Hendrik "Hank" Hanegraaff (born 1950), also known as the "Bible Answer Man", is an American Christian author and radio talk-show host. Formerly an evangelical Protestant, he joined the Eastern Orthodox Church in 2017. He is an outspoken figure within the Christian countercult movement, where he has established a reputation for his critiques of non-Christian religions, new religious movements, and cults, as well as heresy in Christianity. He is also an apologist on doctrinal and cultural issues.
Career
Prior to becoming a leading figure in the Christian countercult movement, Hanegraaff was closely affiliated with the ministry of D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Florida. During his association with Kennedy in the 1980s, he applied memory-based techniques (such as acrostic mnemonics) to help develop and spread strategies and methods for personal Christian evangelism. His work resembles memory dynamics techniques developed in speed-reading courses and in memory training programs used in some executive business courses.
During the late 1980s, Hanegraaff became associated with Walter Ralston Martin at the Christian Research Institute (CRI), the conservative Protestant countercult and apologetic ministry which Martin founded in 1960.
After Martin's death from heart failure in June 1989, Hanegraaff became president of CRI. As part of his duties, Hanegraaff took over from Martin the role of anchorman on the radio program The Bible Answer Man and became a conference speaker and itinerant preacher in churches, where he pursued the general ministry charter of CRI.
The content of The Bible Answer Man show typically includes call-in questions from listeners about general Christian doctrine, biblical interpretation, and denominational particularities, as well as a regular special focus on a particular issue when a notable figure is a guest. A frequently treated special topic is Mormonism, with former Mormons appearing in studio as guests to speak from their experiences.
Shortly after the release of Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code, he co-authored The Da Vinci Code: Fact or Fiction? with Lutheran historian and apologist Paul L. Maier. In 2013 he wrote Afterlife: What You Need To Know About Heaven, The Hereafter & Near-Death Experiences, from Worthy Publishing.
Throughout the 1990s, Hanegraaff engaged in dialogue with Joseph Tkach Jr. and other leaders of the Worldwide Church of God (WCG), now known as Grace Communion International (GCI). The WCG was founded in the 1930s by Herbert W. Armstrong, and had long been regarded as a cult by evangelicals, primarily for its denial of the Trinity and other traditional Christian doctrines. Following Armstrong's death in 1986, the group re-evaluated many of its teachings, including the British Israel doctrine and various eschatological predictions. Hanegraaff was one of a handful of evangelical apologists, including Ruth A. Tucker, who assisted in the reforms. The biggest changes to ensure their acceptance among evangelicals were in embracing the doctrines of the Trinity and of salvation by grace through faith.
2007 defamation suit
Hanegraaff sued longtime critic William Alnor for alleging that Hanegraaff's fundraising was under investigation for mail fraud. The allegation was based on an incident of misdirected mail, which was followed by a January 2005 CRI fundraising letter saying the error might have caused "perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars" in donations to be lost. The defamation lawsuit was thrown out based on California's anti-SLAPP statute. The court found that although Alnor's statements regarding a mail fraud investigation were false, Hanegraaff was unlikely to prove "actual malice."
Books
Christianity in Crisis
In his 1993 book Christianity in Crisis, Hanegraaff charged the Word of Faith movement with heretical teachings, saying that many of the Word of Faith groups were cults, and that those who knowingly accepted the movement's theology were "clearly embracing a different gospel, which is in reality no gospel at all."