Billy Burke (evangelist)

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Billy Burke (born 1953) is a Pentecostal faith healer.

Pastor Burke's main base of ministry is in Florida, but he also conducts services internationally, and throughout the country and regularly visits western Pennsylvania, particularly the First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh where he says he was healed of brain cancer by faith healer Kathryn Kuhlman when he was 9 years old.

[edit] Life

According to Pastor Burke, when he was 9 years old he underwent an unsuccessful operation for brain cancer that left him partially paralyzed. His grandmother convinced the parents against doctor's orders, to remove him from Montefiore Hospital and bring him to a Kathryn Kuhlman healing service at the First Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh. It was there that he said that he was completely healed.^{[citation needed]} His parents' subsequently divorced and he lost his brother in a car accident. After attending another Kathryn Kuhlman service in Ohio, he decided to enter the ministry and attended Melodyland School of Theology in Anaheim, CA. He went on to minister in Western Pennsylvania and then moved to Florida in 1989. Since then, he has traveled all over the United States and the world, spreading his message of healing, and faith.

[edit] Criticism

Pastor Burke has also been criticized for his advocacy of the Word of Faith, a form of gospel sometimes called by critics as "the health and wealth gospel". [1].