by Clete Hux
Founder/Founding date: As a movement rather than an organized group, there
is no founder or founding date, per se. The philosophical roots extend
to Gnosticism. E.W. Kenyon (1860-1948) was perhaps the earliest modern exponent
to blend the movement's eastern mystical and New Age elements with Christian
teaching.
Official Publications: None. Two prominent publications are Kenneth
Copeland's "Believer's Voice of Victory" and Kenneth Hagin's "The Word of Faith" magazines.
There are scores of books, newsletters, pamphlets by various authors Hagin, Kenyon, Copeland, Capps, Price, etc.
Organizational Structure: Has no key universally acknowledged leader or central
headquarters. The teachers of the movement all have their own churches and
followings.
Unique Terms: The God-kind of faith; the force of faith; the
Anointing; spirit-man; spiritual death of Christ; born-again Jesus; authority
of the believer.
Other Names: Word-of-Faith, Positive Confession, Faith-formula,
Health & Wealth Gospel.
Born
in 1860, E. W. Kenyon is generally recognized as the founding father of the
modern Word-Faith Movement. Beginning as a Methodist, he became quite
ecumenical, associating with the Baptists. Some of his work even resulted in
the founding of a few Primitive Baptist Churches. Late in life, Kenyon moved
into Pentecostalism. At the same time, he combined elements of the metaphysical
cults, such as Christian Science, New Thought theology, and Unity School of
Christianity (D.R. McConnell, A Different Gospel, pp. 31-35). "The
doctrines of correct thinking and believing accompanied by positive confession,
with the result of calling a sickness a symptom (denial of reality supported by
a Gnostic dualism) are not found in Christian writings until after New Thought
and its offspring had begun to develop them. Therefore, it is not unreasonable
to state that the doctrine originated and developed in these cults, and was
later absorbed by Christians in their quest to develop a healing ministry"
(H. Terris Neuman, An
Analysis of the Sources of the Charismatic Teaching of Positive Confession,
p. 43).
Though obviously not the movement's originator, some
have also called Kenneth Hagin the "grand-daddy
of the faith teachers" (Sherry Andrews, "Kenneth Hagin
‹ Keeping the Faith," Charisma, October 1981, p. 24). In a survey
of readers of Charisma (a major Charismatic magazine) concerning those
ministers that influence them the most, Kenneth Hagin
was 3rd, ranked behind only TV evangelist Pat Robertson, and the heir apparent
to the Word-Faith movement throne, Kenneth Copeland (Kenneth Hagin, Jr., Charisma,"Trend
Toward the Faith Movement," August 1985, pp. 67-70).
God
Word-Faith teachers claim that God operates by
spiritual law and is obliged to obey the faith-filled commands and desires of
believers. He not only reveals prosperity teaching supernaturally to the
Word-Faith teachers, but personally and verbally confirms their unique
interpretations of Scripture (Copeland, Laws of Prosperity, pp. 60-62).
They say the Abrahamic Covenant is the basis for
commanding God to do His part in the covenant. Robert Tilton says, "we make our own promises to do our part, then we can tell
God, on the authority of His word, what we would like Him to do. That's right, you can actually tell God what you would like His
part in the Covenant to be" (God's Miracle Plan for Man, p. 36).
Kenneth Copeland says, "as a believer, you have a
right to make commands in the name of Jesus. Each time you stand on the Word,
you are commanding God to a certain extent, because it is His Word" (Our
Covenant with God, p. 32). Copeland goes so far as to say that "God
was the lesser party and Abraham was the greater" in the covenant between
them (Copeland, Legal and Vital Aspects of Redemption, 1985, Audio Tape
#01-0403).
The Faith teachers also make God into a big man.
Copeland says, "God is...a being that stands somewhere around 6'-2,"
6'-3," that weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of a couple of hundred
pounds, little better, and has a hand span of nine inches across" (Spirit,
Soul, and Body, 1985, Tape #01-0601). Morris Cerullo,
in an alleged out-of-body experience, describes God: "Suddenly, in front
of this tremendous multitude of people, the glory of God appeared. The form
that I saw was about the height of a man 6 feet tall, maybe taller, and twice
as broad as a human body, with no distinguishing features such as eyes, nose,
or mouth" (The Miracle Book, pp. x-xi).
Man
Word-Faith teachers say that not only is God a big
man, but man is a little god. Kenneth Hagin has
asserted, "man...was created on terms of equality
with God, and he could stand in God's presence without any consciousness of
inferiority.... He made us the same class of being that He is Himself.... He
lived on terms equal with God.... The believer is called Christ, that's who we
are; we're Christ" (Zoe: The God Kind
of Life, pp. 35-36, 41). "God's reason for creating Adam was His
desire to reproduce Himself...He was not a little like God. He was not almost
like God. He was not subordinate to God even" (Copeland,
Following the Faith of Abraham, 1989, Tape #01-3001). He also
proclaims, "You don't have a God in you ‹ you are one!" (Copeland, The Force of Love, 1987, Tape #02-0028).
