In the photo [...] it sure looks like a younger, darker-haired Hinn next to Gwen Shaw, who was then known as Gwen Schmidt, founder of the End-Time Handmaidens and Servants (ETH&S).
Shaw has reportedly testified--in the preaching sense, not the legal one--that from 1963 to 1970, she left her children and minister husband in Hong Kong while she bounced around the world, in particular India, to find "great love."
She later returned to the U.S. to discover, to her surprise, that her marriage was over. But her new calling was to find 1,000 other women who would rise up and be totally committed to God's will, even if they had to leave their families behind.
Scheiderer writes on that page he linked to that Shaw offers aberrant teachings, dabbles in the occult and destroys families--families like his.
He explains that he became a Christian in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in December 1980, around the same time his mother started attending meetings of the End-Time Handmaidens in the Columbus, Ohio area. He joined her at some gatherings in Michigan for the next couple years.
After she had been to some meetings in Detroit in the spring of 1982, Scheiderer joined her for one afternoon get-together. "It was after this series of meetings that things began to change for my mother, my entire family, and myself," he writes.
His mother wound up following Sister Gwen to Iowa. One night, she awoke to see Shaw's "angel" come into her room and kiss her on the forehead. She told Shaw about the encounter the next morning and was told that it was indeed her "guardian angel" and that many times a person's "guardian angel" resembles the person they are a "guardian" for.
"I now know that there is no Scriptural basis for any of Mrs. Shaw's statements concerning these alleged 'angels' and I am quite convinced that the 'kiss' from this angel placed my mom in a position of influence to demonic spirits," Scheiderer writes.
So, what does this have to do with Benny Hinn? According to Scheiderer, the Dana Point resident and leader of Aliso Viejo-based Benny Hinn Ministries spoke at conventions held by ETH&S (the Servants apparently having been added after men expressed an interest in joining).
Scheiderer writes on his page, and several other websites claim, that Hinn's estranged wife, Suzanne Hinn, belongs to ETH&S, which has followers engage in long liquid fasts.
"Her over 100 pound weight loss in the past few years may be attributed to her change in diet and the fact that one has to fast 21 days on liquids to join this cult," Scheiderer writes of Suzanne Hinn.
Of course, comments left on ocweekly.com, other postings around the web and the photo above prove nothing. Hinn could have wandered into a convention room in the Midwest in his Father Guido Sarducci outfit, discovered when he was next to the lady in white what was going on and then beat a hasty exit--but not before a shutterbug snapped a photo of him.
Then again, if Scheiderer is correct, it does show the cult has broken up at least one other family, the Hinns.
Must be a matter faith which version you believe.
