Hank Hanegraaff

It is easy to mock the historic follies of any subject, but "ontology recapitulates phylogeny", Nebraska Man and Piltdown Man were dead as serious subjects of evolution long before this book came out. Whatever Haeckel may have done is irrelevant, and has long been so. Homo erectus is still believed, but Hanegraaff doesn't touch on any of the many fossils discovered after Java Man. He mentions macroevolution and microevolution, and yet neglects to mention that biologists don't consider that a show more meaningful distinction, much less engage with their responses. He'll impute whatever evils he wants to evolutionists, but he ignores that racism was a perversive social problem common to evolutionist and creationist alike, and goes so far to claim that "While Scripture candidly acknowledges the existence of slavery, it never condones it." ("Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves." Leviticus 25:44.) (This claim frankly astonishes me; the first line of the forward claims he is a "superlative Bible teacher", so this is either a lie or a gross ignorance of a subject he teaches.)

Even in 1998, this would not have impressed someone with basic knowledge of evolution. Given that he was basically ignoring any developments beyond the early 20th century already, fifteen extra years of evidence doesn't mean that much, but DNA sequencing has provided huge new branches of evidence for evolution. show less

If you are a follower of a Word of Faith teacher or prosperity preacher, read this book with caution. Christianity In Crisis: The 21st Century will make you very unhappy with your current situation. This book counters many of the false teachers in the Word of Faith movement. This book looks at the false teachings of a huge cast of characters including: Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, Benny Hinn and many of the familiar faces on TBN television network. It looks at some hilarious claims such as the show more teaching that Adam was the first Superman, who could do such things as fly to the moon. This book also looks at more dangerous heresies including the one that Christ's work on the cross was not enough for salvation. Hank Hanegraaf has produced a wonderful resource with this book. If you are intrigued by Christian apologetics, this is an excellent book for you. It is also a great book for any Christian whose discernment skills are not yet the greatest. Hank does an excellent job of showing readers how to discern these false teachers. He also gives straight forward ways to approach reading the Bible and doing basic apologetics work. I would recommend this book to anyone at any level of Christian maturity. show less

From the introduction: “This book counters such contentions and crafts a cumulative case for the absolute authority of the Bible. It answers the question, ‘Has God spoken?’ in the affirmative and demonstrates beyond a reasonable doubt that the Bible is divine rather than merely human in origin. Without such assurance, Christianity would not have any more authority for faith and practice than does Islam, Mormonism, or a host of other misguided movements.”

I offer the above quote to set show more the tone of the book. I had a hard time with this book merely because of Hanegraff’s style. Not that his writing isn’t good—it’s actually quite superb and fun to read—but because he’s so downright feisty! He takes on an apologetic role, zealously attacking Bart Ehrman, President Obama, Bill Maher, or Richard Dawkins on every other page. When he’s not dissin’ scholars, he’s dissin’ fellow religions.

He says, “It is as unlikely that Jews falsified the Exodus as it is that they fabricated the Holocaust. Archaeology provides a wholly plausible framework for Jewish contentions regarding their enslavement and emancipation. While archaeology has thoroughly discredited the Book of Mormon, internal evidence provides credence to the people, places, and particulars found in the biblical text.” Oh, wow. Need I say more? One thing archaeology can say for certain is that there were never two million people tromping around in the desert for forty years.

Nevertheless, the book does hold your attention! I definitely never grew bored. It’s a little like listening to a talk show host that drives you totally bonkers, but that you can’t shut off.

At times, Hanegraff’s apologetic stance left me bewildered. He had no trouble arguing for the historic reliability of the flood story in the Bible, while in the next breath ridiculing earlier versions of the flood myth, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh. Does he really not recognize that the Hebrew version of the story is just as fantastic as the others? He then waffles on the subject, suggesting that perhaps Genesis implies a local flood rather than a worldwide one, and thus totally misses the point of the myth: That the ark was necessary to sustain life on the earth, because God was going to destroy everything he had made.

If you can ignore the sermonizing, however, there is a lot of thought provoking conversation in the book. I particularly enjoyed Hanegraff’s discussion of typology. Was Isaiah thinking of Jesus as he wrote about a young maiden giving birth to the child Immanuel? No, not according to Hanegraff (and he’s surely right), Isaiah was writing about his own time period. Did Hosea have Jesus in mind when he wrote, “Out of Egypt I have called my son?” Of course not, he was writing about Israel, not Jesus. How about Jeremiah’s words, quoted by Matthew to highlight the slaughter of the innocents by Herod: “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.” This quote highlights the utter silliness of imagining that Matthew was taking these prophesies as predictive; unquestionably, Matthew rightly understood this passage in Jeremiah to be a warning to the southern kingdom of Judah that they were about to experience what happened to Israel. These are not predictive prophecies, but typological prophecies. In this discussion, Hanegraff brings the Bible’s prophecies back to life in a believable and recognizable way. As Hanegraff explains, Matthew saw a historical pattern of events from the past that corresponded to present situations, and he saw them as quintessential fulfillments. The historical patterns reached a climax in the life of Jesus.

Other topics that I enjoyed were the discussion of archaeological finds, of the Abomination of Desolation (Hanegraff’s preterist tendencies subtly poke through here and there), and of figurative language in the Bible. Hanegraff writes a great book, he just gets a little too aggressive at times. show less

It is a discussion of (really an expose of) the Faith movement, the many preachers and authors who belong, and why what they preach and teach isn’t biblical. Here is a comment from his equip.org website: “Hanegraaff is deeply committed to equipping Christians to be so familiar with truth that when counterfeits loom on the horizon they recognize them instantaneously.” He has three goals stated in the introduction: 1. bring the truth to current people who have joined the Faith movement, show more 2. Clarify the position of the Faith movement for committed Christians, 3. show outside observers how the Faith movement is not biblical.

The book has extensive notes and quotes in the back and these make some of the most interesting reading. It is one thing to see what Hanegraaff describes as the beliefs of the Faith movement, and at times I don’t agree with his interpretation based on a single comment, but the collection of quotes from the cast of characters provide a very good picture of what these people believe, or at least preach.

He identifies belief such as denying the deity of Christ, struggling with death and disease due to a lack of faith, and affirming that we are equal to God and Christ. One that keeps coming up is that God can’t act until we pray or command Him to do something. This is so contrary to the sovereignty of God that it is ludicrous. The positive spin is that this Faith movement puts the individual in charge of their own fate so they can’t sit down and claim victim status any more. The insidious side is that much of what happens in this world is not under our control so then the blame for an illness or setback or death is placed on the “lack of faith” of the individual.

After reviewing the cast of characters and providing an overview of what they believe, Hanegraaff takes each major point and shows how the major Faith movement preachers present their point of view and then contrasts that with the Bible to show how their teaching is unbiblical. He ends with a section reaffirming the way to equip ourselves to be able to discern the truth and a section stating what the Bible teaches are the true foundations of Christianity.

There is some repetition of stories and quotes, but there are enough of them that they seem to provide a good picture of each person’s belief-system. The author also deals with different aspects of some of the issues in different places, so the repetition provides a reminder of the text while he builds a different point. A very good book with a very timely point, drawing people back to true faith. show less