My cheap jab at Joel Osteen in a previous post has led some commenters wondering why I’m taking shots at the Word of Faith movement and/or the “prosperity gospel.”
I admit that it was a bit naive and foolish to assume that readers of Evangel would even know why I was critical of those movement, much less agree with me. Because I think it’s important for the critiques and defenses to be given a fair hearing, I’ve decided to open a thread for the discussion of the question, “What exactly is wrong (or right) with the Prosperity Gospel?”
The comment section is now open to anyone who wants to argue one side or the other. Please keep it civil and respect the views of others (something, I admit, that I often fail to do).
August 19th, 2010 | 2:04 pm | #1
Having been raised in a church where many Christians were influenced by Word of Faith teachings, I’ve seen the downside of positive thinking — that when God doesn’t give you all the miracles you “named and claimed,” you begin to question your faith and you question whether God has been true to his promises.
Word of Faith teachers leave little room for a theology of pain and suffering.
August 19th, 2010 | 2:05 pm | #2
I am a Word of Faith/Charismatic Pastor which is what Joel Osteen basically is. His father John Osteen was a Baptist pastor who was filled with the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues during the Charismatic revival of the late 1950, 60′s and 70s. The same revival during which many Roman Catholic brothers were filled with the same Holy Spirit.
I’d be happy to have a debate about the “prosperity Gospel” but I’m not sure this is a large enough space for that. But let me just make three quick points.
- If asserting that God promises prosperity is pagan then the entirety of the Jewish scriptures is pagan. From the Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want, to, But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, to, the blessing of the LORD it maketh rich.
- Second it is or perhaps was the orthodox position that God had promised his followers an earthly kingdom of enormous abundance. See Irenaeus adv. haer 5.33.3 quoting Papias, for example. So I think it’s a little ignorant to refer to preaching which references God’s promises of prosperity as pagan. The issue with us Prosperity preachers is just timing. Do God’s promises of abundance have value in this age or just in the age to come? We prosperity preachers believe that it is a promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.
3. This anti-prosperity, anti-material world, piety which refers to God’s promises of prosperity as pagan is not sourced in the Bible or in Jewish tradition, or even early Christian tradition but in Platonism. So it seems a little bizarre for a man like yourself, who so admires those particular church fathers so heavily influenced by Platonism to refer to the preaching of The Bible’s promises of prosperity as pagan.
In love…
Greg Marquez
August 19th, 2010 | 2:20 pm | #3
Besides the prosperity gospel being patently unbiblical, I have nothing wrong with it.
If God Incarnate doesn’t have a place to lay his head, I’m in trouble (Luke 9:58)
If Paul, who wrote much of the NT, was flogged, stoned, beaten, shipwrecked, hungry, and sleepless, who am I to expect better (2 Corinthians 11:23-28)?
To expect better in this earthly life than what happened to the apostles and Jesus borders on delusion.
August 19th, 2010 | 2:22 pm | #4
If all “prosperity gospel” folks were as well educated as Pastor Greg, maybe they could learn to take a more balanced approach to blessings and suffering. Never in all my years in Pentecostalism have I heard a preacher reference Papias or Irenaeus!
The Platonic view is certainly wrong, but running to the opposite error is a cure that’s as deadly as the disease. We need a way to affirm God’s promises without sugarcoating the difficult realities of a wicked world and refinement through fire.
August 19th, 2010 | 2:27 pm | #5
What’s the difference between Pentecostalism/Charismatic Movement and the Word-Faith/Prosperity Gospel Movement?
Are they more or less identical, or are there critical distinctions?
Dale Coulter, are you around?
August 19th, 2010 | 2:29 pm | #6
Greg,
I haven’t listened to a Joel Osteen sermon and this is my first exposure to your own thinking, so I think I can ask some neutral questions. I do not presume that I know what the answers are. When Joel Osteen preaches or writes…
1. What place does he give to suffering in the Christian life? (See Romans 5).
2. What does he present as the attraction? What is it that he’s presenting as a reason to follow Christ?
3. What does he say sin is, and how serious is it?
4. Does he indicate that prosperity is a sign of God’s blessing? If so, how does he regard the persecuted church? What about Psalm 73?
5. How does he interpret Jesus’ or Paul’s lack of material goods?
6. How does he prepare his followers for disappointments?
7. How does he teach them with respect to theology, christology, soteriology, pneumatology, ecclesiology? Is there any real teaching at all, other than how to be happy with life?
8. Does he present God himself as the ultimate blessing to be desired? Does he promote the promises or the promise-giver?
