Trails to Lakeland: Part 2 (A 4 Part Series on the Florida Outpouring Revival)

In part 1 of this expose we looked at the beginnings of the newest group of radical Christians. Tracking it from Charles Branham to Kenneth Hagin with mentions of Paul Cain, The Manchild Company, and Joel’s Army. We finished off the entry with mention of Kathryn Kuhlman.

Today we will begin with her.

Kuhlman as mentioned yesterday was by far one of the biggest faith healers of her day. She also had a darker side. After her failed affair based marriage Kuhlman went for a long time as a single person, later in life she found a piano player to work her crusades. His name was Dino Kartsonakis (yes the one on QVC ) and though it was never made public all those around Kuhlman knew of her activities with Dino, he was even known as the personal gigolo by Kuhlman own staff. She was also very infatuated by gold. In her crusades she would wear white robes lined with gold on the edges, creating what many said looked like an angelic vision.

She soon became quite famous and even at her height had a television show where she would bring in other prophets and preachers. These prophets included one of the leaders of the Jesus People movement, a guy by the name of Lonnie Frisbee (remember this name, he comes up again later).

So right in the middle of all these happenings of Kuhlman a young 21 yr old boy who visits her crusade in 1973. This crusade had such an impact on him that he in turn started his own healing ministry, today he is known as Benny Hinn (though he is technically named Toufik Benedictus "Benny" Hinn, but that’s way to long for a church marquee).

To this day Hinn still models himself after Kuhlman. He is known for his white shirts with gold lining. He also claims to have been visited by Kuhlman many times after her passing away, he also claims to have regular conversations with other dead individuals and even says that these conversations are stronger when in graveyards. Hinn claims to be visited on a regular basis and engage in conversations by angels, Old Testament prophets, Charismatic leaders who have passed away and even by Jesus himself.

Benny Hinn was budding in his popularity when he held one of his most famous crusades in 1986 in Africa. At this crusade laughter was breaking out, though uncommon to America, in Africa this is common with other African religions including Voodoo, Santeria, and some within Wicca.

This crusade and its bizarre behaviors spread throughout Africa within months. At this time a fledging pastor who had been previously asked to leave one church and had since not been able to find a church to accept him.

To understand RHB we must first look how his whole ministry began. Rodney, in the summer of 79, wanted a touch by God so one summer day at a Bible study RHB began hollering out loud to God stating “Either you come down here and touch me, or I am going to come up there and touch you.” After 20 minutes or so of this he began feeling a burning sensation that covered his body. All of the others in attendance at the Bible study were very fear filled by RHB’s behavior at the study. After this Bible study experience Rodney experienced this burning sensation for over 4 days, at which time He began fearing for his life due to the pain of anointing. It was on day four of this experience that he began speaking in tongues and laughing under the influence of the Holy Spirit.

So Rodney Howard Browne instead began studying at the Rhema Bible Institute (the one that Hagin had founded a few years before). Before RHB went to Rhema he was in a smaller ministry, now a modern shoot of Youth For Christ. Many people from this ministry claim that Rodney wasn’t all that active in the ministry though. He then went to Rhema where he was introduced to the teachings of Kenneth Hagin and those whom Hagin thought was important to teach about.

RHB met his wife, Adonica, here at Rhema. After graduating from here Rodney began teaching at a local unaccredited Bible school. His autobiography claims he also served as a leader at Rhema, though they actually claim he was only a lecturer and never spoke about the holy laughter is now known for. While in Africa ministering at smaller churches a pastor stopped by for a visit from Argentina named Claudio Freidzon. Claudio also stopped by Benny Hinn’s revival meetings. After visiting these two ministries Claudio went back to Argentina with these anointing manifestations quickly starting revival meetings with them.

In 1987 he and his family abruptly left Africa for the goal of spreading the gospel and most importantly the spirit which touched RHB himself. He kept a low profile the first few months due to the scandals involving the Bakkers and Swagert. After a few months he began speaking at whatever church would welcome him, quickly becoming famous for his ‘laughter filled’ services. He would often tell jokes, make strange faces, and always slain people under the spirit and filled them with the Holy Spirit for them to laugh. He became known as the ‘Holy Ghost Bartender.’

He soon was leading a ‘revival’ at an Albany, New York church were what by then became his famous ‘holy laughter’ was filling all the services. Rodney claims he saw a cloud that was the Spirit of the Lord and told the Lord “Lord, you’re ruining my meeting!” These revival services began to become the talk of charismatic circles. Soon Hagin knew of these revival manifestations, he had previously known about RHB, mostly due to his attendance and employment at Rhema.

Soon Rodney was speaking at other churches that wanted these new manifestations, including Benny Hinn’s Orlando church in 1990. For the next few years RHB would go to whatever church would welcome him, though he spent most of the time back in New York. By 1993 his laughing revival as it had become known was the talk of those within the charismatic circles. In February of that year the St. Petersburg Times ran a front page story on the phenomenon, citing a local revival (the largest in Hernando county history) that was an out branch of this laughing revival. The pastor had visited RHB in New York and brought back the ‘spirit of revival’ with him.

It was at a revival service at Hagins church in August of 1993 that Rodney met Randy Clark, a struggling pastor who was even contemplating leaving the ministry all together. He was the founding pastor of St. Louis Vineyard Fellowship, but for the last 23 years little success had come from it.

Around the same time a struggling pastor in Lakeland, Florida had opened a new facility a few years before. This new mega church built by Roe Messner, who later married Tammy Faye, covered well over 100 lake front acres. It had a 10,000 seat auditorium, a full parochial school, a prayer tower with glass elevator overlooking the lake, a full football field, and an indoor courtyard with a gift shop, coffee bar and offices all overlooking a large fountain.

With all this in place the church was struggling to pay the bills. Dr. Karl Strader had led the church since the mid 60’s and was the one behind the vision of making the church a ‘Mecca’ of Christianity. Strader had one more dream up his sleeve but before we get into all that lets go back a few years and catch up on the Manchild Company.

But that will have to wait till next time….

Find Part 3 here!