Hank Unplugged: Essential Christian Conversations

In this podcast Hank Hanegraaff wants to highlight one of the most dangerous cults in the world. And we should know. The Christian Research Institute began as a counter-cult equipping ministry and has invested decades in monitoring the deceptions and distortions of cults. But Western Civilization has never known a cult like this one. Why? Because no other cult has come remotely close to the peril this one represents to civilization as we have known it. If this were a cult like Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormonism, it wouldn’t have made it past the front door. But since this is a secular cult, our now secularized culture has given it a green light. The cult is Wokeism. A cult that threatens our most basic values and freedoms; a cult that can literally destroy the world if it remains unchecked. For more information, see our current letter https://www.equip.org/letter-from-hank/ to supporters and the resource Awake, Not Woke: A Christian Response to the Cult of Progressive Ideology, available for your partnering gift.https://www.equip.org/product/cri-resource-awake-not-woke-a-christian-response-to-the-cult-of-progressive-ideology/ Also be on the lookout for a forthcoming full length podcast interview with Noelle Mering on this resource.Listen to Hank’s podcast and follow Hank off the grid where he is joined by some of the brightest minds discussing topics you care about. Get equipped to be a cultural change agent.Archived episodes are on our Website and available at the additional channels listed below.You can help spread the word about Hank Unplugged by giving us a rating and review from the other channels we are listed on.

Hank Hanegraaff, president of the Christian Research Institute and host of the Bible Answer Man broadcast, offers thoughts upon hearing of the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Queen of the United Kingdom for 70 years, she maintained that the teachings of Jesus Christ served as her guide throughout the entirety of her very long life—indeed, that Christ is the King she serves. In the foreword to The Servant Queen and the King She Serves (Bible Society, 2016), Queen Elizabeth expressed profound gratitude “to God for his steadfast love” throughout the duration of her life. She was also keenly aware of the reality that death is the great equalizer—as the Orthodox funeral service states, in the grave “kings and beggars dwell together.” In Money and Salvation: An Invitation to the Good Way, Andrew Geleris writes, “From the perspective of eternity, only during the relatively brief interval between birth and death does anyone have any control over money. And even this control is somewhat illusory. When, for example, we purchase a home or a plot of land, we claim that we ‘own’ it. However, the land has already seen many owners come and go over the preceding centuries, and one would expect that many more would claim such ‘ownership’ over the land in the future. Therefore, any claim of land ‘ownership’ requires a preposterous suspension of historical awareness.” The land, the wealth, and the honors of this world are all temporary. The Lord Jesus said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19–21 NIV 1984). Queen Elizabeth possessed extraordinary wealth as monarch. The question today for her is not, Did I have wealth on Earth? But, How did I use that wealth to store up treasure in heaven? For further study, see Andrew Geleris, Money and Salvation: An Invitation to the Good Way (https://www.equip.org/product/cri-resource-money-and-salvation-an-invitation-to-the-good-way-and-on-wealth-and-poverty-by-st-john-chrysostom-foreword-by-hank-hanegraaff/

