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Growing Up Hinn
Iâm a sample of Jesus. Iâm a super being.
âBENNY HINN
âCosti! Get over here now!â
With a jolt, I quickly turned to look behind me. I was in the green room at the healing crusade, mere inches away from the bowl of Cheez-Its, with plans to devour them by the handful. But instead, I was busted. It was my father hollering at me, and he was worked up into a frenzy.
âOral Roberts is about to leave, and he is waiting to lay hands on you! What are you doing back here? The power of God is about to hit the place! Hurry!â he commanded. As we rushed down the stadium hallway, the scolding continued. âThis is a once in a lifetime opportunity to be prayed for by the greatest man of God to ever live besides your uncle. Donât let me catch you back there again!â
I was just an awkward teenager enjoying a free vacation and trying to get a snack during the four-hour healing service that my uncle, Benny Hinn, was conducting, but my dad had other plans. It wasnât easy to endure the whole service without sneaking into the green room available for staff members. The people in there were always so nice that I preferred to be back there much more than in the arena filled with singing, yelling, fundraising, and commands to pray in tongues.
Everyone who worked the crusade as staff or volunteer always walked on eggshells during the service. If even attenders were caught moving during key points, it wasnât uncommon for my uncle to scold the crowd, âDonât move! Shhh . . . The Holy Spirit is here. Donât grieve him!â If a staff member or volunteer was caughtâthat was not pretty. No matter how long the service, you never wanted to get caught moving around and being a distraction, because we believed that Satan used distractions to cause people to miss out on their healing or their touch from God. Not paying attention? Jesus will simply pass you by.
This night, I had sneaked off the left side of the stage. Uncle Benny turned his head to speak to the right side of the arena, and I was out of my seat so fast nobody knew I had even been there. Nothing can come between me and the green room now. Or so I thought.
What I remember after getting busted is my father sobbing harder than Iâd ever seen anyone sob as a frail old televangelist put his massive hand on my head and mumbled something about favor, anointing, the miraculous, and blessings. Then it was done. Okay! I thought. Now that this is over, letâs get back to the green room. As I walked back to the arena floor with my father, he told me that the greatness of the moment I had just experienced would become evident in the years ahead. The special anointing on my life was set, sealed, and certain to produce abundant blessings. I was going to be a very healthy, wealthy, and happy man. Bring it on, Lord, Iâm ready when you are!
Family Ties
While the Hinn name has come to be associated with healing services and the prosperity gospel, it wasnât always that way. The prosperity gospel and faith-healing belief systems represent only a few individuals within the entire family, and our family is huge. Many members of the Hinn family went a completely different direction in life. Even today, there are hardworking, God-honoring Hinns who have integrity in all they do. Some run successful businesses and work for major corporations. Some have worked in high-level positions with local government and US homeland security. Others have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the poor, expecting nothing in return. Most have never made a dollar they didnât honestly earnâmost. Unfortunately, our family has not been in the news primarily for earning an honest wage or helping the poor. If youâre reading this, chances are youâve probably come to know the Hinn name for all the wrong reasons.
My father grew up in Jaffa, Israel. Arabic was the familyâs first language, and a small but loving home was the center of family life and happiness. My Greek grandfather, Costandi (Costi) Hinn, whom I am named after, worked a job for a department of local government and was well respected. False claims have been made about his being the mayor of Jaffa; he wasnât. My Armenian grandmother, Clemance Hinn, was a homemaker who could put you in a food coma for days. She was the most loving woman and a devoted mother, and even up until her death in 2016, her doors were open to everyone (as long as they stayed to eat!). The religious beliefs of the Hinn family were staunchly Greek Orthodox, though it was more cultural than anything. I visited the neighborhood my father grew up in as a young boy, and to this day people there tell stories about the warmth and love within the Hinn family home. But not every child in the Hinn home felt that love.
At around six foot two and 200 pounds, my grandfather Costi had a solid work ethic, a blue-collar outlook on life, and the looks of Clark Gable. He was a manâs man. He expected his six boys to behave like men, and especially for his oldest son to possess some level of fortitude to establish himself as a respectable man. This is normal in Middle Eastern culture. At the very least, the oldest son is expected to make his father proud. He doesnât have to be rich. He doesnât have to be famous. He just has to do something respectable.
