Christianity In Crisis by Hank Hanegraaff

Hanegraaff is the Bible Answer Man and the primary force behind the Christian Research Institute. This book is a rewrite of a book he wrote 20 years ago about the rise of prosperity preachers and the “health and wealth”, “gab it and grab it” movement in Christianity. 20 years ago, this was simply a lurking threat to the foundations of the faith. Now, we have Creflo A Dollar drawing thousands and thousands to coliseums and Joel Osteen, who had to buy a former basketball stadium in order to fit all the people into his church. Joyce Meyer claims if we just believe enough we can have the jets and cars and houses that she has. Hanegraaff, to say the least, is horrified by this development and rightfully so.

This book, Christianity in Crisis: 21^st Century, takes all the prosperity preachers to task in the hope that some of the people in those kinds of churches might read this book and return to the foundations of the faith. While the prosperity movement denies the sovereignty of God, Hanegraaff hammers home again and again that it is God who is running the show, not us.

The prosperity movement believes some very strange things and Hanegraaff uses various mnemonic devices to help remember their errors. He has a thing for mnemonic devices and uses them everywhere. They are helpful and give a good foundation for organizing this 325 page book. The first 2/3 of the book examines the FLAWS of prosperity preaching. Hanegraaff is rigorous, scholarly and deeply passionate about the cause here. For the most part, he maintains a strong Reformation stance against this modern day heresy (which mirrors heresies throughout Christian history). What gives this heresy power and strength is television and advertising. Ultimately, it is designed to “dull the critical-thinking process because the mind is seen as the obstacle to enlightenment” (pg 83).

Hanegraaff goes out of his way to make distinctions. It would be easy to confuse this movement with the Charismatic movement, which includes Pentecostalism and the Assembly of God church, as two examples. But the only similarity may be the singing and dancing. Otherwise, the Assembly of God has roundly and consistently rejected this sort of distortion of prosperity preaching.

What disturbs me the most about this movement is the dangerous idea that we somehow control the outcome of our lives by how well and how much we have faith. Hanegraaff documents claims of raising people from the dead, healings from cancer and other bizarre manifestations, all of which are made by the preachers themselves. When it comes to doctor’s proof, however, there is a great lack of eyewitness verification. Yet these preachers ask their followers to deny symptoms because to recognize symptoms is to recognize Satan. Of course, the fact that people came to Jesus to be healed because they had symptoms that required his attention escapes these people.

The results can be devastating however. Sick children die because the prosperity preacher claims he or she can heal them. Cancer explodes because people believe healing will come if only they have more faith. The rejection of the miracle of modern medicine and scientific thought is deeply disturbing in all of Hanegraaff’s examples. The negation of “mustard seed” faith and the distortion of Job as being an example of how to bring disaster upon oneself is a tragic misreading of the nature of belief and faith. Hanegraaff makes it clear that faith is from God and always has been from God. As a result, the works of God in our lives, assuming we believe God and Christ to be active in our lives, cannot be dependent on the things we say or the greatness or smallness of our faith.

Hanegraaff does not go into any detail with regard to one of the most troubling social developments of this movement. That is the exportation of the “prosperity gospel” (it really doesn’t deserve the name ‘gospel’ at all) to the poorest regions of the world – Africa, India, central Asia. John Piper has some things to say about this, he being another pastor is outraged at the torturous distortions of the Bible these preachers use to their own advantage.

Right at the end of Hanegraaff’s excellent book is part of a letter written by Jim Bakker, the former prosperity preacher from the 1980s. Bakker repents of having led people far astray from the discipleship that Jesus calls his followers to. It is a moving and powerful testimony to how far the mighty must sometimes fall to be humbled before the Lord.

My single argument with Hanegraaff (who otherwise mirrors much of my own belief) is his insistence that Christian Apologetics must begin with the assertion that evolution is wrong and flawed. Hanegraaff is concerned throughout this book about people seeing Christianity as ridiculous and pointless as a result of prosperity preaching. However, this is precisely how people who do not believe see Christians who deny evolution. Why begin there? Why insist upon it? Given that Genesis 1 and 2 are just 2 of several different creation accounts, why is it such an issue in Apologetics? His rejection of evolution with regard to humans is based on the fact that transitional fossils have been hoaxed. Well, by that logic, we should reject the Resurrection of Christ because the Shroud of Turin is also a hoax, not to mention centuries of pawning off hoaxed artifacts of the Apostles and the Virgin Mary as actual. The standard must go both directions. Regardless, rejection of a scientific theory (theory being a repeatable, observable phenomenon proven over and over again based on a hypothesis that can potentially be disproven) as a basis of Apologetics seems dubious at best and doomed to failure at worst.

In almost all ways, I recommend this book highly. It is well-written, well-researched and well-thought. Hanegraaff has produced a powerful and passionate rejection of the “health and wealth”, “prosperity”, “say it and have it” movement in Christianity.