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Suzanne Hinn Files for Divorce Again from Televangelist Benny Hinn

By Barry Bowen
benny suzanne hinn
In 2017, Benny and Suzanne Hinn appear on his national television program. (Video screengrab)

Last week Suzanne Hinn filed for divorce for the second time from televangelist husband Benny Hinn.

Suzanne and Benny first married on August 4, 1979. Thirty years later Suzanne filed for divorce in February 2010.

Three years later the couple remarried before a large audience at the Holy Land Experience in Orlando with the late pastor Jack Hayford officiating.

Following the re-marriage, Benny Hinn Ministries sold DVDs of the event for $25. Christian Post reported, “The evangelist is busy getting back to work following his marriage, and has announced plans for a ‘life-changing’ trip to Greece and Italy, where he says he will retrace the steps of the Apostle Paul, one of the most prominent writers of the later books in the Bible.”

The first Hinn divorce was filed in California, a no-fault divorce, community property state. The second divorce was filed in Florida, which is a no-fault divorce, equitable distribution state.

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suzanne hinn benny
Suzanne and Benny Hinn saying their wedding vows for a second time in 2013. (Video screengrab)

While several websites report that Benny’s net worth is $60 million, his net worth is possibly far less because of a large drop in viewers to his TV programs.

In 2016, Trinity Broadcasting Network removed Benny’s TV program and Daystar Television Network dropped the program in 2017.

Unless Suzanne signed a pre-nuptial agreement, the assets obtained during the marriage should be distributed fairly.

Since 2013, the couple have acquired four properties in Florida which are currently worth approximately $5.1 million. One home is owned in their name while two houses and a beach condo are registered to Dayspring Family Trust with Benny serving as trustee.

With each purchase, the Hinns or the Dayspring Trust received a warranty deed, indicating that all the properties were purchased and paid off without involving mortgages.

Benny told the story of how he first met Suzanne in his autobiography He Touched Me. It was 1978. Suzanne was a student at Evangel College and Benny was a Canada-based evangelist.

Benny claimed he knew Suzanne would be his wife when Suzanne’s father Roy Harthern first showed Benny a picture of his daughter.

At the time Harthern pastored Calvary Assembly of God in Winter Park, Florida, then one of the largest Assemblies of God churches in the world.

Calvary Assembly member Stephen Strang launched Charisma magazine and promoted Benny to a global audience.

With the growth of religious satellite TV, Benny became a TV celebrity in the Charismatic Christian world. Suzanne also served on the board of Benny Hinn Ministries, Inc., in the 1980s and would eventually start her own ministry, Purifying Fire International, which operated for a few years from California. 

In 1991, Christianity Today magazine reported, “Until about a year ago, few outside of charismatic circles had heard of pastor and author Benny Hinn. But over the past 12 months, Hinn’s book Good Morning, Holy Spirit has become one of the best-selling Christian books of all time.”

While surviving several scandals in the 1990s, Hinn decided to sell his Orlando church building, move his ministry headquarters near Dallas, and move his family to California.
benny hinn strang
On May 7, 2024, televangelist Benny Hinn speaks in an interview with Charisma Media CEO Stephen Strang. (Video screengrab)

In 2007, Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa launched an inquiry into the finances of six TV ministries including Benny Hinn Ministries. Benny responded by announcing board governance changes. Benny would later report during a TV broadcast that his ministry spent $5 million fighting the inquiry.

After Suzanne filed for divorce the first time, Benny was photographed walking and holding hands with televangelist Paula White in Rome, Italy. The National Enquirer published the picture, resulting in another decline in donor support for the ministry.

In a 2021 court ruling, Judge Alvin Hellerstein wrote about Benny, “For nearly 15 years, Defendant had been falling behind its payment obligations, with over $5.6 million in arrears by early 2012.”

Earlier this year, Hinn apologized for recent “gimmickry” in fundraising, which had been chronicled in an online documentary. But he also defended his ministry against several related questions regarding a lack of financial accountability.

