God is in the donations, not the details

SUNDAY INDEPENDENT, 12 MAY 2002

IT CAN’T BE EASY, being God. It’s not all fun and games and burnt offerings when you are the Light of the World. It’s a full-time job, being the Lord of All.

Being omnipotent will certainly help you rattle through your chores of a morning, but what with all the delivering from evil and smiting of unbelievers and deciding who prayed hardest to win an Oscar or the Currie Cup this year, I would be surprised if you had a spare minute for yourself at the end of the working day.

I don’t know where He found the time to dream up the duck-billed platypus, say, or earlobes, or fingerprints. In retrospect, I suppose it’s not surprising that He never did get around to sending me the digital watch with the calculator and miniature space invaders game for which I begged each evening on my hands and knees when I was eight.

As if all that weren’t enough, God also has to keep in touch with changing times. The march of technology waits for no one. When you wanted to get your message out to the world, it used to be sufficient to whip up a burning bush or a column of smoke or a talking donkey, but no more. Today God needs a satellite, and god knows satellites aren’t cheap. This was the thrust of Benny Hinn’s sermon on the Satellite Night Praise-a-thon (DStv, Events channel).

The praise-a-thon was part of a drive to raise money to buy a satellite for TBN, an American evangelist TV channel.

A silver-tongued shmooze artist named Benny Hinn stood at the podium in a small television studio that had been decorated to resemble a large modern church. A little balsawood here, some shiny gold fabric there, a painting on plaster or a stained glass window in the background, and the joint looked downright hallowed.

“That’s right, saints,” Benny Hinn was saying as I tuned in, “the Galaxy 5 is the most powerful satellite over North America! And we want it! The word of the Lord deserves only the best! But it’s not cheap!”

I was flattered that Benny Hinn should refer to me as a saint. I have never really thought of myself as saintly. Certainly, watching Benny Hinn, I was beginning to have extremely unsaintly thoughts.

Evidently it costs some infinitely large and infinitely loving amount of dollars each month to keep Galaxy 5 in the air and broadcasting TBN to a grateful world. Whence do you think such riches shall flow? “Saints, you don’t have to wait, you can call right now and pledge!” said Benny Hinn generously.

He held aloft a plywood model of Galaxy 5. “See! Doesn’t it look just like a little angel?” he cooed. “Your dollars can put one more angel into the air, hallelujah!” I peered at the screen. I had never seen an angel before, but if Benny Hinn is to be believed, and I can’t see any reason for him to lie, I can report that angels look very similar to wooden tomato crates with square wings made from tinfoil and bits of wire.

Benny Hinn seemed to feel that sending cash donations to the TBN network would secure peace in the Middle East and protect America from terrorist attacks.

“That is not a war between Jews and Arabs,” he reminded us, “it is a war between God and the devil.” It was unclear which side he aligned with God. Quite possibly neither.

“Let us pray for the safety of any Christians in the Middle East,” said Benny Hinn pointedly. The rest of the Middle East’s residents, he seemed to suggest, could look out for themselves.

“Now saints, remember September 11.” Benny Hinn surged forward. “Prayer can keep the enemy away! But how can we speed our prayers? By satellite, that’s how! Somebody say hallelujah!”

“Hallelujah!” said the accountants and bookkeepers of the TBN network.

Behind Benny Hinn on the stage, enthroned on gilt chairs with red velvet upholstery, sat Paul and Jane Crouch. Paul and Jane own the TBN network. Paul was resplendent in white suit and waistcoat and small white beard, looking like a pious Colonel Sanders. Jane was in the uniform of the televangelist’s wife: she wore a voluminous pink skirt, and had pink hair roughly the size and shape of Ayers Rock. Her eyelashes were as long and dark as a formation of sooty asparagus spears.

Paul and Jane beamed and nodded and occasionally raised their hands in the air as Benny Hinn spoke. Whenever Benny Hinn mentioned money, they shut their eyes and swayed in a kind of rapture.

Benny Hinn suddenly broke off what he was saying. “You know what?” he said. “The Lord has just spoken to me. Right here in my ear. He has told me what to do. I’m going to pledge $10 000 myself.”

Paul Crouch leapt from his throne in protest. “No, Benny, I can’t let you do that!” he declared staunchly.

“Don’t say no, Paul,” said Benny. “I must do it. God is speaking to me. Saints, can you hear God speaking to you? He is, you know. And you can call and pledge right this very minute.”

The call for cash rose in pitch and swelled like a Gregorian chant.

“Now don’t get me wrong, saints. You cannot buy the blessings of God. But any farmer will tell you that you can’t reap without sowing. Think of each dollar of your donation as a seed of faith.”

It was hard to believe that it was all real and not some elaborate satire. “Every time you give a gift of money, you are raising a weapon against the devil!” purred Benny Hinn, brushing lint from his Armani suit. “God wants you to call now! I know God well. I spend a lot of time with him and I know He wants you to call.”

It can’t be easy, being God. You work hard all day, and then just look at who you have to hang out with.