CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Hank Hanegraaff, also known as the “Bible Answer Man,” was chrismated into the Orthodox Church on Sunday, the well-known radio host and author has confirmed.A photo had been circulating since Sunday of the 67-year-old Hanegraaff being received into Eastern Orthodoxy at Saint Nektarios Greek Orthodox Church in Charlotte, along with his wife and two of his children, prompting questions and online chatter.
On Monday, a listener to Hanegraaff’s radio broadcast called in to inquire if he had indeed converted to Orthodoxy. He advised that he has been attending Saint Nektarios for more than two years, but is just now becoming a member.
“I am now a member of an Orthodox church, but nothing has changed in my faith,” Hanegraaff said. “I have been attending an Orthodox church for a long time—for over two years, really, as a result of what happened when I went to China many years ago.”
He said that in witnessing the simplicity and passion of Chinese Christians, he was led to study Watchman Nee and theosis (a teaching of the Eastern Orthodox regarding union with God) and felt drawn to the days of the early Church.
“I saw Chinese Christians who were deeply in love with the Lord, and I learned that while they may not have had as much intellectual acumen or knowledge as I did, they had life,” Hanegraaff explained. “I was comparing my ability to communicate truth with their deep and abiding love for the Lord Jesus Christ.”
“One man … said to me, ‘Truth matters, but life matters more.’ In other words, it is not just knowing about Jesus Christ; it is experiencing the resurrected Christ,” he said. “As a result of that, I started studying what was communicated by the progeny of Watchman Nee with respect to theosis and that drove me back to the early Christian Church.”
Hanegraaff says that since then, he’s “been impacted by the whole idea of knowing Jesus Christ, experiencing Jesus Christ, and partaking of the graces of Jesus Christ through the Eucharist or the Lord’s Table.”