Chapter Nine:
CONCLUSION:
Consider the Source
These allegations will not end. Bill Alnor behaves as though his reason for living is to bring down Hank Hanegraaff and with him CRI. We have not given up on praying for his repentance and would certainly welcome him into our fellowship if he did repent, but we have long since lost any hope of being able to reason with him. He is extremely practiced and amazingly proficient in the art of twisting truth, and his first victim seems to be himself. We are called to the defense of the gospel, not of ourselves, and we cannot justify diverting any more of our precious time from our ministry objectives than we are using here to answer Alnor’s never-ending allegations. We trust that our 1995 document and what we have shared with you here are sufficient to assure you that we do have answers to Alnor’s allegations. We request that in the future, when Alnor would have you believe that he is doing God a service by attacking a fruit-bearing ministry, you will consider the source of the attack.
This also applies to the others who have joined Alnor in his crusade. Despite his thirteen-year track record of tabloid tactics, end-justifies-the-means ethics, glaring logical inconsistencies, and obviously animus-driven obsession with destroying a Christian leader, I know of no one in Alnor’s anti-CRI camp who has publicly dissociated himself or herself from Alnor and his methods. Instead they tend indiscriminately to put up on their Web sites materials from, and links to, Alnor. This speaks volumes about their supposedly righteous cause. As I noted earlier, any material that bashes Hank seems to be fine by them, no matter how dubious the methods and claims. They will make appeals to righteousness and integrity regarding Hank’s alleged improprieties when it serves their agendas against him, but they will not take a stand for righteousness and integrity when it goes against their own anti-CRI cause. This selective approach to righteousness simply belies the unrighteousness of the whole business. Again, consider the source.
All this is not to suggest that we at CRI are above criticism, nor to deny that we have done things worthy of criticism. When unjust criticisms have been so rampant and damaging to a ministry that it needs to publish a book-length defense of its good name, by the end of the book it may seem that the people in the organization think all criticisms lodged against them are unjust. This is not the case. We are aware of our failures, confess them to God and man, and regularly commit ourselves to following Christ more fully.
The point that needs to be stressed here, however, is that the flaws exhibited at CRI over the years are not in a different category than the kinds of failings you will find in any Christian ministry, staffed, as it is, by sinners who not only have been saved by grace but continue to need an abundance of grace extended to them to cover their daily failings. May we all continue to confess and repent of our sins, and thrive in the grace of God that is freshly extended to us every morning (Lam. 3:22–23).
