Popular YouTube creator Tyler Oliveira claims he and his cameraman were assaulted after he ambushed televangelist Benny Hinn on stage and called him a fraud during a $99 Christian conference hosted by Lighthouse Church Of All Nations in Aslip, Illinois, last month.
The incident is partially featured in a video Oliveira posted on YouTube titled “I Exposed the Most Corrupt Churches in America.” It shows Oliveira, who has over 7 million YouTube subscribers, visiting other megachurches, including Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas; The River at Tampa Bay Church in Florida; and Kenneth Copeland Ministries also in Texas.
He accuses all of the pastors of peddling the prosperity gospel, which teaches, among other things, that believers have a right to the blessings of health and wealth and that those blessings can be obtained through confessions of faith and the “sowing of seeds” through tithes and offerings.
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“After buying a $99 ticket to the Spirit Life Conference, I headed to Chicago, Illinois, to meet their guest speaker Benny Hinn,” Oliveira, 25, announces in the video before his attendance at the conference, where he also declares Hinn would “face judgment.”
Shortly after that announcement, the video segues into a clip of Hinn, who leads the global evangelistic ministry World Healing Center Church, wrapping up a prayer just in time to see Oliveira barreling towards the stage.
“Benny Hinn is a false prophet, fake healer, and snake oil salesman,” he declares as he reaches the stage.
A shocked Hinn, who has struggled with a heart condition called atrial fibrillation for years, could be heard gasping momentarily as a group of men quickly dragged Oliveira off the stage and wrestled him to the ground.
The video then shows Oliveira being escorted out of the church while he continues hurling accusations at Hinn, including that he “is using the Word of God for money.”
Asked for an update on the incident at the conference held May 14 to May 16, officials at Lighthouse Church of All Nations did not immediately respond to questions from The Christian Post on Wednesday.
Oliviera claims in the video, which has been viewed more than 4 million times on YouTube since last Thursday, that both he and his cameraman were assaulted.
“While I was getting the George Floyd treatment fighting for each breath, my cameraman ran for his life to avoid a similar fate,” Oliveira said, claiming he “got hog-tied, body-slammed, and tackled.”
He said his cameraman, identified as Pasha, was also subdued and beaten with his camera.
“I was hit twice with a golf cart, assaulted by a person here, then they tackled me and threw me into the middle of a reactive road,” the cameraman says in the video. “And after that, they kept beating my head, and then they grabbed my camera, and they were trying to delete the footage.”
Despite Oliveira’s allegations against Hinn in the video, Hinn publicly rejected the prosperity gospel six years ago, stating that the “Holy Ghost is just fed up with it.”
“I’m sorry to say that prosperity has gone a little crazy, and I’m correcting my own theology, and you need to all know it. Because when I read the Bible now, I don’t see the Bible in the same eyes I saw 20 years ago,” Hinn told his followers.
“I think it’s an offense to the Lord, it’s an offense to say give $1,000. I think it’s an offense to the Holy Spirit to place a price on the Gospel,” he added. “I’m done with it. I will never again ask you to give $1,000 or whatever amount, because I think the Holy Ghost is just fed up with it.”
In a recent interview with Charisma Media founder Stephen Strang, Hinn said that promoting the prosperity gospel is one of his two biggest regrets from his ministry career.
“When I started in ministry, it was simple. And then the ministry grew. … I think that’s when my troubles began. I don’t blame anyone, but sadly you get kind of in a place [where] it becomes difficult. You don’t know what to do and how to get out of it,” he said.
“So I came to the conclusion in 2019 that I don’t want to be part of the gimmickry of it, and I still stand by that. But sadly, I let pressure get to me, and because of that pressure, I said things and did things that I should not have done. … And for that, really, I am sorry, and I ask the dear people watching us to really forgive me for that. And I’m striving with all my heart to be as biblical as possible with that.”
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