9. Does his message effectively attack self-centeredness, or does it support it, whether covertly or overtly?
August 19th, 2010 | 2:37 pm | #7
I am no fan of J.O., and I agree with IMonk on him.
Having said that….
We have had people come into our church, clutching one of his books, saying “J.O. says I need to find a local church” As bad as his theology is (real bad), he is still getting people to open the bible, take it seriously, and people respond. And we never criticize JO when people like that come in our door.
So, there is everything wrong with the prosperity gospel, yet he does get the gospel in his message
Some, to be sure, are preaching Christ even from envy and strife, but some also from good will; the latter do it out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel; the former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition rather than from pure motives, thinking to cause me distress in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in this I rejoice.
When people come to your church carrying their JO books – rejoice!
August 19th, 2010 | 2:38 pm | #8
Truth Unites:
Yes, there are differences. All Pentecostals would refer to themselves as charismatic, but the reverse does not work. For example, Catholic charismatics and, say, charismatic Reformed churches that believe in the continuing of the spiritual gifts, would not call themselves Pentecostal. Specific theologies can vary widely, so I won’t get into it here.
From what I’ve seen, Word of Faith and Prosperity teachers have been essentially the same people. I’m not sure if there really is a difference.
August 19th, 2010 | 2:39 pm | #9
TUAD,
There are significant differences. Typically the Pentecostalism/Charismatic position is defined by its beliefs and expectations regarding the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the spiritual gifts of I Corinthians 12 and 14, Romans 12, and Ephesians 4, none of which have any necessary connection to obtaining worldly goods. The Word-Faith/Prosperity Gospel movement is defined generally by its teaching that “according to your faith be it unto you,” with especial emphasis on acquiring health and material possessions.
There is some overlap between the two in terms of their beliefs on health and healing, but the Pentecostals/Charismatics I’ve been most involved with would never equate health necessarily with God’s favor, as many in the Prosperity Gospel group do; and they would never say that God intends to bring healing to all his people. Their attitude is better expressed by, “Let’s pray and see what God will do in answer.” One group (the Word-of-Faith teachers) takes healing as something we can expect, almost demand, of God, because they take it that he has promised it to all. The other group (Pentecostals/Charismatics with whom I’ve had more contact; also many non-Charismatics) recognizes that God heals but that he also has not given over his sovereignty on the matter. He still gets to decide how he will answer prayers.
There is also some overlap between the two groups in terms of their populations. A Word of Faith/Prosperity Gospel teacher is almost (?) always Pentecostal or Charismatic. But that does not mean at all that a Pentecostal or Charismatic is likely to be a Word of Faith/Prosperity Gospel teacher. Many Pentecostals reject the health-and-wealth “gospel.”
August 19th, 2010 | 2:43 pm | #10
“All Pentecostals would refer to themselves as charismatic,”
Here’s where I get mixed up.
Aren’t there Word-Faith people and Prosperity Gospel people who refer to themselves as Pentecostals?
And conversely, aren’t there some Pentecostals who also refer to themselves as Word-Faith people and/or Prosperity Gospel people?
Things seem rather blurred.
August 19th, 2010 | 2:48 pm | #11
TUAD:
I just realized I slightly misread your question. I second Tom Gilson’s reply.
August 19th, 2010 | 2:49 pm | #12
I was composing my prior comment without have seen Tom Gilson’s comment.
If I could distill what Tom said, there are some Pentecostals who are not Word-Faith and/or Prosperity Gospel type Christians, but a large majority of Word-Faith/Prosperity Gospel Christians are also Pentecostals.
Okay. I could see why I was confused. There’s some overlap there.
August 19th, 2010 | 2:51 pm | #13
I guess it’s kinda like this:
(Nearly) All open-theists are Arminians.
But not all Arminians are open-theists.
August 19th, 2010 | 2:55 pm | #14
or kind like this
(Nearly) all fundis are Calvinists
But not all Calvinists are fundis
August 19th, 2010 | 2:59 pm | #15
I’ve encountered enough fundi atheists to disagree with you on that one, David :) . Not to mention Muslims. (Or does the “fundi” abbreviation only apply to Christians, by definition?)
August 19th, 2010 | 3:23 pm | #16
Church leaders have always greatly varied in what elements of the Christian faith they emphasize. Mark chose to emphasize the humanity of Christ, while John emphasized Christ’s deity. Paul emphasized salvation by faith, while James emphasized the importance of good works. Even that narrow subspecies American evangelicalism is surprising in its emphases. The putative sins of homosexuality and abortion are highlighted, but not so much gluttony, covetousness, sabbath breaking,or our moral obligations to the poor. Many de-emphasize the physical healing and miracles, or the Christ’s teaching about how hard it is for rich men to enter the kingdom of heaven. Discussions about hell and the second coming are frequently avoided. But despite all of this variation, Joel Osteen has apparently fallen outside the acceptable range.
