is Your Day interview, Hinn and examples to make the point.49 During another guest Rabbi Lapin discuss the primacy (and sermon, the evangelist claimed that the ritual of even “spiritual” nature) of speaking over written extended periods of praise increases or disposes text, the latter of which Lapin dismisses as a a certain type of “sensitivity” in a person. To denigration of more authentic sound and use emic language, an augmenting of this sort hearing.46 For evangelicals, faith comes by of spiritual sensitivity means that one may hearing. Hearing interprets sound. The suddenly “pick up on” things in a “spiritually” fascinating thing about television is that it discerning sense. Interesting, however, are the captures sound (via hearing) but goes a step phrases that Hinn employs; such sensitivity “is beyond to preserve and disseminate seeing. As like a radar” or a “switch” that “comes on” or is theorist Walter J. Ong describes, television is activated, in other words, with praise.50 “electronic vision added to electronic sound.”47 Extended periods of praise and prayer, Not only does television spread the gospel by therefore, demonstrate the evangelical cul- hearing—the most esteemed evangelical tivation of skills through dedication, time, and sense—but it does so through an added sensate practice. Both Hinn and Hinn’s audiences, aptitude: sight (c.f. David Morgan’s concept of further, fuse media and technology tropes in charismatic orality, below). Sound and sight their transmission of theological values through signal nearness and presence for Hinn, and teaching and reception. But what about the television possesses the ability to project those media themselves? How might different forms very sensory experiences.48 of media serve as disseminators of religious Hinn frequently employs technology practices, values, rituals, and experiences, and metaphors to explain or illustrate his teachings most importantly, as cultivators of divine (themselves disseminated by Internet or presence? satellite). In one 2012 teaching series on “walking in the Spirit,” the revivalist uses an Charismatic Orality, Fluid Media, and the iPhone metaphor to describe the ways a person Erasure of Distance must “recharge” themselves in God’s presence. “You cannot live in the Spirit unless you live in Pentecostal healing practices often involve the presence of God, he admonished. “We must proximate intercessory prayer (PIP), a term come out of the realm of the flesh. It takes two coined by Brown.51 Pentecostals praying for weeks to charge my Spirit-man, like it takes an healing from various ailments utilize “in- hour to recharge my iPhone.” Hinn’s person, direct-contact prayer, frequently ontologically-thick theological exposition of involving touch, by one or more persons on both Old and New Testament passages of the behalf of another.”52 Through PIP, pentecostals Bible numbered the problems of the “flesh” (for act on their belief that “anointing for healing Hinn a problematic site of sinful proclivity) and presumably can be communicated through the need to expand the “spiritual” parts of one’s person. Hinn uses cutting-edge technology 49 Benny Hinn, “How to Walk in the Spirit and Be Released From Limitations, Part 1,” accessed August 27, 2012, the American Enlightenment (Cambridge, MA: http://www.bennyhinn.org/media/2012-8-27.asx. See Harvard University Press, 2000). also “Taking Back Stolen Territory, Part 2,” accessed 46 Benny Hinn, “Buried Treasure, Part 2” (July 2, June 17, 2013, http://www.bennyhinn.org/media/2013- 2013), accessed July 1, 2013, 6-18.asx. http://www.bennyhinn.org/media/ 2013-7-2.asx. 50 Benny Hinn, “Restoration and Restitution, Part 1,” 47 Walter J. Ong, S. J., The Presence of the Word: accessed July 9, 2012, Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History http://www.bennyhinn.org/media/2012-7-9.asx. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970), 87. 51 Brown, Testing Prayer, 89. 48 Hinn, Good Morning Holy Spirit, 79. 