- Reinhard Bonnke
Infobox Celebrity
name = Reinhard Bonnke
caption = Reinhard at the Billion Soul Conference
birth_date = 1940
birth_place =Königsberg , Germany
occupation = Evangelist
website = [http://www.cfan.org Christ For All Nations]Reinhard Bonnke (born 1940
Königsberg , Germany) is a German charismaticChristian evangelist.He was reportedly born-again at the age of 9. He studied at
The Bible College of Wales inSwansea and pastored in Germany for seven years. He began his ministry inAfrica , with which he is principally identified, preaching inLesotho in 1967. He has subsequently held large evangelical meetings across the continent.Bonnke claims that his crusades have resulted in the conversions of over 10 million people to
Christianity between 1995 and 2000, with a further 38 million from 2001 to 2005.Fact|date=January 2008 Bonnke was a speaker at the 2008Planetshakers youth conference in Australia.One of the most noteworthy miracles said to have occurred during a Reinhard Bonnke crusade happened in December 2001 at the Grace of God Mission Church in
Onitsha ,Nigeria . Pastor Daniel Ekechukwu said that he was certified dead for at least forty-two hours before returning miraculously to life there. A video was produced and distributed, entitled "Raised from the Dead" detailing this occurrence, featuring testimony from eyewitness accounts.Bonnke has written many books, and claims 178 million copies printed in 158 different languages have been sold or provided at no charge.Fact|date=January 2008
Controversies
Bonnke's visit to
Kano in Nigeria in 1991 was blamed for the outbreak of riots in the city, as Muslims protested about reported uncomplimentary remarks he had made about Islam in the city of Kaduna on his way to Kano. [Martin Emil Marty, R. Scott Appleby, Fundamentalisms and the State: Remaking Polities, Economies and Militance, University of Chicago Press (1993), p. 199]In the early 1990s Bonnke, who had uttered a number of prophecies of a major world revival which would start in the UK, was involved in an initiative called Minus to Plus, which aimed to reverse the decline in church attendances in the United Kingdom. The initiative, which involved the distribution of millions of copies of a booklet to homes throughout the country, was hoped to 'win' 250,000 converts. However, only 20,000 were 'won over', and these were mostly those returning to the faith rather than coming to it for the first time, and church attendances continued to decline. [Stephen Hunt, "The Alpha Enterprise: Evangelism in a Post-Christian Era", Ashgate Publishing (2004), page 10.]
References
External links
* [http://www.cfan.org/ CfaN Christ for all Nations]
* [http://www.cbn.com/700club/features/bonnke_raisedpastor.aspx Reinhard Bonnke Tells of Nigerian Man Raised from the Dead]
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