Row over alleged casting out of demons from Ugandan evangelist
Trinidad PM called “foolish” over prophetess
Further reports are coming in about Benny Hinn’s recent crusade (blogged by me here) in Uganda. The Kampala New Vision gives an interesting account:
RENOWNED pastors including Robert Kayanja were hit by a spiritual force which threw them down flat on the ground during international evangelist Pastor Benny Hinn’s crusade on Saturday.
…Kayanja fell twice in his seat as Hinn approached the row where the pastors were seated. Hinn called him forward and Kayanja approached him swaying, with a stunned look on his face, before falling flat on his back. Hinn instructed his aides to pick up Kayanja, but every time he was lifted he fell until he was left on the ground for some time.
…When Hinn asked him to pray for Uganda, Kayanja, in a shaky, uncharacteristically husky voice said: “When he told us to join our hands, I saw Jesus over our heads.” Kayanja then broke down and cried and said” “Our past has been erased in the mighty name of Jesus. I can hardly stand in this place.”
Other pastors go get the treatment were “Imelda Namutebi, Isaac Kiwewesi, John Michael Mugerwa and a pastor from West Africa”. In the case of Namutebi, Hinn pronounced that:
“God is giving you power over demons. He is giving you power over Satan, when you walk in, Satan will walk out,”
However, according to the Sunday Monitor it seems that Kayanja was not completely satisfied with his religious experience:
Much as our own Pastor Robert Kayanja occupied a front seat at Benny Hinn’s Namboole crusades, sources close to his aides say he left a disappointed man.
Reports say that what disturbed Kayanja (below) most was Hinn’s power to make him fall on the ground unconsciously.
This is said to have embarrassed Kayanja before his followers who thought he was at the same level with Benny Hinn in terms of spiritual prowess. Now his critics are moving around telling people such action by Hinn to Kayanja was to drive demons away from him.
Others are saying these demons must have been the reason why he gave a false prophecy that a presidential candidate in last year’s elections would die before polling day [I blogged on this here]. Kayanja is reportedly wondering what he would tell his followers whom he rid of demons.
One supporter, though, has denied reports that Kayanja had been exorcised (link added):
I was very disappointed to read in the Daily Monitor of May 21 an article on the Benny Hinn crusade, in which you claimed that Pastor Robert Kayanja had demons cast out of him, and that he was cleansed. I attended the crusade on the said day, and at no one time did Pastor Hinn talk of casting demons either out of Pastor Kayanja, Pastor Imelda Kula Namutebi or Pastor Kiwewesi.
…He also said that he could see power around Pastor Namutebi, and prophesied an anointing for chasing demons and breaking witchcraft over her life. He also spoke of a powerful anointing upon Pastor Kiwewesi. At no time did he chase any demons from them and I am still amazed at where your reporter got that story.
Meanwhile, Hinn is also the focus of controversy in Trinidad and Tobago, over an incident involving the Prime Minister. The Trinidad Express reports:
American televangelist Benny Hinn has told millions of TV viewers that he thought Prime Minister Patrick Manning to be a “foolish man”, after an incident which occurred during his last visit here.
This is a bit different from Hinn’s normal modus operandi; in Uganda he lavished praise on the Museveni regime. Hinn made the statement on his TBN programme:
…”Years ago I was in Trinidad…this man was sitting on the platform and I said… you will be the next Prime Minister and he is till now. I was in his (Manning) office a few months ago… he brought with him a very foolish woman who called herself a prophetess.
“He came to the room with this woman and said “I have a gift for you”. So he looked at me, said this is the woman, she has a word for you… I was not happy and when I am not happy people will know it.
“He (Manning) said I want her to pray for you and give her the word, I take her with me everywhere he said (Manning).
“God speaks to me through her. She has been a great blessing to the Government. I’m thinking you foolish man.
“This woman reaches out to touch me and I grab her hand in mid air, ‘don’t touch me’ I said. Shaken, I said Mr Prime Minister, I honour you but I don’t know who this woman is…nobody will lay hands on me and I walked out of the room. Whether it is the Prime Minister or President, nobody lays hands on me. I don’t know what spirit is in her. Don’t let people touch you.”
The mysterious woman is profiled in the local Newsday:
Her identity and address must not be made public. The woman, who is mixed with Chinese and Spanish, spoke for a few minutes outside the gates of her home before inviting me upstairs, into her “counselling room.”
…She spoke with the PM on the telephone when he contacted her and also met with him in person. She did not want to say anymore about the Prime Minister, or the visit to American tele-evangelist Benny Hinn at Crowne Plaza Hotel in Port-of-Spain last May.
Instead she spoke about her conversion from Roman Catholicism to the Full Gospel (Christian) religion in 1982.
…Asked again if she had given Manning any spiritual guidance, the woman replied, “I met with him on five occasions, I told him certain things but he was not obedient, that is why things are the way it is now in the country.”
At this point she cut short the interview, and said to this reporter, “I understand that you have your work to do but if you write any report for the papers the judgement of God shall fall upon you.”
Further:
…Pastor Winston Cuffie of Miracle Ministries, who was a member of the planning committee for Hinn’s visit, sought to clear the air…
…”The whole issue was completely taken out of context, Hinn meant ‘foolish’ in a joking manner because first of all his tone did not come across with anger or vengeance.
“Hinn I know has a high respect for Prime Minister Patrick Manning as the head of the country and I know that he meant no disrespect or offence and if Manning should take offence I know that Hinn would humbly apologise,” Cuffie said. He said Hinn was using the example of the woman to explain the seriousness of the act of the “laying of hands.”
A Hindu writer in the Trinidad Guardian, though, is unimpressed:
The people of T&T have again been shamed by Benny Hinn, the Evangelical pastor from the US. After his first visit he declared that Trinidad was “a voodoo-land” where he cast out “devils.”
…In his last visit to T&T, Pastor Hinn offered to “heal” persons at a mass crusade in the Queen’s Park Savannah. Subsequently, one such person died at the San Fernando General Hospital.
Reports from Hinn’s Uganda visit also contain accounts of the miraculous. Returning to the New Vision:
An emaciated woman was brought in on her death bed but she got up and danced, hugging Hinn and promptly got saved. A crippled boy from Lango called Moses walked and his sister could not contain her excitement.
A woman who was due for an operation for tumours in her abdomen, produced a medical report on the second day of the crusade, showing that her tumors had disappeared. Hundreds came forward to say they were healed and immediately got saved.
The Sunday Monitor, meanwhile, has decided to have a bit of fun:
Angry demons are demanding a commission of inquiry to establish how the pastors “pretended to be possessed” at the event. Demon Temeluchus (the Chief Angel of Torment) known for his calmness was the first to break the silence when the protestors eventually gathered at the town hall in Hell City.
“I must say I was in Gaza and the West Bank the whole time. Anyone who accuses me of being in Uganda is lying. Just turn on the TV and see how much work I have done with these Palestinians and Israelis. I should win an Oscar for that, not some miserable crusade in the middle of nowhere,” he shouted. “And who is Benny Hinn anyway? he added to a round of “hear hear” from the demons.
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