This expectation proved problematic for my uncle Benny, because he was withdrawn and stuttered, was much more feminine than the other boys, and made wild claims that were considered silly schoolboy tales. One of his most well-known claims was that when he was eleven years old, Jesus physically appeared to him in his room and revealed to him that he would be in ministry one day.
My grandfather Costi, however, was not impressed with Benny, his oldest son. Costi would say to him, âOut of all my children, Toufik [his real name is Toufik Benedictus Hinn], you wonât make it.â This crushed Bennyâs young heart. He would think, Yes, I will make it! To this day, my uncle Benny has made it clear that his fatherâs words wounded him and motivated his desire for success in life. At the root of all of this family drama lies one thing: a father who wanted his son to work hard and make an honest wage, and a son who felt rejected by his father and set out to prove him wrong.
War, Peace, and Poverty
In 1967, the Six-Day War erupted, and the Arab-Israeli conflict surged to new heights. So many bombs exploded near the Hinn family home that they frequently had to take shelter in underground bunkers. In a wise and protective move, my grandfather Costi found a sponsor in North America, and by July 1968, the familyâCosti, Clemance, and their childrenâemigrated to Toronto, Canada. They had finally escaped the violence of the Middle East, but new challenges arose. Culture shock set in, and life would never be the same.
As the family settled into their new Canadian home in Toronto, Ontario, it became clear that life in the Great White North was not going to be like life in Israel. They spoke no English, had few friends, and were crammed into a small home. My grandfather went from steady work in Jaffa to a factory job in Toronto that paid modestly, and when another child was born, he had eight mouths to feed. The Hinn family experienced what many immigrants do. They figured out quickly that they would have to fight to survive.
My father and uncles were enrolled in school, where they quickly became a laughingstock. Because they spoke very little English, they used the word hi as a primary response. âHello,â someone would say. âHi,â was their simple reply. âWhat is your name?â the person would ask. âHi . . . hi . . . hi,â they would answer and quickly exit the scene. Many times they were bullied and made fun of for their ethnicity, so strength in numbers meant survival.
After fighting through the first few years, the young Middle Eastern immigrants found meaningful friendships with other immigrant children and settled into their peer groups. All of the brothers, that is, except Benny, who eventually was approached by a group of students at Georges Vanier Secondary School who wanted him to come to a prayer meeting. Perhaps seeking acceptance, Benny went to the meeting, where the students began to speak in tongues. Around the time that he joined the group and believed he was converted to Christianity, he began to claim having visions of Jesus.
The rest of the Hinn family was not happy about it. My grandfather made one thing very clear to Benny: âWe did not come to Canada for religion. We came for peace.â The religion of the Hinn family was already set. We were a Greek Orthodox family. This extreme version of westernized Christianity that Benny had just converted to was not going to fly.
Benny, however, continued down his path, determined to make something of himself. It didnât take long for him to find his calling. While the rest of the family pursued various jobs and education to establish a steady income, his greatest inspiration for a career came from an unlikely source: a woman preacher.
The Lady in the White Dress
The year was 1973. It was a cold winter Friday in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, just a few days before ChristmasâDecember 21, to be exact. My uncle Bennyâs friend Jim had told him about a woman who he said was the most anointed preacher heâd ever seen. She had immense power and a flair for the dramatic. His curiosity piqued, Benny went along. Being young in his beliefs and without much grounding or sound teaching, he was ready for his next spiritual experience. What transpired inside the doors of First Presbyterian in Pittsburgh that morning changed the course of Hinn family history forever.
As Benny waited outside the church for almost two hours, he began to shake uncontrollably, like he did whenever he felt like God was touching him. Finally, the doors opened, and he and Jim rushed down the aisle and found seats. The worship continued until finally the world-famous faith healer named Kathryn Kuhlman (1907â1976) emerged at the crescendo of the music. Clothed in a flowing white dress, she captivated the audience with testimonies of healings and exciting teachings that seemed to be way beyond what an average Christian would experience. Time and time again, she pointed in Bennyâs direction and shouted, âDonât grieve the Holy Spirit!â Feeling as though she were talking directly to him, Benny hung on her every word as she taught things about the Holy Spirit that he had never heard before.