So, for whatever standard folks are using to criticize Mr. Osteen, I’d be interested to know this same standard judges the long and varied history of the church, from the apostles and the early church fathers onwards. I’d also be interested in how that standard judges the broad spectrum of the contemporary Christianity, spanning Protestantism, Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Such an investigation might help to correct the cheapness of singling out Joel Osteen.
August 19th, 2010 | 3:27 pm | #17
I’m not familiar with the Prosperity Gospel as preached under the name but there is a case to be made for Christian prosperity — not prosperity in the first instance or in the strict terms of the material Kingdom of This World, but an abundant life in all its manifestations.
There can be no doubt that our primary expectations as Christians should be The Way of The Cross. Our focus must not be on the rewards of this life. And there should be only one purpose to accumulating prosperity, and that is to give it all away. We only truly possess our graces as we are giving them to others, “on the fly,” in the words of Fr Robert Barron. Attempting to hold onto them as one’s own is the essence of sin.
I want to be rich so that I have a greater capacity to do good in this world. Lord knows there are many camels attempting to thread the eye of the needle, particularly in this richest country in human history, and they could use a powerful Christian model. I expect to be rich as a distant and indirect consequence of doing right by my Lord, be it His will, but not in return for my sacrifices.
It’s hard to square Mt 19:21 and Lk 14:33 with a straightforward accumulation of this-world riches. But it is important to expect a life of abundance (Jn 10:10), and we must not make the perfect the enemy of the good:
To sum up: it is possible to be rich, and married, and held in honour by all men, and yet keep the Commandments and to enter heaven. Christ’s advice is, if we would make sure of everlasting life and desire to conform ourselves perfectly to the Divine will, that we should sell our possessions and give the proceeds to others who are in need, that we should live a life of chastity for the Gospel’s sake, and, finally, should not seek honours or commands, but place ourselves under obedience. These are the Evangelical Counsels, and the things which are counselled are not set forward so much as good in themselves, as in the light of means to an end and as the surest and quickest way of obtaining everlasting life.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04435a.htm
There is my Catholic evangelism. It’s so difficult to translate the raw moral brilliance of scripture — like staring into the sun — that it helps to rely on 2,000 years of divinely inspired counsel. How else could laymen be expected to navigate the contradictions and paradoxes of scripture?
Be rich and be good. But be good first — and only, if it must be.
August 19th, 2010 | 3:30 pm | #18
Michael Novak, no stranger to FT, is a great resource to be availed of for this discussion. He has written extensively about the intersection of Christianity and wealth creation in Business as a Calling and Catholic Ethic and The Spirit Of Capitalism:
http://www.amazon.com/Business-Calling-Work-Examined-Life/dp/0684827484/
http://www.amazon.com/Catholic-Ethic-Spirit-Capitalism-Michael/dp/002923235X
And in many essays, here’s one that I can quickly find:
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2007/08/saint-duncan-of-wall-street
The Acton Institute’s Call of the Entrepreneur is also illuminating:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pem0ZSsMQVA
http://www.calloftheentrepreneur.com
August 19th, 2010 | 3:48 pm | #19
David Carlson: “or kind like this
(Nearly) all fundis are Calvinists
But not all Calvinists are fundis”
Actually, I thought most conservative Christian “fundamentalists” were Arminians.
August 19th, 2010 | 3:50 pm | #20
Let’s suppose that Word-Faith/Prosperity Gospelers are a subset of all Pentecostal Charismatics.
What (rough) percentage of Pentecostal Charismatics are Word-Faith/Prosperity Gospelers?
20%?
40%?
60%?
Higher?
August 19th, 2010 | 3:52 pm | #21
For those not familiar with the term, “Prosperity Gospel” when used as a pejorative does not intend to imply that the gospel and material prosperity cannot, or do not, go together. In a nutshell, it is used to refer to a teaching that holds that to the extent that the gospel and material prosperity are separated in an individual life, that person is failing to believe and or practice the faith sufficiently well.
The existence, and especially vitality, of deeply faithful Christians in atmospheres of extreme poverty, oppression, and persecution poses a problem for this view. It’s also been responsible for obscuring the essence of the gospel, and holding out false hopes, when preached to people in those situations.
August 19th, 2010 | 3:55 pm | #22
David, a large percentage of fundies (even in the common sense) are strongly anti-Calvinistic. A church that cheerfully self-identifies as fundamentalist and bears some of the stereotypical fundamentalist earmarks of legalism in dress, leisure activities, anti-intellectualism and the forbidding of use of particular foodstuffs is probably far MORE likely to be anti-Calvinistic than Calvinist, though fundie Calvinists are far from rare.