52 Ibid. COOPER / BENNY HINN’S MEDIA EMPIRE 11 human touch, because physical bodies function term to the domain of media and experience.57 as conduits of spiritual power.”53 Television Television media, even if only partially, exposes human persons, or audiences, to a mediate presence for audiences through range of variable forms (e.g., images, motions, temporal exposure. Watching Hinn on sound, rhetoric) and ideologies (discourse, television—seeing the signs and wonders of the theology, cosmology, politics, worldview). Holy Spirit—increases one’s faith and thus Media affects the viewing (listening, seeing, one’s aptitude for healing. Exposure to these and feeling) audience. Brown continues: televised rituals reinforces and bolsters the Comparing anointing with electricity or viewer’s faith, and thus religious audiences radiation therapy, certain pentecostals repeatedly watching Hinn’s programs might believe that efficacy correlates with view themselves as increasing the chances of frequency and length of exposure, types healing or of having some other form of —including theological correctness—of religious experience.58 prayers, “faith” and anointing levels of David Morgan’s concept of charismatic those receiving and offering prayer, and orality also demonstrates how television is even the anointing level of the physical useful to evangelical preachers by integrating location in which prayers are offered. image and presence. In one of his aptly titled Some persons, moreover, are considered recent works, The Lure of Images, Morgan more anointed than others, or contextualizes pentecostal-charismatic type ‘specialists’ in praying for particular practices in terms of mass media, com- conditions.54 munication, and consumption. “Charismatic For both television preachers and audiences, orality,” he writes, “is grounded in the body and then, the medium serves as a conduit of understands performative action, a movement of exposure to the themes of experiential the Spirit of God through the body and person theologies and embodied healings.55 Beyond of the inspired, anointed preacher.” In exposure, however, television is itself an charismatic orality, “word and image experiential medium.56 Light, music, flashing corroborate one another in order to signal the images, sound bytes: these sensuous and preeminence of the spoken word.”59 Image, evocative elements contain the power to stir in someone a conception of being there, to apply anthropologist Clifford Geertz’s ethnographic 57 Clifford Geertz, “Being There: Anthropology and the Scene of Writing,” in Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Writer (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988), 1-24. 58 Hinn’s book, This Is Your Day for a Miracle (1996), intends to bombard (or expose) the reader with 53 Ibid. evidence of God’s healing power via a cataloging of 54 Ibid. (emphasis added). images, scenes of healing, and doctor’s reports. This 55 For a clear example of Hinn’s experiential theology, work is another interesting example of the value of see Good Morning Holy Spirit, 84. image in the symbolic structure of pentecostals. Even 56 Helen Wheatley, Re-Viewing Television History: two-dimensional, black-and-white photographic still Critical Issues in Television Historiography (London: shots can stir in a viewer the knowledge of God’s I.B. Tauris, 2007), 155, 163. Even commercialization healing power. Lake Mary, FL: Strang and advertising are experiential, as both histories and Communications Company. Interestingly, this book manuals themselves attest. Lawrence R. Samuel, represents one in a library of similar works produced Brought to You By: Postwar Television Advertising and by traveling healers to add credibility to the respective the American Dream (Austin: University of Texas ministries’ claims of healing efficacy. Kathryn Press, 2002), 203; Shaz Smilansky, Experiential Kuhlman, after whom Hinn has modeled his ministry, Marketing: A Practical Guide to Interactive Brand published a similar work titled I Believe in Miracles Experiences (London: Kogan Page Ltd., 2009), esp. (1962). Brown, Testing Prayer, 108. 124. 59 Morgan, The Lure of Images, 222. 12 SYMPOSIA while hierarchically subsequent to the aural Americans, as he puts it, “have long regarded word, actually enhances the prior for a powerful modern media as magical, infused with spiritual effect. energy or power.”62 Put simply, “the power of Because the body is a fundamental medium media inspires fear,” and often in the form of of charisma, there is no question as to the hold critical theories (i.e., Big Brother surveillance, television may have on its viewers. Mass media panopticanism, or the fear of physical harm to “are constructed on the analogy of human the body due to addiction to technologies). speech and vision, [and] indeed operate as Cultural uneasiness about television also has to extensions of them.” The quote listed at the do with what might be described as television’s opening of this essay is also telling as television perceived permeability or fluidity as a and film enact “the enchantment of immediate medium.63 “By all means,” writes Hinn, connection.” This enchantment is produced implying that no form of media is to be through