Morris Cerillo says "the whole purpose of God
was to reproduce Himself. ...you're not looking at
Morris Cerillo, you're looking at God, you're looking
at Jesus" (The End Time Manifestation of the Sons of God, Audio
Tape 1, Sides 1 &;2).
Christ
The deity of Christ is compromised. Kenneth Copeland,
in relating what Christ supposedly told him, says, "don't be disturbed
when people accuse you of thinking you are God...the more you get to be like
Me, the more they are going to think that way of you. They crucified Me for claiming that I was God. But I didn't claim I was
God. I just claimed I walked with Him and that He was with Me"
(Copeland, "Take Time to Pray," Believer's Voice of Victory,
#15, 2 February 1987, p. 9). "Jesus was on the earth
just a man, not the son of God" (Frederick K.C. Price, Tape #RP 19, May
1993). And Kenneth Hagin says, "You are
as much the incarnation of God as Jesus Christ was" (The Word of Faith,
December 1980, p. 14).
Atonement
The very important doctrine of the atonement of Christ
is distorted. Frequently Word-Faith teachers unduly over-emphasize the
spiritual death instead of the physical death of Christ. "Physical
death will not remove sins" (Hagin, The Name
of Jesus, p. 29). In other words, it took the spiritual death of
Jesus to atone for sins. "Do you think that the punishment of our sins was
to die on the cross? If that was the case, the two thieves could have paid our
price. No, the punishment was to go into hell itself and to serve time in hell
separated from God" (K. C. Price, Ever Increasing Faith Messenger,
June 1990, p. 7).
According to Word-Faith teachers, when Adam rebelled,
or "committed high treason," he not only betrayed God by turning over
to Satan what God had given him, he also took on the nature of Satan. So, to
redeem mankind and creation from Satan's legal control, Jesus, as the second
Adam, had to die not only physically but spiritually. This may be acceptable
among some evangelicals. But where it has led Word-Faith teachers is not. They
say Jesus not only bore our sins on
Just a man on earth, and taking on the nature of Satan
at the cross, Jesus becomes just a sinner in need of redemption. At the
resurrection Jesus is a born again man from the pit of hell. "Jesus
was born again in the pit of Hell....The Church started when Jesus was born
again in the gates of Hell" (Charles Capps, Authority In Three Worlds,
pp. 212 13).
Other
Doctrines
1) Positive Confession: The Theology of the Spoken Word (Rhematology),
or thought actualization, is commonly known as positive confession. It
stresses the inherent power of words and thoughts. Each person predestines his
own future by what he says verbally and by how well he uses spiritual laws. As
such, it is as if we live in a mechanistic universe instead of a personal one (see,
Kenneth Copeland, Laws of Prosperity, p. 15; Charles Capps, The
Tongue A Creative Force, pp. 117-118; Releasing
the Ability of God, pp. 98-99, 101-104).
2) The Gospel of Health: Isaiah 53 is used to justify blanket coverage for the
physical healing of every Christian who has enough faith. "...it is the
plan of our Father God in His great love and His great mercy that no believer
should ever be sick, that every believer should live his life full span down
here on earth and that every believer should finally just fall asleep in
Jesus" (Hagin, Seven Things You Should Know
About Divine Healing, p. 21). Hagin also denies
having a headache for forty-five years, labeling such as "simply symptoms
rather than any indication of a headache" (In the Name of Jesus, p.
44).
3) The Gospel of Wealth: A central tenet of the prosperity gospel is that God
wills the financial prosperity of every Christian. If a believer lives in
poverty, he/she is living outside God's intended will. "You
must realize that it is God's will for you to prosper" (Copeland, Laws
of Prosperity, p. 51).
1)
God is the unique, Sovereign of the Universe (1 Timothy
2) Man is unique from the rest of Creation, but is not
Divine. He
was created in the image of God (Genesis
3) Christ is Eternal, the Only Begotten Son, and the
Only Incarnation of God (John 1:1, 2,
15;
4) The nature of the atonement had to do with Jesus'
physical death on the cross being the payment for sins (Hebrews
5) God is the only One who ever created reality by the
power of His Word (Genesis 1:3). He
does not have or need "faith." Faith is depending on something
outside ourselves. If God depends upon something outside
Himself, He is not Supreme and therefore not God. Man, not God, is in need of
faith. The faith referenced in Mark 11:22 and Hebrews 11:3 is clearly "the
faith which has God as its object," not "the kind of faith that God
has."
6) The use of words for Positive Confession ‹ One may help or hurt
another by words of encouragement or condemnation, by telling the truth or
misleading, etc. But to treat words as if they were some "star wars"
type weapon by which reality is manipulated or altered is not biblical, but
occultic.