August 19th, 2010 | 3:58 pm | #23
Or a simpler way to put it would be that the Prosperity Gospel in the sense Joe is using the term refers to the idea that consistent health and ample material wealth are gospel promises for every individual, just as surely as forgiveness from sin and eternal life.
August 19th, 2010 | 4:07 pm | #24
“David, a large percentage of fundies (even in the common sense) are strongly anti-Calvinistic.”
David, are you okay? Need some smelling salts? Arminians are anti-Calvinistic and it sure looks like a lot of “fundies” are Arminians.
Hmmmmm, so let’s see… there are Arminian Open Theists and there are Arminian Fundamentalists.
Well, are Word-Faithers/Prosperity Gospellers typically Arminian too? Are Pentecostals typically Arminian too?
August 19th, 2010 | 4:20 pm | #25
Greg – you bring up a good point about the nature of the OT blessings. Let’s not draw clear lines between then and now and see what Jesus does with the nature of the OT.
For instance, Jesus says adultery isn’t just what you do with your body, it’s what you do with your heart. So here we see that there is a “deepening” of the plain sense of the law in this spot.
We also look at the rich young ruler whom Jesus told to sell everything so that he may reap riches in heaven. The Disciples were amazed, not because the rich guy went away, but that Jesus would tell someone who so obviously was blessed by God to get rid of his blessing for a “deeper” blessing.
Pushing it even further, we see Jesus himself becoming the “New Israel” so that he could, in his own flesh, perfectly fulfill the law and then unite sinners unto himself for salvation.
We cannot draw straight parallels from the OT to the NT. We need to understand were they fit into the History of Salvation.
This is obviously a very simple response, one that assumes books upon books of previous research, but I hope it is enough to make us all reconsider how directly the lines are drawn from the Old Covenant to post-apostolic Christians.
On a far more pragmatic note (and one must immediately recognize that this is far from a scriptural argument) how does the Word of Faith movement deal with the intense persecution that Christians are facing in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, etc? They are living in poverty and then being murdered. Are they worthy enough to suffer but not worthy enough to be blessed?
In Christ,
Zack
August 19th, 2010 | 4:46 pm | #26
The teaching of the Word of Faith (WOF) is that we can trust God to do whatever He says. If He says it, we can expect it, give thanks for it and start speaking in agreement with it. This does not away anything from the sovereignty of God. Quite the opposite, it affirms His sovereignty. It affirms that He is able to do everything He promises, despite whatever the circumstances appear to be, and it affirms that He will indeed do what He says for all who take Him at His word. So it is not about manipulating God, overcoming His reluctance, or trying to force God to do something (as if we even do such a thing). No, it is about believing God.
It is not about “positive thinking” but about faith. Positive thinking is trusting in ourselves and what we can do. Faith is about trusting in God and believing His Word. That is quite a big difference.
Regarding health, the Word of Faith continues the tradition of divine healing found earlier in the Church, and more recently in the 18th century, including in the ministries of Charles H. Spurgeon, Horace Bushnell, Johan Christoph Blumhardt, Dorothea Trudel, Samuel Zeller, Newman Hall, and Charles Cullis, among others. I was raised in the Christian and Missionary Alliance, founded by A. B. Simpson, who preached and practiced divine healing ministry. He views on the nature of faith are not unlike those of WOF and are often echoed in WOF teaching.
Contrary to what some may think, WOF does not teach that health or wealth are signs of God’s favor. WOF teachers are fully aware that there are many in the world who are in good health and are wealthy according to the world’s standards, but who walk contrary to God. Such prosperity is short-loved.
WOF teaches that to prosper is to do well, and that God wants all His people to do well in every area of life. One often-quoted verse is 3 John 2, “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.” WOF points out that true prosperity begins with prosperity of soul, i.e., walking in faith, truth and love, and that out of come prosperity in the rest of life. “Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23). So prosperity is certainly not limited to finances or material wealth, which is considered the least important aspect of prosperity. But neither is financial and material prosperity excluded from the prosperity God has for us.
Prosperity is not unbiblical at all. God promised prosperity for His people in the OT. See Deuteronomy 28:1-14, for example, which promises prosperity in a variety of forms for those who are obedient to the voice of the LORD and keep His commandments. The problem, of course, is that OT Israel failed miserably in doing that. But in Jesus the Messiah, they are perfectly fulfilled, and so also for those who are in Jesus the Messiah.