using television to minimize physical excluded from the evangelistic armamentarium. distance and to animate the person behind the For Hinn, television is a fluid medium—a pulpit by way of luminosity, sound, and highly experiential one, at that—a medium able image.60 Morgan describes the methods to conduct the effectiveness of the Holy Spirit’s charismatic television revivalists utilize the healing power; thus Hinn seeks to apply it for medium of television for these purposes: spiritual benefit. Although television can operate as a What is important, however, is that the video screen, as a live medium it attracts worldview behind Hinn’s Holy Spirit-infused the viewer’s attention on different programming operates in a metaphysical milieu. terms. The magnetic or charismatic pull Televangelists harness the ability of television of live television is the sheer presence or to minimize distance alongside the fluid and immediacy of the medium. Televised transferable nature of the Holy Spirit. Hinn sermons are one way this happens for repeatedly requests viewers seeking healings to religious viewers, who sit before place their hands on the television screens or lift television whose screens convey the their hands in prayer towards the direction of glowing image of a talking head, such the television set. Strategies of such sorts, as a priest or rabbi at a lectern, who involving perceived spatial transcendence, join gazes into the camera as if it were the stead eye of his or her audience. Viewers listen as if they were seated in a church or synagogue.61 Television rivets the attentions of the viewing audiences. Experiencing a revivalist preach live 62 Morgan, The Lure of Images, 224. on television is not unlike being there, in the 63 Fascinatingly, Morgan notes that such worries have church or stadium or conference center in which been culturally reified in recent horror films such as the preacher stands in real time. The compelling Poltergeist (1982), The Ring (2002), and White Noise aural and visual nature of television, then, (2005), “which portray television or video as a visual portal that opens up to supernatural realms beyond, supports or serves as a platform for charismatic providing contact with dimensions that threaten moral orality. life.” In these films, the television screen becomes a Morgan also theorizes about television as a gateway through which evil enters the world. In The magical medium, reflecting on the ways Ring, for instance, an evil entity in television-image form penetrates the glass of the fictional characters’ television screens and, now fully-embodied in the real time of these characters, slays her “voyeur-victims.” 60 See Milly Buonanno and Jennifer Radice, The Age of Horror films reveal a broader cultural uneasiness about Television: Experiences and Theories (The University the permeability or fluidity of media forms as entities of Chicago Press, 2008), 44. of presence and mediation. Morgan, The Lure of 61 Ibid., 224-225 (emphasis added). Images, 224. COOPER / BENNY HINN’S MEDIA EMPIRE 13 the ranks of a long history of American theological use of media. “When letters like metaphysical beliefs and practices.64 these began pouring in,” he writes, “I knew God Any suspicion that television, in the minds was confirming His mandate. We built a of some of its users, lacks metaphysical makeshift studio in the overflow room of the application, in a transferable sense, might be put Orlando Christian Center (later World Outreach to rest when one considers the following “praise Church) and began to add television stations to reports” listed by Hinn. Healing efficacy our network.”66 Hinn’s ministry received these appears to have the ability to bypass distance reports in 1990. Eight years later, he had and pass through the permeable glass of established the World Media Center in Aliso television screens: Viejo, California, noting that “from this state- St. Louis, Missouri: “I watch your of-the-art studio and production facility we are program every day. I laid my hands on able to expand our global television outreach.”67 the television screen and I received my During these years Benny Hinn Ministries healing of a stomach problem.” institutionalized while Hinn himself grew in celebrity status with global charismatic Port Arthur, Texas: “I was watching audiences.68 your program and the Lord gave you a word of knowledge that there was a Expanding the Empire: the Internet, Social woman named Alice that had been Networks, and ePrayer praying to be delivered from gluttony. That woman was me. Praise God I am The jurisdiction of the superstar