(Photo: Suzanne and Benny Hinn saying their wedding vows for a second time in 2013.)
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.
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 90s, Hinn decided to sell his Orlando church building, move his ministry headquarters near Dallas and move his family to California.
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.”
With a failing marriage and growing media criticism, Benny, the prosperity gospel preacher, is reaping what he has sown. (Galatians 6:7)