What happens to our souls when we learn to give in accord with the words of our Lord? The answer is the central focus Money & Salvation: An Invitation to the Good Way, the much anticipated book by Dr. Andrew Geleris that is now available. Hank had a discussion with Dr. Geleris late last year that he would like to re-release in honor of the release of this book of which Hank could not give a higher recommendation. Do you give with a joyful heart? According to Dr. Geleris, “An utterly breathtaking divergence has developed between the joy of giving that God intends his people to experience and the way many Christians view giving as an unpleasant but necessary obligation of church membership.” Simply put, for many of us money has an unhealthy hold on our hearts. This conversation will challenge you to make a change in your life and view your finances from an eternal perspective. The Lord spoke more frequently and forcefully about almsgiving than he did about prayer, yet most Church leaders are reluctant to discuss money simply because it is often uncomfortable. “Dr. Geleris is passionate about challenging the Church to develop disciples with a biblical “theology of money” that promotes a Godly view on giving with all your heart that will leave Christians “refreshed—indeed, delighted—by recognizing the unfathomably great blessing God hopes to pour out on us through generosity.” “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2.9). For more information on receiving Money & Salvation: An Invitation to the Good Way and or On Wealth and Poverty by St. John Chrysostom with a Foreword by Hank Hanegraaff for your partnering gift please click here. https://www.equip.org/product/cri-resource-money-and-salvation-an-invitation-to-the-good-way-and-on-wealth-and-poverty-by-st-john-chrysostom-foreword-by-hank-hanegraaff/Topics discussed include: Hank Hanegraaff discusses why he is so excited that the book Money & Salvation: An Invitation to the Good Way is now available (0:00) relationship between money and salvation (7:40); how generous giving transforms our souls (11:00); The Parable of the Farmer (15:30); the relationship between repentance and finances (18:50); what almsgiving actually means and why it is so important (24:30); should we tithe? (27:10); the dangers of the prosperity gospel and the commodification of Christ (31:10); what can we learn from Mary washing the feet of Jesus? (37:25); what are whole burnt offerings and what is the equivalent today? (39:05); the “ovarian lottery” and God’s providence (45:00); how the parable of the soils inspired Alan Barnhart to create a financial finish line (47:25); what we can learn from St. Basil the Great about giving (55:45); what is sacrificial giving? (56:10); misconceptions about what tithing is for (1:00:35); how should we tithe? (1:03:25); we don’t truly own anything, in the grave “kings and beggars dwell together” (1:06:10); is there a problem with receiving public recognition for giving? (1:07:20); the spiritual growth we experience through giving (1:12:05); should we tithe on our gross or net income? (1:14:10); scriptural examples of giving (1:15:10); should we give to panhandlers? (1:17:10); are Christians fundraising the right way? (1:18:50); God’s financial priority is the care of the poor (1:121:55); the powerful lesson of the widow who gave all she had [Mark 12:41-44] (1:23:40); the rewards for almsgiving according to scripture (1:26:30); giving is more beneficial spiritually than financially (1:28:40). Listen to Hank’s podcast and follow Hank off the grid where he is joined by some of the brightest minds discussing topics you care about. Get equipped to be a cultural change agent.Archived episodes are on our Website and available at the additional channels listed below.You can help spread the word about Hank Unplugged by giving us a rating and review from the other channels we are listed on.

Hank Hanegraaff, president of the Christian Research Institute and host of the Bible Answer Man broadcast, responds to a recent tweet and video by Benny Hinn. According to Hinn, the Lord spoke to him, saying he needs to talk to his audience about the great catching up. And that his teaching about the rapture is timely because this event is nearly upon us. Popularized by John Nelson Darby in the nineteenth century, the pre-tribulational rapture theory contends that God has two distinct people and two distinct plans for their two distinct destinies. The church will be raptured seven years prior to the second coming of Christ, and Jews will suffer tribulation. Beginning with Darby, rapture theorists held that, due to the murder of Messiah, Jews were in for a time of unprecedented suffering referred to as the “Great Tribulation.” Multiplied millions today hold firmly to this belief. But is it biblical? Holy Tradition, including Scripture, knows nothing of a rapture independent of the bodily appearing of Christ. For further study, see Hank’s books The Complete Bible Answer Book—Collector’s Edition, Revised and Updated https://www.equip.org/donate/ and The Apocalypse Code: Find Out What the Bible Really Says about the End Times and Why It Matters Today https://www.equip.org/donate/

Hank Hanegraaff, president of the Christian Research Institute and host of the Bible Answer Man broadcast, expresses angst about what is going on in the world. The West is at war with God. This war embodies the dismantling of humanity. We are in the midst of redefining what is means to be human. In the beginning, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27 ESV). In redefining the biological realities of “male” and “female,” we are destroying the very body of Christ. The unalterable reality that God created “male and female” is now routinely regaled in the West as transphobic. Sex-specific designations such as “woman,” “female,” and “mother,” have now been neutered by linguistic absurdities like “pregnant, lactating, and post-partum individuals.” Even our newest female addition to the U.S. Supreme Court seems at a loss to define what the word “woman” means. Adding to the confused cultural conundrum, the “B” in LGBTQ+ is quite evidently at odds with the “T.” Bisexual (B) implies two options, while transgender (T) entails a dizzying array of gender identities devoid of common sense or biological reality. And even that merely scratches the surface of apostate Western woke wisdom. Adding insult to injury, multitudes of young people have been effectively reduced to generational lab rats subject to an unholy triad of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and irreversible surgical savageries. Right valuations of personhood build the church. Wrong ideas and perceptions destroy the body of Christ. Only in a Christian worldview does one see the perfect synergy of male and female—of Theanthropos as the Perfect Man, and of Theotokos as the perfect woman, and of God as the Heavenly Father, and of the church as the Mother that nourishes via the sacraments. Little wonder then that the devil is seeking to destroy the church, as woke clergy are aiding the prince of the power of the air in that very quest. For further study, see the upcoming issue of the Christian Research Journal, vol. 45, no. 2/3 (2022)—subscribe at https://www.equip.org/product/crj-subscription/ For more information, visit www.equip.org