preacher’s delivered from food addiction.” media empire reaches far beyond satellite television, however, employing a broad means Salt Lake City, Utah: “I was healed of of media types in the purported dissemination bursitis and arthritis in my home of religious goods. Television, in effect, watching your crusade telecast. I can do represents only one domain under the things now I haven’t been able to do for televangelist’s purview. Spiritual instruction years. I was using a walker and a and the cultivation of presence extend far wheelchair . . . no more! If it had not beyond the realm of satellite television services. been for your TV ministry I don’t know An internet radio station plays hymns and what would have happened to me.”65 streams Hinn’s teachings.69 Benny Hinn Ministries offers online, certificate-based Metaphysical transference of healing demon- courses to train those interested in learning strates to penitents the arresting power of the under Hinn’s specialization. Courses include Holy Spirit in pentecostal cosmology. No media “Operating in the Anointing,” “Deliverance has enough power to constrain the ubiqu- from Demons,” “Intimacy with God,” and “The itousness and fluidity of the Holy Spirit, but Hiding God.” Class materials can be accessed some forms, in fact, can serve as efficient online twenty-four hours a day, seven days a compliments. Hinn’s responses to the above reports confirm the argument concerning his

66 Ibid., 163. 67 Ibid., 162-163, 206. 64 Hinn, He Touched Me, 206; Brown, Testing Prayer, 68 Shayne Lee and Phillip Luke Sinitiere have written 257. For more on the history of American metaphysical about Hinn’s religious stardom in their Holy practices, see Catherine L. Albanese, A Republic of Mavericks: Evangelical Innovators and the Spiritual Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American Marketplace (New York University Press, 2009), 166. Metaphysical Religion (New Haven: Yale University 69 See “Benny Hinn Ministries Internet Radio,” Press). accessed March 29, 2014, 65 Hinn, He Touched Me, 162-163. http://www.bennyhinn.org/radio/. 14 SYMPOSIA week, and the cost of admission in seventy-five website.75 Penitents can fill out detailed prayer dollars.70 This is Your Day, Hinn’s flagship request forms that are then broadcast, live, onto television program, which includes a half hour a prayer list database which committed prayer of international ministry coverage, Bible team members access. The platform, then, has a exposition or teaching, or interviews with unifying effect as it draws on the work of medical doctors and evangelical authors, airs volunteer pray-ers and connects them in real currently on six television networks.71 time through the technological apparatus. In Bennyhinn.org streams showings online for effect, these digital ritual tools “serve as those viewers who prefer to watch the episode expanding platforms or systems for prayer” and on their own time.72 One can also, on the offer “a hub of online prayer resources” that website, sign up to receive the ministry’s “e- simultaneously “constitutes a new form of Newsletter,” and can click on links to both social prayer.”76 ePrayer, then, functions to Hinn’s Facebook and Twitter social networking foster ritual connectivity while also overriding pages.73 physical distance.77 In Meyer’s terms, such tools An interesting aspect of Hinn’s Internet aid in the production of “distinct sensory presence is the use of websites and popular regimes” managed by institutions such as social networks to create a milieu, mediated by Benny Hinn Ministries.78 Hinn’s sensory technological apparati, in which the cultivation regimes span the radio, television, and Internet of presence can occur and religious experiences worlds. can take place. One social scientist has recently described the practice of ePrayer by Benny Conclusions Hinn Ministries.74 As a para-ministry of Hinn’s organization, “Mighty Warriors Prayer Army” This essay has documented and analyzed one (MWPA) utilizes Internet-enabled devices itinerant televangelist’s implementation of including personal computers, laptops, cell popular media and technology forms for phones, and tablets to log into the ministry evangelistic purposes. The implications of the sensational forms of the televangelist are varied

and interconnected; several summary points

