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CONTACT: Jason Marton 361.593.4143 or jason.marton@tamuk.edu

Assistant Professor of Journalism William Alnor uncovers financial controversy surrounding evangelist

KINGSVILLE (January 26, 2005) — Texas A&M University-Kingsville assistant professor of journalism Dr. William Alnor feels he may have uncovered financial misdeeds on the part of evangelist Hank Hanegraaff, a Christian author and host of the “Bible Answer Man” radio program, heard throughout the United States and abroad.

Through his personal online magazine The Christian Sentinel, Alnor reported that Hanegraaff was soliciting funds for his Orange County, California-based ministry, the Christian Research Institute (CRI), to make up for three months worth of donations Hanegraaff said had been lost because of misrouting by the U.S. Postal Service.

CRI claims that their mail was being wrongly delivered to a business named On-Target Marketing from October 2004 through December 2004, when an On-Target employee contacted the ministry to tell them of the mistake. According to CRI, they were able to recover only a bag’s worth of their mail from On-Target, with the rest having been thrown away. The ministry said they then contacted the responsible post office of Ranch Santa Margarita to report the error.

Alnor said he spoke with employees of the post office in question and found that none of them knew of any delivery problems with CRI. That led to Alnor filing a complaint against Hanegraaff and CRI with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

Following the posting of Alnor’s online story, the Los Angeles Times wrote up the events in an article published January 23. In their story, they reported that On-Target Marketing only

knew of one tray of misrouted CRI mail, which was reported to the ministry the same day, and that no CRI mail had ever been thrown away.

Alnor has been familiar with CRI for many years, having done editorial work for its previous president, Walter R. Martin, a prominent Christian apologist and cult watcher. Hanegraaff assumed the ministry’s presidency in 1987. Since then, Alnor said that Hanegraaff has been a part of many “shaky” financial dealings at CRI.

“He (Hanegraaff) is very unusual,” said Alnor. “On the one hand, he is known as an apologist who criticizes fringe religious groups for impure Christian doctrine and extravagant living and plagiarism. Yet he is a repeat plagiarist and lives high on the hog.”

The L.A. Times reported that in 2002, Hanegraaff earned a salary of $280,000 from CRI, while his wife Kathy received a salary of $111,000. In the same year, the CRI ran a deficit of $560,000, according to the most recent tax records available.

Alnor’s interest in this type of expose goes back to the Rev. Jim Jones scandal in 1978. After a decade as a crime reporter, Alnor went on to edit the National and International Religious Report and write for many prominent evangelical publications. Prior to that, Alnor attended seminary for several years and went on found and serve as pastor at the Calvary Chapel of the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania from 1996-2000.

“I basically believe that people of faith should be above reproach in every area,” he said.

When it comes to Hanegraaff and the future of CRI, Alnor’s hope is a simple one.

“I really hope that Mr. Hanegraaff steps down from the presidency of that once vital ministry. He has pretty much ruined it by making it a money making machine.”

This page last updated 26 January, 2005