“Solo Scriptura” — not sola Scriptura — is a disease of rampant innovation and a failure to respect Holy Tradition. Blaise Pascal speaking in the seventeenth century might just as well have been talking about the twenty-first: “Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.” As such, Hank Hanegraaff has dedicated this special edition of the Hank Unplugged podcast to discuss the imprudence of “solo Scriptura” with the sincere hope that in place of “solo Scriptura,” incessant innovation, and disregard for the Holy Traditions of the Church, the body of Christ may again return to “what has been believed everywhere, always, and by all” (St. Vincent of Lérins). Protopresbyter George Florovsky explained that Holy Tradition is neither “an independent instance, nor a complementary source of faith. Ecclesiastical understanding could not add anything to Scripture. But it was the only means to ascertain and to disclose the true meaning of Scripture. Tradition was, in fact, the authentic interpretation of Scripture. And in this sense, it was coextensive with Scripture. Tradition was actually Scripture rightly understood.” (Attribution to Florovsky was inadvertently left out of Hank’s quotation in the recording.) For bibliographical data and documentation of sources, see Hank’s From the President column, in the forthcoming (Fall 2022), “The Imprudence of ‘Solo Scriptura,’” in Christian Research Journal, vol. 45, no. 02/03 (2022).To receive this issue when it’s released please subscribe to the Christian Research Journal by clicking here. https://www.equip.org/product/crj-subscription/Listen to Hank’s podcast and follow Hank off the grid where he is joined by some of the brightest minds discussing topics you care about. Get equipped to be a cultural change agent.Archived episodes are on our Website and available at the additional channels listed below.You can help spread the word about Hank Unplugged by giving us a rating and review from the other channels we are listed on.

What is the Secret? Everyone wants to know the secret to life so when Rhonda Byrne claimed to find it the entire world took notice. While it is hard to believe that the culture has fallen for Byrne’s claims in The Secret it is unfathomable that so many Christians have come to believe its dubious declarations about the law of attraction—most evident in the word of faith movement. On this edition of Hank Unplugged, Hank discusses why the law of attraction is wrong and how Christians should be equipped to dispute this dangerous worldview.For more on the topic, be sure to check out Hank’s updated article “What is the Secret?” in the most recent edition of the Christian Research Journal. https://www.equip.org/christian-research-journal/the-battle-for-the-historical-adam-and-eve-contents-back-issue/Other related articles:What is the Secret? by Hank Hanegraaff a previous version https://www.equip.org/article/what-is-the-secret/The Secret Revealed by Robert Velarde https://www.equip.org/article/the-secret-revealed/Postmodern Realities Episode 286 Trusting Jesus in a Universe that Doesn’t Have Your Back: A Christian Looks at Manifesting, which discusses similar topics and discusses Anne Kennedy article the most recent edition of the Christian Research Journal on this topic. https://www.equip.org/pmr-podcast/episode-286-trusting-jesus-in-a-universe-that-doesnt-have-your-back-a-christian-looks-at-manifesting/Listen to Hank’s podcast and follow Hank off the grid where he is joined by some of the brightest minds discussing topics you care about. Get equipped to be a cultural change agent.Archived episodes are on our Website and available at the additional channels listed below.You can help spread the word about Hank Unplugged by giving us a rating and review from the other channels we are listed on.

Hank Hanegraaff, president of the Christian Research Institute and host of the Bible Answer Man broadcast, is reading a new book by Ryan T. Anderson and Alexandra DeSanctis titled, Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing. Pro-abortion operatives speak loudly and profanely about reproductive freedom, bodily autonomy, the right to choose, and so forth. Few seem willing to speak about the brutal business of Planned Parenthood or the painful killing of innocent human beings or even consider the profoundly inherent virtue of human life. Ignorance of basic biology in our culture is beyond chilling. And government by and large has abandoned its responsibility to secure the right to life—a right upon which all other rights depend. What is particularly stunning is that surgical abortion is rapidly being supplanted by the horror of chemical abortion, which now accounts for some 50 percent of all abortions in the U.S. The numbers are staggering—some 300,000 to 450,000 chemical abortions per year. One pill cuts off nutrients to the developing child, so she gradually dies; another induces early labor to expel the child from the womb. And of course, the CDC is perfectly fine with all this. Moreover, there is a growing body of evidence pointing to the reality that women who have abortions not only kill innocent human beings but are at greater risk for developing breast cancer. See Ryan T. Anderson and Alexandra DeSanctis, Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing (Regnery, 2022). [[add link to CRI donation page for this book if possible]]

