Dub Hagin: The Ex-Gangster Testimony That Fueled the Word of Faith Revival
Dub Hagin rose to prominence within Word of Faith and Full Gospel circles as an itinerant speaker whose authority rested almost entirely on claims of a dramatic criminal past, amplified by his relationship to Kenneth Hagin and revival-era testimonial culture. This examination traces how Hagin’s underworld narrative was promoted, escalated, and sustained within charismatic networks that rewarded sensational conversion stories over historical verification.
George "Dub" Hagin, AKA J. Preston,[1] the older brother of Kenneth Hagin, was a Pentecostal evangelist with a very colorful past. Hagin openly admitted to having been in the mafia connected to Al Capone long before Capone's reign in Chicago. Hagin claimed to have been the one who introduced Bonnie Parker to Clyde Barrow — the infamous Bonnie and Clyde — and admitted to having been involved in a long trail of criminal activities. Hagin advertised himself as an "X-Mafia hitman turned preacher".[2]
Talking to a Montana Standard reporter, the former mobster drops such names as John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd and Babyface Nelson and says he introduced Bonnie Parker to Clyde Barrow. He ran with Al Capone, he says, before he joined the Mafia in Chicago when he was 18.[3]
According to Hagin, when his parents became ill around the year 1928, he began robbing banks with Clyde Barrow, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Baby Face Nelson. By 1932 Hagin allegedly had become a driver for John Dillinger.[4] Along with robbing banks, Hagin was a drug runner in the 1930s.[5] When asked by newspaper reporters whether or not he had also killed people, Hagin often refused to say. Other times he admitted that he killed his first man at age 13.[6] During the reign of Al Capone in Chicago, Hagin was allegedly an enforcer for the Chicago mob.[7]
Though most people will say that one does not simply "leave" the mafia, Hagin sometimes claimed to have left the mob shortly before WWII. Other times, he admitted that he spent 54 years of his life with "men of the underworld".[8] He served three prison sentences, one of which was supposed to have been 157 years. Somehow, Hagin was able to be released after just six months.[9]
In 1977, after one of William Branham's several doomsday predictions failed and Branham's cult of personality was in disarray, Dub Hagin decided to become an evangelist.[10] For the rest of his life, Hagin thrilled audiences by telling his mobster-to-evangelist story.