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GUEST ARTICLE
Unholy Trinity
What's Wrong with This Broadcasting Network?
I don't watch much
television, and when I do I generally avoid the Trinity
Broadcasting Network (TBN). For many years TBN has been
dominated by faith-healers, full-time fund-raisers, and
self-proclaimed prophets spewing heresy. I wrote about
the false gospel they proclaim and the phony miracles they
pretend to do almost two decades ago in Charismatic Chaos
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992). I had my fill of charismatic
televangelism while researching that book, and I can hardly
bear to watch it any more.
Recently, however,
while recovering from knee-replacement surgery, I decided
to sample some of the current fare on TBN. From a therapeutic
point of view it seemed a good choice: something more excruciating
than the pain in my leg might distract me from the physical
suffering of post-surgical trauma. And I suppose on that
basis the strategy was effective.
But it left me
outraged and frustrated - and eager to challenge the misperceptions
in the minds of millions of unbelievers who see these false
teachers masquerading as ministers of Christ on TBN.
I'm outraged at
the brazen way so many false teachers twist the message
of Scripture in Jesus' name. And I'm frustrated because
I'm certain that if these charlatans were not receiving
a large proportion of their financial support from sincere
believers (and silent acquiescence from Christian leaders
who surely know better), they would have no platform for
their shenanigans. They would soon lose their core constituency
and fade from the scene.
Instead, religious
quacks are actually multiplying at a frightening pace.
One thing I discovered to my immense displeasure is that
TBN is by no means the only religious network broadcasting
poisonous false doctrine around the clock. The channel
lineup I receive includes at least seven other channels
whose schedules are filled with false teachers and charlatans.
There's The Church Channel, Daystar, GodTV, World Harvest
Television (LeSEA), Total Christian Television, and several
others. Some of them feature blocs of family television
programming and a few fairly sound teachers who provide
moments of escape from the prosperity preachers. But all
of them give prominence to enormous amounts of heresy and
religious claptrap - enough to make them positively dangerous.
And TBN is singularly responsible for kicking that door
open so wide.
The continued growth
and influence of TBN is baffling for a number of reasons,
not the least of which is the thick aura of lust, greed,
and other kinds of moral impropriety that surrounds the
whole enterprise. A long string of scandals involving notable
charismatic televangelists between 1988 and 1992 should
have been sufficient reason for even the most credulous
viewers to scrutinize the entire industry with skepticism.
First came the
international spectacle of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s moral, marital, and financial collapse. That
was followed closely by the revelation of Jimmy
Swaggart’s repeated dalliances with prostitutes. Shortly
afterward, an episode of ABC's Primetime Live exposed
clear examples of deliberate fraud on the part of three
more leading charismatic televangelists. Those incidents
were punctuated by a score of lesser scandals a over
several years' time. It is clear (or should be) - based
on empirical
evidence alone - that preachers promising miracles in
exchange for money are not to be trusted. And for anyone
who simply
bothers to compare Jesus' teaching with the health-and-wealth
message, it is clear that the message that currently
dominates religious television is "a different gospel; which
is really not another" (Galatians 1:6-7), but a damnable
lie. TBN is by far the
leading perpetrator of that lie worldwide. Virtually all the network's main celebrities
tell listeners that God will give them healing, wealth,
and other material blessings in return for their money.
On program after program people are urged to "plant
a seed" by sending "the largest bill you have
or the biggest check you can write" with the promise
that God will miraculously make them rich in return.
That same message dominates all of TBN's major fundraising
drives. It's known as the “seed faith” plan, so-called
by Oral Roberts, who set the pattern for most of the
charismatic televangelists who have followed the trail
he blazed. Paul Crouch, founder, chairman, and commander-in-chief
of TBN, is one of the doctrine's staunchest defenders.
The only people
who actually get rich by this scheme, of course, are the
televangelists. Their people who send money get little
in return but phony promises - and as a result, many of
them turn away from the truth completely.
If the scheme seems
reminiscent of Tetzel, that's because it is precisely the
same doctrine. (Tetzel was a medieval monk whose high-pressure
selling of indulgences - phony promises of forgiveness
- outraged Martin Luther and touched off the Protestant
Reformation.)