70 deserve reiteration. First, Hinn formulates his “The Benny Hinn School of Ministry Catalog,” autobiography in terms of his relationship to accessed March 29, 2014, http://www.bennyhinn.org/courses/. American cinema; he self-identifies as being 71 Hinn’s frequent interviewing of doctors of medicine shaped at a deep childhood level by popular and nutrition also underscore what Bowler has American films. His background with cinema described as the “bilingualism,” or the leads to a second point in that Hinn’s narrated acknowledgement of believers “that two intersecting religious experiences take on profoundly filmic processes” of the medical and the miraculous are at imagery. Consumers of Hinn’s books, sermons, work in healing practices. Bowler, Blessed, 171-172. and other teachings can imagine such 72 “Weekly Guide: Television,” accessed March 29, experiences because the experiences are visual 2014, http://www.bennyhinn.org/bhm-weekly-listings/. 73 At the time of writing this article Hinn had approximately 971,840 “likes” on the prior and some 283,000 “followers” on the latter. See “Benny Hinn 75 Ministries,” Facebook.com, accessed March 29, 2014, “Mighty Warriors Prayer Army,” accessed March https://www.face book.com/BennyHinn Ministries, and 29, 2014, http://www.bennyhinn.org/prayer/mighty- “@Benny_Hinn,” Twitter.com, accessed March 29, warriors. 76 2014, https://twitter.com/ Benny_Hinn. Cooper, “ePrayer and Online Prayer Rituals.” 74 Travis Warren Cooper, “ePrayer and Online Prayer 77 One might go as far as to pose a new term for these Rituals,” Reverberations: New Directions in the Study rituals, building off of Brown’s proximate intercessory of Prayer (SSRC Forums), accessed March 29, 2014, prayer term; such online prayer rituals represent not http://forums.ssrc.org/ndsp/2014/01/13/eprayer-and- proximate but distant or remote intercessory prayer. online-prayer-rituals/. 78 Meyer, “Sensational Forms,” 716. COOPER / BENNY HINN’S MEDIA EMPIRE 15 ones; he couches the experiences in media and word, and pentecostal oral authority) that technology metaphors that resound with emphasizes hearing but contains the added audiences. Hinn describes some experiences as benefit of sight to the repertoire of televised moving images, as if they had been projected sensory experience. Lastly, Hinn goes beyond upon a screen. In other instances, the revivalist television to harness a number of other uses technological devices and apparati (e.g., technologically-progressive services, thus charging his iPhone) to illustrate theological creating a new ritual arena for charismatic points. Third, Hinn’s uses of media are not evangelicals. The use of tablets, dataphones, exclusively pragmatic. His appropriation of laptops, and other Internet-enabled devices television and global satellite broadcasting allow the practitioner to engage in ePrayer occurs at a theological level. Television is not rituals, partake in instruction or teaching, and an empty, neutral, or value-free medium for ultimately practice the cultivation of presence Hinn. In his retrospective descriptions of his via a variety of media forms. Evangelical ministry’s implementation of the medium, he technology proponents thus argue that when put seeks to depict it as a divinely sanctioned and to the correct uses, such implementations prophetically anticipated tool. Television (and suggest that diverse media can enhance the digital media) take on theological, teleological evangelical experience of presence and extend value and are thus historicized into a Christian and supplement prayer and healing rituals. narrative of global evangelization and ex- Inevitably, much more research is needed. pansion. Fourth, and perhaps the most central This essay has offered an initial (and primarily argument of this essay, through the medium of descriptive) foray into the methods of one television Hinn seeks both to cultivate presence contemporary televangelist. Further study, in viewers and imbue or disseminate it however, might underscore the issues involved metaphysically through various media forms. in democratic media and technology forms. As Television—as a fluid, permeable, tactile, or Hinn is a lightening-rod of controversy in both even connective medium—compliments a religious and non-religious worlds, future supernaturally-populated Pentecostal cosm- research projects could also examine the ways ology.79 Some individuals claim healing through popular social media technologies might the medium, and Hinn himself sees television as potentially serve to undermine Hinn’s authority, an effective conduit of the healing powers of the partly legitimated through charismatic orality, Holy Spirit. Related is a fifth point; television as “God’s anointed.” On one particular This Is also serves to portray and disseminate Your Day episode, for instance, Hinn and his charismatic orality (i.e., a coupling