David said, “The LORD is my Shepherd, I shall not be want [be in need or lack].” In Psalm 35:27, he says that God takes pleasure in the prosperity of His people. In Psalm 112, the blessing on the man who delights in the LORD includes this: “Wealth and riches will be in his house” (v. 3). And these only scratch the surface.
We see it also in the New Testament. Paul says, “My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19), and this was in a financial context. In 2 Corinthians 9, also in a financial/material context, he says, “But this I say,: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully” (v. 6). And “God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work” (v. 9). That’s every need thoroughly and completely supplied PLUS abundance – that’s more than enough – for every good work.
See, this prosperity is not for us to consume it upon our own lusts. We are blessed in order to be a blessing. God wants us to have every need met and have plenty more besides in order to provided for good works.
When Jesus said, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head” (Luke 9:58), He was saying, “Oh, I’m a poor, poor man – stone cold broke – and you gotta be poor, too, if you’re gonna follow me.” No, He was saying that those who follow Him would face a lot of rejection, because He was being rejected. He wasn’t sleeping out in the open because He had no money – there were women who supplied His ministry with funds, and He even had a treasurer (Judas) – no, He was sleeping under the stars because the Samaritan village He had just been in rejected Him and was inhospitable to Him and the disciples. WOF recognizes and teaches that Jesus also promised us there would be persecution.
August 19th, 2010 | 4:58 pm | #27
Let us raise an Ebeneezer my brothers and sisters and mark this moment. A civil and gracious discussion of a potentially contentious difference of faith and practice has been held at Evangel. It can be done. May God be praised. (I’m not kidding.)
August 19th, 2010 | 4:58 pm | #28
Jeff, is there any room in WOF for proverbial interpretation? ie., all of the proverbs are not personal promises, they are a presentation of wisdom. What I mean is, not every man who disciplines his son will have a godly son. Some people just aren’t going to get saved. Yet, for most people discipline will produce godliness.
Only reason I ask this is because I was in a WOF church for a while (and again, this only pertains to the church I was in) but they made it seem like God was going to personally give them every single physical blessing all the time. (“God wants you to have that new suit and bass boat!!” the pastor preached from the pulpit) So, when a lady comes down with cancer and subsequently dies people wonder why she wasn’t healed like God said he was going to.
If WOF was as simple as: God said it, I believe it – without any qualifications – then I would say it sounds a lot like biblical inerrancy, but that isn’t how it is typically worked out.
In Christ,
Zack
August 19th, 2010 | 5:05 pm | #29
The “Prosperity Gospel” or “Health and Wealth Gospel” as I have heard it involves the theology that God’s faithful children ought never to suffer sickness or poverty in this world, and that if they do, it argues a lack of faith or rebellion against God on their parts.
It is often coupled with “Seed-Faith”, the idea that if we give money to God’s work, He is obligated by his promises to give back to us “thirty, sixty, a hundredfold” in this world. Therefore, the poor are exhorted to give, so that they can receive more back.
I have a couple of complaints:
1. It is almost completely this-worldly: if we are not rewarded here, we must be unfaithful somehow – the next life doesn’t count. But Jesus instructed us to store up treasures in heaven, and indicated that in this world, “moth and rust destroy, and thieves break in and steal.”
2. It lays an unbearable burden on those who are sick or poor. If they are not healed or not wealthy they must lack faith somehow, and no disagreement is allowed – it is purely their fault. And so they go into an endless round of trying to gen up more faith, make more radical monetary sacrifices, and get to the next meeting, only to be disappointed again. The preachers are very like those Jesus pointed who lay heavy burdens on others, but will not lift a finger to relieve them. They are cousins to Job’s comforters – if you suffer you must be wrong somehow!
And, scripturally, there are many reasons beside lack of faith that may bring suffering or poverty. Faithfulness to Jesus, for one. Suffering so that God may be glorified. Our suffering may be the key to showing someone the reason for our hope. Were all the martyrs guilty of being men and women of little faith?
Now some in the H&W / PG have even gone so far as to say that the things Paul suffered for Christ’s sake showed his lack of faith. I think the scriptural testimony stands against this.
3. The seed-faith idea stands against the Scriptural injunction that “it is better to give than to receive.” Those who give under the SF theology clearly believe that it is better to receive…
I could say more, but will stop here.
August 19th, 2010 | 5:09 pm | #30
The accounts between Jeff Doles and Zack Scrip/Mark B. Hanson are fairly disparate.
Even so, may it not be the case that both accounts are right?
August 19th, 2010 | 5:17 pm | #31
I would tentatively go along with Mark Hanson’s description, as it seems a very tame form of what I have seen. I would struggle with anything dealing with healing, not because God cannot heal but because he does not promise to heal. that is a huge distinction. I know of people who have been healed, but this does not mean that I am going to be healed when I am ill. God may let that disease kill me. Whatever is his will.
