The changing image of Suzanne Hinn may be due to gastric bypass surgery!

In December 1999, Suzanne Hinn looked like this	By August 2000, Suzanne Hinn had transformed into this

I first saw Benny Hinn around 1992. He made a rather strange impression on me. Coming on late night television, he showed pictures of large crusades where he would sweep his hand over sections of the audience and people would fall down, supposedly 'slain in the Spirit'. I suspected he might have a Roman Catholic background (he later clarified this on a TV show - he was brought up in the Greek Orthodox church, not the Roman Catholic church).

When I first looked Hinn up on the web, I found only a couple of brief mentions. His website, supposedly up and running was down. Intrigued by this strange man's approach, I remember feeling frustrated that I could not find more background information about him.

I recently looked up Hinn again but not Benny - his wife Suzanne. I was checking out a rumor about whether she had Gastric Bypass Surgery for obesity. If you look at the photos above, it's obvious that she lost about 100 lbs in a few months. It's possible without surgery but not probable.

It's understandable that Hinn, who claims the Annointing of the Holy Spirit to heal in large numbers around him, would not like folks to know that although he claims to have healed cancer, polio, AIDS and other organic illnesses, he could not have healed his wife's obesity.

And as a matter of fact, if Suzanne had been healed through Hinn's ministry, this fact would likely be a headliner in his presentation. Yet, there is nothing about Suzanne's rapid slimdown in any of the Hinn literature (at least that I can find).

Suzanne Hinn did not make the news because of her possible gastric bypass surgery but for two instances which are equally interesting. In Dec 1998, she was supposedly caught shop lifting in South Africa - the charges were later dropped. And in Dec 1999, she was filmed in front of their home church in Orlando Florida, saying that people needed a Holy Spirit enema, up their rears.

The story of the vivacious and animated Suzanne caused a shock in the Christian community, some of whom if caught with a mouth of excrement would not say anything but roses, was made worse when the TV Network, Comedy Central picked it up the film for one of their shows entitled "Godstuff". The video was quickly made into a "Real Media" file and is viewable on several places on the Internet.

The Benny Hinn ministries threatened to sue Comedy Central but evidentally never followed through. The link to the video is still available and many of Binn's detracters on the web, gladly show their readers how to view the "Holy Ghost enema" as the video has come to be called.

The mystery continues. On the Benny Hinn website, I discovered that he featured his wife in his daily TV show for one week in November 2000. Suzanne Hinn's transformation had gone a lot further than being very slender looking. Pale as a ghost and slightly stooped over, she sat quietly by Hinn's side and didn't say one word during the entire show. It was a transformation worthy of the Ira Levin story, "The Stepford Wives". In the shows from the next week, she had disappeared from his side - were the ratings down on the shows where the New Suzanne appeared? And of course, from the drastic nature of the gastric bypass surgery, one cannot help but wonder if some of Suzanne Hinn's quiet demeanor on the show was caused by the possibility that she simply did not feel very well, physically.

Benny and Suzanne married in 1979 - Benny claims that they were brought together by God and didn't know each other well before marriage (Suzanne was the daughter of a friend of Benny's). Benny began his ministry in the 1980's and has gotten endorsements from several respected persons in the Christian world including Jerry Falwell. He's toned down his ministry a bit from the earlier days (doesn't sweep his hand over whole sections of the audience, slaying them in the Spirit anymore) but still has the emphasis on healing people as the main attraction of his presentations.

Like other healers, he's been accused of faking the healings by either hiring actors or by stimulating people to run around looking 'fine' with an adrenolyn high, only to go home that night and become more sick. This was also seen in Kuhlman healings, documented in the research of William Nolan, MD in his book, HEALING written in the 1980's. Nolan followed up on several Kuhlman healings only to find that not one of them had been really healed - one or two even went home and died the night of the 'revival' at which they had danced around a few hours earlier. Nolan attributes the 'healed look' to an adrenolyn rush.

The fact that Suzanne may have resorted to serious and risky surgery for obesity when her husband is such a reknown healer, does cast suspicion on him as to whether he, himself, considers his healing power for real. This is in contrast to evangelists like Oral Roberts who really believed in what they preached and is a trend some religionists don't like to see happening. That is, the media fakery which is prevailent in today's TV and movie stars should not extend to the sharing of the Gospel least the listener think the Gospel is as fake as those sharing it.

Whether Hinn believes in his ministry or not, he likely is going to the bank. Although he refuses to disclose his income, estimates have put it in the millions - one estimate was as high as 75 million a year. The days of the stable to house Jesus are gone in some places - some of today's modern day Christians are housed in the palaces which many felt Jesus should have been born in.

Sue Widemark

ref: several on line sources, the Benny Hinn website and email messages

Also:

Nolan, William, MD: Healing, A Doctor in Search of a Miracle (NY, 1981)

Buckingham, Jamie: Daughter of Destiny - Kathrin Kuhlman (NY, 1979)

Following is one of the source articles on the web:

Was Televangelist Benny Hinn’s wife, Suzanne Hinn, busted on December 4 for shoplifting in a department store in South Africa? Benny Hinn’s ministry says, “no,” but a published story in the Cape Times says, "yes." 

David Browkaw, spokesman for the Benny Hinn Ministries told the Christian Sentinel that it was "physically impossible to have been Suzanne in South Africa on that day since the day before the incident was the 25th anniversary of Benny Hinn Ministries celebration in America in which Suzanne Hinn participated.” 

It has since been verified that the shoplifting arrest occurred on December 4, 1998, not 1999. 

Suzanne Hinn made quite a splash on a recent Comedy Central "GodStuff" segment of The Daily Show. They aired a clip of her outlandish behavior at the Hinn’s home church, Orlando Christian Center. The GodStuff segment opens with Suzanne shouting, “If your engines aren’t revved up, then what you need is a holy ghost enema right up your rear end!” She is later shown making gestures like a charging bull, storming across the platform back and forth and then sliding on her belly across the floor to a stop where she remained motionless for several minutes. 

Comedy Central was sent a threatening letter by Benny Hinn’s attorneys who backed down after being brushed off by the Daily Show’s attorneys. That segment can be seen at Comedy Central’s website  linked at the end of this article.

Apparently, the South African shoplifting charges against Suzanne Hinn were dropped due to the backlog of cases in the Cape Town Magistrate Court.