Good Morning, Holy Spirit

Benny Hinn is a well known charismatic preacher, loosely associated with the Word of Faith movement. This is a revised and updated edition of Hinn's bestselling "Good Morning, Holy Spirit". The book is part autobiography, part theology. Personally, I found the autobiographical parts to be the most interesting ones.

Hinn grew up in Jaffa in Israel, the son of a Greek father and an Armenian mother. He was nominally Greek Orthodox, but considered himself a Catholic, since his parents sent him to Catholic schools. When Hinn was a teenager, the family moved to Canada. There, Hinn eventually became a charismatic Christian, something which met with strong disapproval from his parents and brothers. In the book, Hinn mentions his struggle with the family, a number of religious visions he received (including visions of Jesus Christ), and a dramatic experience at a revivalist meeting featuring Kathryn Kuhlman. Hinn eventually managed to convert both his parents to the charismatic version of Christianity.

Frankly, I think Hinn should have expanded on this part of the book.

Instead, the rest of the book deals with the Holy Spirit from a more theological angle. It's obvious that Hinn isn't a trained theologian. Evangelical heresy-hunters will spot both tritheism and adoptionism in his formulations. (And no, I'm not saying that Hinn necessarily *is* a tritheist or adoptionist. But you could put that spin on it, if you wish.) Hinn also implies that both the Father and the Son have bodies, although not material ones. The Father has some kind of immaterial "form", and looks like a human when he chooses to appear in visions. This, too, will rub many theologians the wrong way, while perhaps being more in line with folk spirituality.

Hinn emphasizes the personhood of the Holy Spirit, something he believes many Christians de-emphasize or don't even understand. Rather than seeing the Holy Spirit as a concrete person, co-equal with the Father and the Son, people tend to see the Spirit as an "it", a nebulous force or cloudy thing of some kind. To Hinn, the Holy Spirit is emphatically a Person which should be adored and worshipped just like God the Father or Jesus Christ. Indeed, Hinn seems to believe that the Spirit is somehow more important than the Father and the Son. Both the Father and the Son are in heaven. The Spirit, by contrast, is still on Earth. As a sidepoint, I noticed that Hinn's preferred Bible translation is the NKJV.

"Good Morning, Holy Spirit" may be of some interest to people who study the charismatic movement and its theological speculations. Personally, however, I found the autobiographical parts much more interesting and intriguing.
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