I just kind of walk away from all this thinking we are trying to do a surgery with a sharpened stick – the tools (read: words) we’re using are too blunt for the distinctions that are required for us to have a very fruitful discussion. As it sits, there are assertions all around without much progress. Not that that’s a big deal, it is just a blog after all! :-P
Zack
August 19th, 2010 | 6:11 pm | #32
I think the reason for the confusion is that the Word of Faith movement tends to coincide with the Pentecostal movement, which tends to focus on experiences and downplay the intellect. As a result, there is often a lack of theological clarity. That cloud of confusion is familiar to me, because as I said earlier, I was raised in a church where these ideas were prevalent. This means that various pastors and church members can develop their own nuances and doctrines in an almost unintentional way, and not even realize that they are in disagreement with one another.
Jeff Doles says it is not about “positive thinking.” But for many people within the movement, including their leaders, that is exactly what it is, and they will even use the specific phrase. “Think positive thoughts, or else Satan will rob you of your blessing, etc.”
On the other hand, there are people within the movement who are more sensible than that — the sort of people Jeff is thinking of. You might say I was one of those people, but it took me a while before I realized how different my thinking really was from the theology of my fellow churchgoers — because the nuances of theology were rarely discussed. One very formative moment in that transition was when my youth pastor resigned from his job due to a disagreement over one of the Word of Faith teachings about prayer.
August 19th, 2010 | 6:34 pm | #33
Zack, I think WOF generally take the Proverbs as promises, though there may be a recognition of some figurative language (since it is a poetical book). When it comes to dealing with other people, I believe they would allow that they are not guarantees, since WOF are usually not Calvinistic and do not believe that God will necessarily override the will of others. So, for example, when we train up a child in the way he should go, we can expect that he will not depart from it. However, this does not mean that there will not be any prodigals or that the prodigals will all necessarily return. IOW, there is an allowance that other people still have free will.
Now, I have been speaking of WOF teaching at its, any aspect of which can be taken to extremes – which is true of any theology or movement. No doubt, there may be many people who have done just that. WOF tend to be inerrantist (I don’t know of any who are not) and generally literalist, sometimes perhaps overly so. And the interpretive method of many has a lot of room for improvement, at least to my mind.
Mark, the Seed-Faith idea (which was formulated by Oral Roberts) is that when you sow a seed, you will receive a harvest. Paul something very similar: “But this I say: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully” (2 Corinthians 9:6). No doubt, many preachers has abused that, trying to manipulate a big offering, but that is not Paul’s fault, nor Oral’s. And Jesus did promise that whatever we give up for His sake and the Gospel’s, we would receive a hundredfold, “now in this time” and “with persecutions, and “in the age to come, eternal life” (Mark 10:29-30) – remember, this is in the context of the rich young ruler, who came asking what he could do to have eternal life, but was unwilling to give up what he had to follow Jesus.
WOF has a healthy respect for the blessings of salvation in this life, but I would not say that it is almost completely this-worldly. They just don’t believe in spiritualizing every promise God made or viewing it all for the next life. I agree with them in that. I think many Christians have taken a view that the material realm of existence is something to be delivered from and that the fullness of salvation is purely a matter of soul or disembodied spirit. WOF believes that Jesus the Messiah has come to deliver us, spirit, soul and body, so that each aspect of our being may experience salvation.
The nature of WOF is to build up faith, not to find fault, least of all with God. So, if someone is sick and has not received their healing, WOF does not believe that it is God’s will for that person to be sick. I don’t know why so many Christians are so quick to blame God’s will first, as if it could not possibly have anything to do with themselves. WOF generally does not believe it is a matter of not enough faith, because WOF teaches that even a faith that is small like a mustard seed is sufficient to move mountains. But a lot of people do not know how to use their faith, “sow” that seed and stand firm in their confession of faith. Learning to live by faith is, after all, a process of discipleship, and we all must go through it. And there are things that can get in the way of our faith, and consequently, our healing. For example, being unwilling to forgive others can hinder faith, because faith works through love; and some people have experienced their healing when they finally learned to forgive another. Sometimes healing is immediate, sometimes it is not. When it is not, then we need to keep standing in faith for it. Sometimes people die and go on to the ultimate healing. Were they wrong to believe God for their healing? I don’t think so.
