Do You Believe In Miracles? -- Benny Hinn Packs Tacoma Dome With Thousands Of People Who Do

TACOMA - If Joshua could blow down the walls of Jericho with the blast of a trumpet, televangelist Benny Hinn nearly blew the top off the Tacoma Dome with a 1,000-voice choir, praise-to-God music cranked up to a deafening roar and more than 20,000 people clapping, praying, cheering and raising their hands to the heavens.

And that was just the warmup.

By the end of Hinn's four-hour Miracle Crusade last night, many spectators had dissolved into tears of joy and expectation as Hinn, the controversial faith healer from Orlando, Fla., ordered Satan out of the bodies of the sick and infirm, many of whom had entered the Dome in wheelchairs or with canes.

"Devil of infirmity," cried Hinn, "I command you in Jesus' name to let the people go!

"Someone is being healed of cancer," he told the huge audience as they prayed aloud for miracles. "A skin condition is being healed. A tumor is disappearing. Someone's legs are being healed. Someone with AIDS is being set free by the power of Almighty God!"

One man climbed onto the stage to testify he had been cured on the spot of life-threatening cancer. He thrust his cane away because he said he no longer needed it. A teenage boy broke down in tears and told Hinn he had been hobbled by a painful knee injury, but now the hurt was gone. To prove it, he ran back and forth across the stage.

An older woman said she was now strong enough to get out of her wheelchair. She, too, ran around the stage. Hinn noticed she was wearing a hearing aid. He told her to take it off. "I can hear!" she exclaimed as Hinn snapped his fingers by the side of her head.

As each testified, Hinn touched their foreheads and they fell backward into the arms of a waiting attendant, "slain in the Spirit," or overcome by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The people were identified only by first names or no names. It was not possible to determine from the audience area whether their claims were true, but no one at the Tacoma Dome seemed to greet their testimonies with disbelief.

Ron Smiddy, a 47-year-old used-automobile-parts dealer from Wenatchee, could be seen trying to lift himself from his wheelchair, but to no avail.

Still, said Smiddy, who lost the use of his legs in a motorcycle accident 24 years ago, "My heart has been touched because I have seen people who have been healed. Why I don't receive my healing, I don't know, I don't understand. But I still rejoice in the Lord." He noted there is a time and a season for everything.

"My time is coming," when God wills it, he said.

Second big event here

This was the second large evangelical Christian event in the Puget Sound region in a little more than a month. The Promise Keepers Christian men's gathering in July jammed the Kingdome with nearly 65,000 men seeking to be better husbands, fathers and citizens.

"God Almighty is moving in the Northwest," said Hinn in trying to explain why 22,000 to 24,000 people would flood into the Tacoma Dome on a Thursday night. The Miracle Crusade concludes tonight with a second "night of miracles" at the Tacoma Dome, beginning at 7 o'clock. The Dome was packed by 5 p.m. for yesterday's crusade. From a show of hands, Hinn determined the audience came from throughout Washington, Oregon and western Canada.

On stage were guest clergy, including the Rev. Fulton Buntain, pastor of the Tacoma Life Center and local host of the Miracle Crusade. Actress Dyan Cannon was in the audience and rose, pointing a finger to heaven, when she was introduced.

"We prayed that God would send a revival to this country," said Hinn. "Get ready, get ready. Don't be shocked if you hear one day that Bill Clinton is speaking in tongues," a belief by Pentecostals and some other Christian groups that speaking in an unknown language is a sign one has been filled with the Holy Spirit.

Hinn, 42, began preaching in 1974 and started his television ministry in 1990.

His flamboyant style reportedly was the basis for Steve Martin's portrayal of a faith healer in the movie "Leap of Faith." Hinn, in turn, was influenced by the late faith healer Kathryn Kuhlman, whom he first saw in the early 1970s at a church revival in Pittsburgh.

Money pours in

His media ministries, according to one magazine report, pulled in approximately $20 million last year - from the Miracle Crusades around the country and his internationally televised program, "This Is Your Day."

George Parson, a spokesman for Hinn, said he could not confirm the revenue figure. Hinn was not available for interviews.

Admission is free to the Miracle Crusades, but Hinn was asking for donations of $100 to $1,000 last night to support his ministry. This is the first time a crusade has been held in the Seattle-Tacoma area.

Hinn, born in Jaffa, Israel, of Greek Orthodox parents and raised in Toronto, has drawn criticism from some Christian leaders.

James Robison, an evangelist, and Hank Hanegraaff, president of the Christian Research Institute, warned Hinn two years ago that his ministry would fail if he continued such false teachings as people could have anything they wanted, from good health to a fancy car, if they had enough faith. Hinn subsequently renounced this so-called "word-of-faith" doctrine.

In addition to the crusades, TV program and book writing, Hinn is the pastor of the interdenominational World Outreach Center in Orlando, which serves 10,000 people a week. After years as an unaffiliated minister, Hinn was ordained last year as an Assemblies of God pastor.

Yet it is the Miracle Crusades that still come under the brightest, or harshest, spotlight. Critics of Hinn's Miracle Crusades maintain there is no documented proof of cures. Parson, the Hinn spokesman, said, "I think you have to draw your own conclusions. There have always been skeptics, ever since the Lord was on Earth."

Lester Sauvage, a prominent Seattle heart surgeon and founder of the Hope Heart Institute, said in an interview before last night's event he doesn't know how people can say whether "miracle" healings are valid. But he declined to dismiss healings by faith out of hand.

"I personally believe that mental attitude can influence a person's health," Sauvage said. "People who have a positive attitude and see a true purpose in their own recovery, I believe that they do better."

Peace of mind, serenity of the soul and exhilaration of the spirit - Sauvage's definition of happiness - come "in only one way to any one of us, from doing good things for selfless reasons," said Sauvage, a Roman Catholic.

Whether this means someone's cancer will diminish, he couldn't say. "But I think that the physical body is influenced by our mental state."

On a theological level, the Rev. Richard Steele, associate professor of theology at Seattle Pacific University, said that as a Christian he believes in miracles.

Christ the model healer

But he said Christians who believe God works through Jesus Christ to promote human welfare and grant healing to the sick should look to Christ as the model of a healing minister.

"He performed them (healings) out of sincere compassion for human sufferers but with very little fanfare, little self-display and almost with a kind of reluctance that he be made the center of attention."

Steele said he did not know Hinn's work directly and was speaking in general terms.

Pete Camery, a retired manufacturing company field representative from Clallam County, said he was "a little skeptical of (Hinn's) theatrics. But I think in his heart he is trying to do good."

Camery, 67, said he went to the Tacoma Dome to pray for the health of his wife, Opal, who suffers from asthma, diabetes and a heart condition, and for his son, Donald, who suffered a head injury in an automobile accident.

If they aren't cured, Camery said he would not see Hinn's crusade as some cruel hoax. The family would just keep praying. Hinn, after all, is not Christ, but an intercessor for Christ, Camery said.

Hinn noted people had come to the Tacoma Dome to feel God's presence.

"I pray that every sick body will be healed . . . that every lost soul will be born again in Jesus' mighty name. . . . We pray that no one shall leave this place the same," Hinn said.