Thanks! Had to look that up. Imagine having someone die because you were mocking the Holy Spirit, for money, by pushing a guy on an old lady!
Suit Blames Evangelist In Death
RAY ROBINSON
Published: Fri, August 21, 1987 12:00 AM
An evangelist was accused in a $5 million lawsuit Thursday of allowing an elderly Oklahoma City woman to languish at the front of a church for more than an hour after she fell and broke her hip.
The woman, Ella Peppard, 85, was later taken to a hospital and underwent surgery, but died 15 days later from blocked arteries brought on by the hip fracture.
The suit, filed in Oklahoma City federal court by Peppard's family, states that she suffered the broken hip Sept. 18 while attending a revival at the Faith Tabernacle near Interstate 40 and Portland. The revival featured evangelist Benny Hinn of Orlando, Fla., who took over the ministry once headed by the late Katherine Kuhlman.
The Peppard family's attorney, Carl Hughes, said the woman was convinced by ushers to go to the front of church, where Hinn was striking people on the forehead and pronouncing them "slain in the spirit."
The suit charged that Hinn, "in a deliberate and deceitful attempt to give the impression that one had been "slain in the spirit' ... pushed the gentleman standing in front of Mrs. Peppard backwards, knocking him into Mrs. Peppard and causing her to fall to the ground and break her hip."
Hughes said Hinn then declared that Peppard, who was in obvious pain, was hindering the service and ordered her removed from the stage and placed in a seat near the front of the church.
The attorney said Peppard's family was told by witnesses "that when one usher offered to seek medical aid, Hinn stopped him, saying, "Leave her alone. God will heal her.' " Peppard, according to the petition, eventually was taken to Deaconess Hospital, where surgeons implanted a prosthesis of her left hip. She was then transferred to Baptist Medical Center, where she died Oct. 3. The state medical examiner determined that she died of multiple pulmonary emboli (blocked arteries), caused by the broken hip.
The suit seeks $2.5 million in actual damages and another $2.5 million in punitive damages from Hinn, his company Benny Hinn Ministries Inc. and the Faith Tabernacle Association Inc.