This article was originally published by Trinity Foundation.

Barry Bowen is a staff member of Trinity Foundation, a public nonprofit based in Dallas, Texas that has been tracking religious fraud and helping victims for over 30 years. 

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19 Responses

  1. Proves again the familiar cliche – “Want to get rich quick in America? Start a church”. Benny Hinn, his promoters and his ‘organization’ have bilked the faithful out of millions, as evidenced in this article. How embarrassing for American Evangelical Charismatic Christianity and for the now perilously positioned Assemblies of God (Suzanne’s father, the late Roy Harthern–who had to leave the huge AG church he built up due to an affair–elevated Benny and built up his creds in Harthern’s magazine ‘Charisma’) whose many failures seem to get constantly swept under many rugs. So many complicated threads, all intertwined, all leading to multiple indiscretions and gimmicks and failures. If we could have one wish it would be that people everywhere would think, doubt, and question. No more dollars, please, to these charlatans.

    1. He that is without sin Let him cast the first stone.

      Be careful how criticize what you don’t understand.

      We are not be fault finder not regard iniquity in our hearts.

      If he has sinned it is our job to restore him not try to destroy the works of Go

      Remember the words of king David!

      Speaking of God: …remember
      who forgives all thine sins
      Who heals all thy diseases
      Who crowns thee with loving kindness

      Because a person’s wife leaves him does not make him guilty of anything!

      The first time she left she was hooked on Prescription Drugs.

      He was not aware nor war he guilty
      Beware how you judge before the time.

      Touch not my anointed and do my Prophet no harm!
      Pray for your brothers and sisters. That is what we are call to do!

      1. I see one of Hinn’s sock puppets is out and using the tired and incorrectly used “Touch not my anointed” quote from Scriptures. Since you are fond of using the OT in quotes (such as that one), let me quote you what should happen to false prophets like Benny Hinn:

        “If a prophet or someone who has dreams arises among you and proclaims a sign or wonder to you, and that sign or wonder he has promised you comes about, but he says, ‘Let us follow other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us worship them,’ do not listen to that prophet’s words or to that dreamer. For the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul. You must follow the Lord your God and fear Him. You must keep His commands and listen to His voice; you must worship Him and remain faithful[a] to Him. That prophet or dreamer must be put to death, because he has urged rebellion against the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the place of slavery, to turn you from the way the Lord your God has commanded you to walk. You must purge the evil from you.”

        – Deutoromy 13: 1-5 (NASB)

        According to the OT, Benny Hinn’s execution the proper response.

        1. Pretty much any time someone pulls the “touch not my anointed” card, it’s an admission they don’t have a biblical leg to stand on. It certainly proves they don’t know how to do esegesis.

        2. You’re at least technically right.

          By the way, the quotation “Touch not my anointed” is from the Old Covenant, as also is the injunction to kill all false prophets. A fact that you know and are trying to tell the (apparent) sock-puppet that had previously posted.

          We Christians live under the New Covenant, and as a New Covenant people, our best way to deal with Benny Hinn is to avoid his sick and evil presence. In other words, *Withdraw the Right Hand of Fellowship* from Mr. Hinn, Excommunicate him.

        3. You are quoting scriptures to put a man of God down but you should know that the devil quoted scriptures even to Jesus so your trying to quote the scriptures does not make you a christian and nor make you right. This woman that calls herself wife of Benny Hinn doesn’t know her role as a wife. She thinks that marriage is to rob your shoulders with your husband. She does not understand that his husband is her lord according to the scriptures and her attitude has influenced her daughter which also left the husband. I know that divorce gives a woman access to the husband’s possessions in the western world and many ungodly women take advantage of that. Benny should forget about her and continue with his ministry

      2. Dear Christian, didn’t The Lord Jesus Warn of false annointed ones (Christs, messiahs)?
        Didn’t The Lord Jesus tell us to inspect their fruits? (greed, deceit is not a fruit of the Spirit of God)
        The book of Timothy describes qualities of Church leadership..