Regarding suffering, Jesus promised there would be persecution, and God is glorified when we suffer it for His sake. But He is not glorified by sickness and disease – He sent Jesus to bear our sicknesses as well as our sins. So He is not glorified by sickness, He is glorified by healing sickness. The man who was born blind, who neither sinned himself nor did his parent sin – God was not glorified by His blindness, but by Jesus the Light coming and giving sight to blind eyes (which was part of the charter of His ministry in Isa 61/Luke 4).
Indeed, it IS better to give than to receive. However, that does not mean that it is bad or wrong to receive, or wrong to expect to receive. As I noted above, when Paul was preparing the Corinthians to give of their resources to the collection he was taking up for the saints at Jerusalem, he encouraged them with “He who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.” Shall we not also believe those words, too?
August 19th, 2010 | 7:07 pm | #34
Word of Faith doctrines are seriously flawed. The problem is that they are mixed into the beliefs of many good Christians. It is not Biblical to teach that God wants to heal everyone in this life and that the only thing holding Him back is a person’s faith. Man is not in the driver seat. God is.
I was raised Pentecostal, and I thank God for my upbringing. However, what made me leave my church was the influence of WOF. People are taken advantage of by scam artists such as Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, and Jesse Duplantis, etc., etc. One of my pastors refused to get medical treatment for what was possibly at first only a minor issue. Instead, he said “Dr. Jesus” was going to heal him believing in his own faith rather than in God Himself. Refusing treatment lead to death at a relatively young age. Should I conclude that my pastor didn’t have enough faith? Of course not. He had faith, but it was misplaced.
It seems that people try to find a way to get what they want, even if means using God. I’m not saying that WOF are evil. What am I saying is that seeking God merely for blessings misses the point. Further, it leads us away from the truth: we will suffer; we will die. Beyond that, some people can grow in character and holiness only through suffering.
I have no problem with material blessings. I believe in the charismatic gifts. I have witnessed a miracle (I was cured of cystic fibrosis at age 5. Jesus appeared to me in my hospital room. I wasn’t supposed to live past 13. I’m 31 and do not have cystic fibrosis.). The problem I do have is with the idea that we should always expect Jesus to do exactly as we tell Him.
For what it’s worth, I have a similar problem with the way some people look at praying to saints. Some people pray to certain saints in order to receive a particular answer to prayer. That’s fine with me as long as it ends there. What many do is go to the saint simple for the blessing and not because of God. Novenas are often used in the same way. God is not in our debt, nor will He ever be.
One last point. WOF theology often has its own view of the nature of reality and even of the Cross. For WOF folks, faith is an actual force and words are the containers. Therefore, whatever one speaks becomes what will be. If I speak blessings, I’ll get them. If I speak curses, they will happen. If I “name and claim”, I’ll get what I want. As for the Cross, WOF teachers often say that Jesus suffered in Hell, that anyone could have died for man’s sins (see Kenneth Copeland), and that the Cross purchased healing on Earth.
August 19th, 2010 | 7:32 pm | #35
It surprises me, the number of people on this blog who are now or have been deeply involved in the WOF movement. (I myself am a Rhema grad.) I think the deficiencies that have been pointed out indicate why those who moved on, did so.
However, it should be said that most WOF people are actually much better Christians than their theology should lead them to being. The best part of WOF teaching is the emphasis on filling one’s prayer life and devotional time with the speaking forth of God’s Word. The worst part has already been pointed out: the gnostic division of believers into those who have the “true knowledge” of the “uncompromised” Word of God, who are therefore prosperous and healthy, and those who do not have the “revelation” and who therefore remain in their (self-chosen) poverty and sickness. This is the obvious (and again, gnostic) implication of WOF teaching, and it is simply the good Christian character of many WOF followers which does not allow them to state it so explicitly. (Their leaders, of course, DO state it explicitly.)
Jeff and Greg, I appreciate your exegesis of Scripture; I really do. And I understand how one might refer to what I have said as a mis-characterization. But this really is what WOF teaching boils down to, and it is wrong.
August 19th, 2010 | 7:41 pm | #36
I might also add that WOF ministers do come in many varieties. There are those who think nothing of diving right off into heresy (Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar). (What an amazing name.)
Then there are those whose main ministry seems to be straightforward Christian-character-building (Joyce Meyer, for example). I would be willing to bet that the folks on this blog could listen to many of Meyer’s programs without finding much with which to argue. Copeland and Dollar, no.
Then there are ministers like Joel Osteen, with whom we began, who require some other kind of category; maybe positive thinking with a Christian veneer? (This is not meant as snarky; it’s just a fact.)
August 19th, 2010 | 7:58 pm | #37
Jeff Doles: “since WOF are usually not Calvinistic”
Not Calvinistic, then highly likely that many WOF’ers/Pentecostals are Arminian.