of image, interview guest joke about Tweeting as “thumbs gone wild.” Hinn alludes to the fact that he has received some opposition through the Twitter platform. His guest, visibly not happy about 79 In terms of “tactility,” I have here in mind Anderson this, makes it clear that people ought to be Blanton’s recent study of “the unanticipated centrality “protecting the man of God from even hearing of tactile experience” in Pentecostal uses of the [or reading Tweets on] these things.” “That’s medium of the radio. See his “Appalachian Radio Prayers”: The Prosthesis of the Holy Ghost and the why, before a service, I won’t even look at a 80 Drive to Tactility,” in Radio Fields: Anthropology and Tweet,” Hinn replies. Media may connect Wireless Sound in the 21st Century, eds. Lucas Bessire distant pray-ers, and facilitate religious and Daniel Fisher (New York University Press, 2012). experiences, then, but they may also serve as a For another radio related study that demonstrates the use of particular media to establish “connection” between speaking/listening parties or “the illusion of presence and directness”, see Laura Kunreuther, “Transparent Media: Radio, Voice, and Ideologies of Directness in Postdemocratic Nepal,” Linguistic 80 “Spritual Warfare, Part 1” and “Spiritual Warfare, Anthropology 20:2 (2010), esp. 339, 340, and 347. Part 2.” 16 SYMPOSIA form of public corrosive discourse.81 Much has Bibliography been made by both scholars as well as Albanese, Catherine L. A Republic of Mind and journalists concerning Hinn’s lavish celebrity Spirit: A Cultural History of American lifestyle and perceived power and authority as a Metaphysical Religion. New Haven, public, televised revivalist. Further studies CT: Yale University Press. might look with more detail into the global Allitt, Patrick. Religion in America since 1945: economics of television and Internet media put A History. New York: Columbia to the services of a successful itinerant University Press, 2003. revivalist as well as scrutinize rhetorical Balmer, Randall. “Evangelicalism.” In the strategies embedded in Hinn’s discourse which Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism, 204- seek both to legitimate his ministry as well as to 207. Louisville, KY: Westminster John produce revenue for the ministry.82 Another area Knox Press, 2002. for future inquiry involves Hinn’s audiences. “Benny Hinn Ministries.” Facebook.com. Much more ethnographic research is needed in Accessed March 29, 2014. terms of the viewers of Hinn’s This Is Your Day https://www.facebook.com/ as well as data on those who utilize his online BennyHinnMinistries. resources and prayer technologies. How are “Benny Hinn Ministries Internet Radio.” these individuals incorporating teachings Accessed March 29, 2014. through various media forms? Do online (and http://www.bennyhinn. org/radio/. ePrayer) technologies shape or simply sup- “The Benny Hinn School of Ministry Catalog.” plement theology, and if so, in which ways? Accessed March 29, 2014. This essay demonstrates, at least tentatively, the http://www.benny hinn.org/courses/. high compatibility of pentecostal-charismatic Blanton, Anderson. “Appalachian Radio practices with television and burgeoning social Prayers”: The Prosthesis of the Holy networking technologies, but further studies Ghost and the Drive to Tactility.” In will do well to plumb the strength of this Radio Fields: Anthropology and congruency. Wireless Sound in the 21st Century, edited by Lucas Bessire and Daniel Fisher, 215-232. New York University Press, 2012. Bourdieu, Pierre. On Television. New York: 81 The Jay Press, 1998. Bruce Lincoln, Authority: Construction and Corrosion (University of Chicago Press, 1994). Bowler, Kate. Blessed: A History of the 82 Much has been made about Hinn’s (and other American Prosperity Gospel. New televangelists’) extravagant lifestyles and consumerist York: Oxford University Press, 2013. practices (see Bowler, Blessed, 5-6); this essay has not Brahinsky, Josh. “Pentecostal Body Logics: intended to enter the discussion. For an ultra-critical Cultivating a Modern Sensorium.” denunciation of Hinn’s ministry for both theological Cultural Anthropology 27:2 (2012): and financial reasons, however, see G. Richard Fisher 215-238. and M. Kurt Goedelman, eds., The Confusing World of Benny Hinn: A Call for Discerning the Ministry & Brown, Candy Gunther. Global Pentecostal and Teaching of the Popular Healing Evangelist (St. Louis: Charismatic Healing, edited by Candy Personal Freedom Outreach, 1997). For the sake of Gunther Brown. 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