In the eyes of many, the modern church in America has become complacent and shallow—more concerned with conforming the church to the culture than the culture to the church. Today’s guest, Matthew Gallatin, joins Hank Hanegraaff to discuss his journey of faith in pursuit of the authentic experience that would quench his thirst for God in a land of shallow wells. To learn more about receiving the resource, Thirsting For God in a Land of Shallow Wells, for your partnering gift, please click here. https://www.equip.org/product/cri-resource-thirsting-for-god-in-a-land-of-shallow-wells/ Topics discussed include: Thirsting for God in a Land of Shallow Wells (2:00); experiencing Seventh-day Adventism (4:45); how do Seventh-day Adventists rationalize the failed prophesies of Ellen G. White? (12:30); do you know what you believe? (13:50); is there any such thing as a non-denominational church? (18:10); how does Holy Tradition help Christians to rightly understand the Bible and their faith? (25:45); does everyone has a thirst for God? (33:00); is there any place for repetition and ritual in the Christian faith? (36:25); should our daily prayers be spontaneous or formal? (42:00); is it biblical to pray to Mary and other Saints of the Church? (44:20); recognizing the reality and importance of the Theotokos—Mary the Mother of God—to the Christian faith (47:35); viewing iconography as a spiritual reality (53:30); a form of martyrdom—when following the truth leads to losing your livelihood and loved ones (56:00); the correlation between social changes in the culture and in the church (1:08:15); the power of the sign of the cross and other transformational church practices (1:12:10); should we baptize infants? (1:15:45); the demanding nature of the Orthodox life as preparation for eternity (1:22:00). Listen to Hank’s podcast and follow Hank off the grid where he is joined by some of the brightest minds discussing topics you care about. Get equipped to be a cultural change agent.Archived episodes are on our Website and available at the additional channels listed below.You can help spread the word about Hank Unplugged by giving us a rating and review from the other channels we are listed on.

Hank Hanegraaff, president of the Christian Research Institute and host of the Bible Answer Man broadcast, reflects on the Christian Reformed Church’s (CRC) charge to uphold biblical sexuality. An article by Jonathan Cohn at Huffpost, “An Elite Christian College Has Become the Latest Battleground in America’s Culture Wars,” points out that the CRC sees the Bible as infallible and thus renders same-sex marriage incompatible with Christian orthodoxy. The fly in the ointment is Joseph Kuilema, a Calvin University professor of sociology (and teacher of the year in 2019) who considers the biblical text outdated and incompatible with his own great Awokening. As such, he dogmatically contends that the CRC should support his rendering of the biblical text. Kuilema officiated over the wedding of a lesbian couple and, principally as a result, was terminated from Calvin University. Kuilema, who is Reformed and always reforming based on his own authoritative interpretation of Scripture, not only has taken it upon himself to redefine marriage but cavalierly negates the words of God in human flesh who rebuked the Pharisees of His day with the words, “Have you not read, that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female”—and did so for the very purpose of joining them together as one flesh (Matthew 19:4). Therefore, says Saint Paul, “a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh” (Ephesians 5:31). Saint Paul also explicitly states that lesbian women exchange natural relations for relations that are contrary to nature itself—the delusional attempt to merge sexual same’s (see Romans 1:26). Marriage has at all times and in all societies been a relationship between men and women, with an end toward bearing and rearing children. The marriage of one man and one woman is not only Scriptural, it is distinctly sacramental. Indeed, marriage is about the gospel! Emblematic of the union of Christ and His church. Yet in full view of the mystery of marriage—replete with its parabolic profundity in Christ and the church, its potential for procreating children in the image and likeness of God, and its promise of psychophysical pleasure—Professor Kuilema gratuitously reimagines the Scripture in the image of the culture. Will the CRC and Calvin hold on to the sanctity of marriage? Time will tell. See Jonathan Cohn, “An Elite Christian College Has Become the Latest Battleground in America’s Culture Wars,” Huffpost, June 19, 2022, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/calvin-university-professor-joe-kuilema-gay-marriage-lgbtq_n_62aca02de4b06169ca988191; Rod Dreher, “Saving Calvin,” The American Conservative, June 20, 2022, https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/saving-calvin-university-lgbt-kristin-du-mez/.