Biography
He was born on November 23, 1929 to Percy Lacy Lindsey and Daisy Lee Freeman in Houston, Texas. Lindsey suspended his course of study at the University of Houston to serve in the Korean War, then worked as a Mississippi River tugboat captain.
He entered Dallas Theological Seminary in 1958 (with the help of Lt. Col. Robert Thieme, pastor of Berachah Church in Houston, which Lindsey had attended) where he studied with John F. Walvoord, author of the 1974 best-seller Armageddon, Oil, and the Middle East Crisis. He graduated from Dallas with a Master of Theology, majoring in the New Testament and early Greek literature. With Jan, the second of his four wives, he worked with Campus Crusade for Christ and continued with them until 1969. He then helped a mission in Southern California which continued until 1976. He was also a frequent speaker and Sunday School teacher at Melodyland Christian Center in Anaheim, California. In 1969, he wrote his first, and most well-known book, The Late, Great Planet Earth.
Published in 1970 by Zondervan, The Late, Great Planet Earth became a bestseller. Coming on the heels of the Six-Day War, the book fueled the popularity of dispensationalism and its support of ethnic Jews as the "chosen people of God". Many of Lindsey's later writings are sequels or revisions and extensions of his first book. In 1994, he earned his Doctorate of Theology from California School of Theology.
Lindsey hosted International Intelligence Briefing on the Trinity Broadcasting Network and serves on the executive board of Christian Voice.
International Intelligence Briefing was removed from the air on TBN for the entire month of December 2005. Lindsey claimed that this was because "some at the network apparently feel that message is too pro-Israel and too anti-Muslim." TBN owner Paul Crouch, however, contended that "TBN has never been and is not now against Israel and the Jewish people." Crouch said that Lindsey's show was pre-empted for Christmas programming. Lindsey countered that this was the first time his show had been preempted for the entire month of December. TBN later admitted that a secondary reason for pre-empting the show was that it "placed Arabs in a negative light."
Lindsey resigned from TBN on January 1, 2006, and indicated that he would pursue another television ministry. His new program, The Hal Lindsey Report, is focused on Biblical prophecy and current events, and is carried on the Angel One and DayStar networks. In January 2007, Lindsey announced that he would be returning to the TBN network. The Hal Lindsey Report airs on TBN under his own financing.
He wrote in an essay on WorldNetDaily that Barack Obama was paving the way for, and demonstrating the world's readiness for, the antichrist, "Obama is correct in saying that the world is ready for someone like him — a messiah-like figure, charismatic and glib ... The Bible calls that leader the Antichrist. And it seems apparent that the world is now ready to make his acquaintance."
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