Francis Chan Talks Little God Theology, Benny Hinn's Love For Jesus, and Blames John McArthur for Bad Choices

In Part two of recent interview with Remnant Radio, Francis Chan, once a Master’s Seminary grad and now a spiritually squirrely scoundrel who was last seen healing an entire village without the Holy Spirit, butchering church history, and speaking at a Roman Catholic conference, covered a whole gamut of topics in an exquisitely interesting interview, demonstrating that he is confused, unmoored, and uncertain about what he believes, tossed to and fro yet touted as a highly sought after leader. Here are a few nuggets from the program. Transcript lightly edited for clarity.

The hosts get squishy about our posture of correction

If someone has apostatized, they’re preaching a false gospel, there should be, I mean certainly a righteous anger that they’re leading God’s people astray, but it should also be a heart of brokenness that this person is far from God. So I would say discernment ministry, there’s nothing wrong with it, calling balls and strikes when people violate standard Christianity orthodoxy, man, call it out….[But] .it reminds me of our interview we did with Crawford Loritts where he talked about like “hey, if you have to correct somebody, you need to have a broken heart and tears in your eyes, that’s how you know you’re doing it with the right spirit”– that’s like bam! Such a good leadership lesson.”

Francis on ‘Little God Theology’, after hanging out with so many people who endorse it and believe it

I’m not aware of the little God theology in you know, real strong charismatic circles, so I don’t know how to speak to that.

Preaching at the SEND event with Benny Hinn and Todd White

I did know there was a possibility that he [Benny] would be there, and actually, my friend said ‘hey, I know you’re speaking in this conference, I’m considering having Benny Hinn there.’ And I’m like ‘whoa!’ And he says ‘hey, will you come to meet with him? I don’t even know what I think about it.’ And I’m like ‘alright, let’s go.’

So we go to this lunch, I’ll spare you all the details but I’m just kind of going- I just want to learn. I want to see what’s going on. The first thing Benny does is say ‘you guys eat. Do you mind if I just talk for awhile?’

And he just starts pouring out his heart. He starts saying ‘do you guys believe you can lose the favor of God? Like he doesn’t trust you anymore?’ He goes ‘I believe I have lost God’s favor. He gave me a gift and I got concerned about money, about friendships about my family and fame, and I have not been close to Jesus in years.’

He goes, I want to say two or three months ago, he says ‘I’ve blocked out this time where I just want to be alone with Jesus and nothing.’ And I mean, he goes on this whole discourse where I’m like ‘whoa, this is not at all what I expected.’

And then he plays this old hymn, he says ‘before you talk about this or that, will you just quiet yourselves into the presence of God, because this is where I have failed.’

Francis says that Hinn concluded by pointing to him as a random audience member and exhorted him to never love anything more than Jesus and keep his heart pure, and talks about the struggle of trying to fight and come back.

And so am I saying ‘hey, I’m a benny Hinn follower now?’ I started praying for him after that because he’s got his world that kept sucking him into these things and yet there was something inside that was pulling him away from the money. And I don’t know where he is today. I don’t know where that is, but I’m just going, gosh, when I hear someone talk like that-and no I didn’t do all the research and everything else- I just, I was scared of him you know, so I say that and to anyone whose listening, I don’t know you guys (Remnant Radio hosts) and [yet here we are talking]

John MacArthur encourages Chan to speak at different events

“It was actually John MacArthur, years ago, when I was about to speak at this other place, and because I graduated from school, I’m like ‘hey, you think it’s ok that I speak there?’ And he says ‘you know, I have friends that only speak at the places where everyone agrees with them. I’ve had a different view, I always thought, well, the people who need me are the ones with different theology.’

So I thought ‘huh. That’s good, John MacArthur, I’ll take that from you.’ So that’s where my mindset of going to people who are different from me and trying to shed light and this and that, it actually originated at that time.

Mike Bickle loves John MacArthur

When I went to visit with Mike Bickle the first time and speak there, his associate pastor who drove me from the airport, he says ‘look, there’s only two people I read. Mike Bickle and John Macarthur.’ I’m like ‘what!?’

You know I get there and I mean, Bickle is a big John Macarthur fan. And he loves his writings. Loves what he says with the word of God. Loves his stand on truth, and anyways, I thought I’d throw that in.

Note. People were getting hung about our earlier title, so we modified it. It used to say ‘Francis Chan talks little god theology, Benny Hinn’s love for Jesus, and John Mcarthur’s Eumenical advice.’ This advice from MacArthur about having a proper, *biblical ecumenism* (our word) is a good thing. 99% of ecumenical movements are ungodly, and MacArthur is famously against them, but getting together with faithful brothers and sisters from different denominations, or speaking at their conferences ought not to be discouraged. Key word ‘faithful.’