Somebody recently told me he's heard that Hank Hanegraaff has been attending an Eastern Orthodox church. This individual was also concerned about a report that Hanegraaff had become an Orthodox catechumen, though some people with a close relationship with the Christian Research Institute (CRI) told him that it's not true.
Before I cite some of Hanegraaff's recent positive comments about Orthodoxy, I want to give some examples of how mixed his comments about Evangelicalism and Orthodoxy have been over the years. He'll make comments that are highly supportive of Orthodoxy at one point, but identify himself as an Evangelical, or at least seem to do so, at another point. In response to a call beginning at 47:22 on
his October 15, 2014 radio program, he distinguishes between what Orthodox believe about the Apocrypha and what "we" believe. On the other hand, in response to a call at 40:17 on
his May 5, 2016 program, Hanegraaff misrepresented the history of eucharistic doctrine, as if there was agreement about an Eastern Orthodox view of a eucharistic presence during the first millennium of church history. A little past the 50:00 point in
his February 8, 2017 program, he comments that "I have the scripture as my rule of faith and practice", which sounds Evangelical, but may not be intended that way. He doesn't use a qualifier like "alone". Near the beginning of
Hanegraaff's March 8, 2017 radio program, he commented that Mary is "the apex of all of humanity" and "the model for all that we are to become in Christ", going on to say that "while Islam venerates Muhammad, Christianity venerates Mary". Later in the same program, when discussing other topics, he seems to affirm some Evangelical and non-Orthodox positions at some points, yet uses more ambiguous language and language that seems more in line with Orthodoxy at other points. See the call on baptism and salvation at 23:13 and the call on the imputation of Christ's righteousness and confession of sin at 46:51.
