Charismatic preacher Benny Hinn responded to a fresh wave of criticism about his ministry practices in a recent interview with Stephen Strang of Charisma magazine.
“The real Benny Hinn wants to finish better than when I began,” Hinn told Strang. “This is the real Benny Hinn today.”
Hinn has been engaged in a copyright dispute with Christian YouTuber Mike Winger, who last month published a four-hour video examining what he believes to be the financial and spiritual abuses perpetrated by Hinn’s ministry through the years.
Hinn has long been associated with the Word of Faith and prosperity gospel movements and has been known to promise miracle healings and financial wealth in exchange for donations to his ministry.
And while Hinn said in 2019 that he was “correcting” his theology to renounce prosperity preaching, little structural change has seemed to occur in his ministry practices or public preaching, as Winger pointed out in his exposé. Winger included several clips of Hinn after his public repentance in which Hinn promised followers material wealth and health in exchange for donations.
At the time of this article, Winger’s video has over 844,000 views.
Roughly two weeks after posting his in-depth examination of Hinn, Winger posted another video in which he revealed that representatives for Hinn’s ministry had been urging YouTube to remove the video for copyright infringement.
Winger said that after YouTube’s automated system denied Hinn’s request that Winger’s video be removed from the platform, a representative for Hinn appealed the decision, arguing that Winger’s use of videos posted by Hinn’s ministry violated copyright law.
However, YouTube ruled that Winger had complied with fair use laws when using Hinn’s content. YouTube then forwarded its correspondence with Hinn’s representative to Winger, who shared screengrabs of the correspondence with his YouTube audience.
“[YouTube] actually backed me up here, which is great,” Winger said, adding that, in his experience, it is not common for YouTube to side with someone who has been accused of copyright infringement. Winger said he expects he will soon hear from Hinn’s lawyers.
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During his interview with Stephen Strang, which was posted on Tuesday (May 7), Hinn did not directly address his dispute with Winger. However, he did speak generally about what he wishes he had done differently throughout his ministry career.