Like Tetzel, TBN
preys on the poor and plies them with false promises. Yet
what is happening daily on TBN is many times worse than
the abuses that Luther decried because it is more widespread
and more flagrant. The medium is more high-tech and the
amounts bilked out of viewers' pockets are astronomically
higher. (By most estimates, TBN is worth more than a billion
dollars and rakes in $200 million annually. Those are direct
contributions to the network, not counting millions more
in donations sent directly to TBN broadcasters.)
Like Tetzel
on steroids, the Crouches and virtually all the key broadcasters
on TBN live in garish opulence, while constantly begging
their needy viewers for more money. Elderly, poor, and
working-class viewers constitute TBN's primary demographic.
And TBN's fundraisers all know that. The most desperate people - "unemployed," "even
though I'm in between jobs," "trying to make
it; trying to survive," "broke" - are
baited with false promises to give what they do not even
have. Jan Crouch addresses viewers as "you little
people," and suggests that they send their grocery money to TBN "to
assure God's blessing." Thus TBN devours
the poor while making the charlatans rich. God cursed false
prophets in the Old Testament for that very thing (Jeremiah
6:13-15). It's also one of the main reasons the Pharisees
incurred Jesus' condemnation (Luke 20:46-47). It's hard
to think of any sin more evil. It not only hurts people
materially; it deludes them with groundless hope, deceives
them with a false gospel, and thereby places their souls
in eternal peril. And yet those who do it pretend they
are doing the work of God.
That's not all.
Almost no false prophecy, erroneous doctrine, rank superstition,
or silly claim is too outlandish to receive airtime on
TBN. Jan Crouch tearfully gives a fanciful account of how
her pet chicken was miraculously raised from the dead.
Benny Hinn trumps that claim with a bizarre prophecy that
if TBN viewers will put their dead loved ones' caskets
in front of television set and touch the dead person's
hand to the screen, people will "be raised from the
dead . . . by the thousands."
Ironically, one
doesn't even need to be an orthodox Trinitarian in order
to broadcast on the Trinity network. Bishop T. D. Jakes,
well known for his rejection of the Nicene Creed in favor
of oneness Pentecostalism, is a staple on TBN. Benny
Hinn has repeatedly attempted to revise the doctrine of
the Trinity in novel ways, notoriously teaching at one
point that there are nine persons in the godhead.
And yet evangelical
church leaders typically show a kind of benign tolerance
toward the whole enterprise. Most would never
endorse it, of course. They may joke about the gaudiness
of the big hair and tawdry set decorations on TBN. Ask
them, and they will most likely acknowledge that the
prosperity gospel is no gospel at all. Press the issue,
and you will probably get them to admit that it is a
dangerous form of false doctrine, totally unbiblical,
and essentially anti-Christian.
Why, then, is there
no large-scale effort among Bible-believing evangelicals
to expose, denounce, refute, and silence these false teachers?
After all, that is what Scripture commands church leaders
to do when we encounter purveyors of soul-destroying substitutes
for the true gospel:
The overseer must
be above reproach as God's steward, not self-willed, not
quick-tempered, not addicted to wine, not pugnacious, not
fond of sordid gain, but hospitable, loving what is good,
sensible, just, devout, self-controlled, holding fast the
faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching,
so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine
and to refute those who contradict. For there are many
rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially
those of the circumcision, who must be silenced because
they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they
should not teach for the sake of sordid gain (Titus 1:7-11).
Those who remain
silent in the face of such grotesque lies may in fact be
partly responsible for turning people away from the truth.
Consider the testimony of William Lobdell, religion reporter
for the Los Angeles Times, who once considered himself
a devout evangelical Christian, but after doing a series
of investigative reports on the moral and doctrinal cesspool
at TBN; then "finding that his investigative stories
about faith healer Benny Hinn and televangelists Jan and
Paul Crouch appear to make no difference on the reach of
these ministries or the lives of their followers, he [gave]
up on the beat and on religion generally."
All those who truly
love Christ and care about the truth have a solemn duty
to defend the truth by exposing and opposing these lies
that masquerade as truth. If we fail in that duty because
of indifference, apathy, or a craving for the approval
of men, we are no less guilty than those who actively spread
the lies.
--John Macarthur
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