After the service ended and the crowd left, Benny stayed in the pew for quite some time and pondered what he had just witnessed. Then, back home in Toronto, over the course of a year, he felt Godâs presence visiting with him in his room, preparing him for his special ministry. Every day during that time, he woke up and said, âGood morning, Holy Spirit,â a phrase that later became the title of his bestselling 1990 book.1
The Birth of a Ministry
After seeing Kathryn Kuhlman in 1973, Benny Hinn knew what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.2 He spent several years doing itinerate ministry, and at the same time, my grandparents softened to Christianityâs message. They both surrendered their lives to Christ. My grandfather remained quite reserved in his faith, never speaking in tongues or engaging in any type of excessive beliefs and behaviors. My grandmother became somewhat more expressive in her faith but also kept her rudder deeply set in the Scriptures. Like any parent, they both loved Benny and did their best to be more accepting of his ministry path, but they were still extremely skeptical of his choice of friends and ministry circles. My grandmother Clemance often scolded him when he ministered with men and women who were known to be scandalous. In all the years of his ministry, no one was more critical and vocal about his alliances than my grandmother.
Eventually, Benny moved from Canada to the US and married Suzanne Harthern. During those early years, the rest of the family made professions of the Christian faith as well. In 1982, the family was shaken to the core by the death of my grandfather, and soon the rest of the family moved to the US, settling in Orlando, Florida. By 1983, Benny had founded the Orlando Christian Center, and three of his brothers joined him in pursuing church vocations. He built the church by pairing Bible teaching (with his special views added) with a healing ministry (using Kathryn Kuhlmanâs methods). It was the perfect formula for drawing a spiritually curious crowd along with those who were desperate for answers and healing.
The ministry grew quickly, and thousands filled the seats of the church in Orlando. My uncles William and Sam, along with my father, Henry, were all groomed under Bennyâs ministry, and faith healing became the calling card of the Hinn family ministry. The brother who worked with Benny the longest throughout the years and revered him the most was my father. Thatâs how I got so close to the center of the action.
The Hinn Family Franchise
As my uncle learned his craft from Kathryn Kuhlman, he also started adopting the health and wealth theology of prosperity preachers like Oral Roberts. My father followed closely in Bennyâs footsteps. After a few years of working for Benny at Orlando Christian Center, he took the same ministry model and planted a new church in Vancouver, British Columbia. Like franchising a business, with a brand customized for its location, Vancouver Christian Center was poised to be a hit.
The church launched with a bang in 1987, when I was three years old. Right from the get-go, it proved to be the right place and the right time for a church like ours. The Hinn name had grown more prominent in the Pentecostal and charismatic circles we were a part of, so the seats filled and momentum grew quickly.
A few years later, my father founded a school to teach everyday people how to do the miracles that Jesus did. He called it The Signs and Wonders School of Ministry. Anyone could pay tuition to learn how to do miracles, speak in tongues, and perform healings. He taught the classes and included historical material designed to inspire people to emulate the giants of the past. Teachings from people like John G. Lake (1870â1935), Smith Wigglesworth (1859â1947), Oral Roberts (1918â2009), William Branham (1909â1965), and Kenneth Hagin (1917â2003) were featured.
Vancouver Christian Center was loud and proud about its doctrinal foundations, and the Kuhlman-Roberts combination of teachings proved to be a cash cow. There was no subtlety about the direction the church was heading. Crowds came and money poured in. We began living the dream.
By 1997, when I was thirteen and the church was a decade old, our main home was a six-bedroom, eight-bathroom mansion that covered just a little less than ten thousand square feet in South Surrey, British Columbia. We had a private gate, a swimming pool, an indoor hot tub, a steam room, a sport court, and more than two acres of land to play on. My bedroom suite, larger than most peopleâs living rooms, boasted a large walk-in closet, a bathroom with a Jacuzzi tub, standup shower, marble tile, and, yes, gold fixtures. We drove multiple Mercedes-Benz vehicles (from a convertible to an SUV), vacationed around the world, and stayed in expensive hotels. I remember celebrating my eighth birthday in the Holy Land (Israel) a...