      3. 1 cor 5:12 “What business of mine is it to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?”
        John 7:24
        “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.”

      4. Only God knows the truth about a person. IMO, Benny is an upstanding person who does put the highest regards towards the Lord, and His word that stands firm forever. Only in the Lord’s courts will the truth come, not in mankind’s reflections based on worldly perceptions. The Righteous Judge, will Judge us all, in due season. Watch your own steps. Guard your own relationship with God, and pray for others. Bless and do not curse.

    2. Some AG ministers are nutters, some are top-shelf like Craig Keener, who recently transferred his ordination, and the late Gordon Fee.

  2. It is really tragic that a man who may have at one time received Jesus into his life faithfully and earnestly, has fallen for what man in the church said, ” What out for the gold, the glory and the girls”. I can no longer recall this person’s name. It seems Mr. Hinn has been affected by all three. How can all of those who profess Jesus and knowledge of His teaching seem to blatantly disregard the His words, “What profit a man to gain the whole world and lose just soul?” Our job is to pray for those deceived.

  3. One by one, Jesus is exposing the grifters & shysters in the church. Thankfully, Benny’s little empire is about to topple.

  4. Somebody in this discussion thread posted the hackneyed old “touch not mine anointed”, and then another person responded with the Mosaic remedy for false prophets. That response is all fine and good, however the New Testament response is also a good idea.

    The quotation “Touch not my anointed” is from the Old Covenant, as also is the injunction to kill all false prophets.

    We Christians live under the New Covenant, and as a New Covenant people, our best way to deal with Benny Hinn is to avoid his sick and evil presence. In other words, *Withdraw the Right Hand of Fellowship* from Mr. Hinn, Excommunicate him.

    1. Loretta,

      That is correct. The NT response is to mark him, avoid him, warn others, and publicly call him out on his falsehoods and sins. My use of the OT was to point the absurdity of the poster using the “Touch not my anointed” line in a typical Pavlovian response.

  5. I am sorry say your forgot to mention that when Mr. Hinn went to Rome with Ms. Paula, they checked into a hotel and got one room. Mr. Hinn used a fake passport at the check in. FAKE PASSPORT? That’s illegal. Benny is not just unethical, he’s also a criminal. Wake up sheep!

  6. 💌 Countless souls around the world have been BORN AGAIN by the SPIRIT OF GOD throughout Benny Hinn’s WORLDWIDE ministry regardless of doctorine differences.

    Benny Hinn is blessed by the LORD JESUS CHRIST, regardless of humanity struggles that the LORD GOD made clear we will all encounter in this fallen world. None of us are perfect except for Jesus Christ, the Living Bridegroom.

    The Bride of Heaven. THE AGE OF GLORY. We have now entered into a New ERA for a New Beginning, Fresh New Start for those who sincerely renounce the realms of evil in their lives and wholeheartedly come to Jesus the Christ.

    The Kingdom’s Chosen. The rising of the Holy Bride Of Christ eternal radiance has obtained the Heavenly Abilities to Walk on Earth in THE LORD GOD’S Righteousness because of THE GREATEST OUTPORING OF GOD’S HOLY SPIRIT.

    The brilliant News is the Greatest Outpouring Of the Holy Spirit is finally here and is indeed coming on all flesh as the Scriptures have spoken.

    Miraculous Instant Miracles are to take place that man has never seen or has encountered before and countless caught on video.

    This is the timeline continuation of God’s Most Remarkable Miracles, Signs and Wonders Manifesting throughout the Whole World because of Jesus Christ the Bridegroom working through HIS Beloved Holy Bride.

    GOD IS POURING OUT FLESH OIL ONTO THE NATIONS.

    The worldwide secular media and Christian broadcast networks will open up their doors to hear these mighty testimonies from all people around the world that Jesus Christ is GOD and the Living SAVIOR.

    Jesus Christ, the Powerful Bridegroom walking the earth (AGAIN) AS ONE WITHIN HIS MAGNIFICENT HOLY BRIDE.

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