So we have Arminian Open Theists, Arminian Fundamentalists, and Arminian Word of Faithers and Arminian Prosperity Gospelers and Arminian Pentecostals.
Boy, Arminianism sure gets around.
August 19th, 2010 | 8:59 pm | #38
Craig,
Gnosticism referred to some secret or hidden knowledge to which only a few were privy. WOF offers no such hidden knowledge or secret revelation. What it teaches, it teaches out of the conviction that it can be plainly found in Scripture by anyone. You might as well say that Calvinism is gnostic because it interprets Scripture in a way Arminians don’t. Or vice versa. Or pick any other issue about which Christians disagree. All it really means it that they each have a particular interpretation of certain Scriptures, not that they proffer hidden wisdom to a select group.
August 19th, 2010 | 9:01 pm | #39
It’s okay, TUAD, you can also find a variety of flavors among Calvinists.
August 19th, 2010 | 9:03 pm | #40
One of the fatal flaws in WOF theology (that Jeff Doles repeats) is the idea that suffering in this life does not glorify God, merely because the ultimate experience of salvation entails the end of suffering. There’s no room there for the clear biblical idea that suffering is part of the God-ordained and genuinely good road toward that ultimate experience. That sort of denial of suffering as God’s means of good is in flat contradiction to the attitude of the apostles toward suffering, as amply shown by Paul’s description of his own bodily suffering in 1 Corinthians, by Peter in his epistles, and by the author of Hebrews. While scripture is clear that Christ did indeed die to heal us of our diseases, there’s no promise that it will be today or tomorrow, nor is there to be found anywhere in scripture suggestion that only the moment of healing of the blind man glorified God, rather than his whole experience.
August 19th, 2010 | 9:28 pm | #41
Jeff, here’s the problem with arguing that the proverbs are generally taken to be promises except for where they go against man’s free will.
The proverbs, almost without exception, deal with the proper application of a fear of God on daily life. That is, if I have wisdom (which begins with a fear of God) then I will live my life a particular way.
I believe we would both believe that for as far as that goes. Me the Calvinist and you (not?), can both believe that first statement.
Here’s the hitch, if you take them as a promise then it mandates that other people will act a particular way towards you. This, of course is untenable because it breaks free will and also it pushes credulity because I doubt either you or I have ever experienced the blessings promised in the proverbs 100% of time (while living faithfully of course).
So, if God doesn’t go back on a promise, but yet does not have the power or does not choose to use the power to ensure it always comes about, then is it really a promise?
See, I’m not trying to make you come think calvinistically, I’m just trying to show you that Proverbs works proverbially – that is, it make generalizations.
Now, you want to pray Eph 3:14-21 in a WOF style and expect it to come about, I’m sure not going to bet against you, because God IS going to do that in your life if you are one of His people – that’s for sure. I just see the danger in WOF is that you (generally, not YOU) can cherry-pick passages willy-nilly and then claim God Promised!!. That’s all.
In Christ,
Zack
August 19th, 2010 | 9:33 pm | #42
Pentamom, the suffering of the apostles was about being persecuted for the sake of the Gospel. As I have already said, Jesus promised that we would have such persecution, and that kind of suffering does glorify God. But poverty and sickness do not glorify God any more than sin does.
August 19th, 2010 | 9:52 pm | #43
Jeff –
1. Why not?
2. See 2 Corinthians 12:7-10. It’s hard to argue that Paul is not saying that his affliction, whatever it is, is not glorifying God by its presence rather than the expectation of its removal.
August 19th, 2010 | 9:53 pm | #44
And BTW, I wasn’t just talking about the suffering of the apostles. I was talking about what they had to say about suffering in general.
August 19th, 2010 | 9:57 pm | #45
Our perseverance through poverty and sickness glorifies God. Our willingness to trust him, regardless of whether he chooses to heal us, glorifies God. The presence of poverty and sickness also reminders to us that we live in a fallen world and that the way of the flesh leads ultimately to death.
To say “poverty and sickness do not glorify God” is slippery, because then it seems as if our pain is somehow cheating God of what he is due. Yet for thousands of years, mankind has suffered countless evils, and ever since the long-suffering Job, God’s answer to our cries has been to simply trust him. We don’t have to know why bad things happen, or whether God’s will is to make those bad things go away in this lifetime; we just have to be faithful.
August 19th, 2010 | 10:17 pm | #46
WOWZA! Ok Jeff, I was tracking with you until you came out and said that poverty and sickness do not glorify God.
Now, here is where I agree: There is nothing intrinsically holy about being poor or sick – no matter what the liberation theologians tell you :-)
Here is where I disagree: God can (and does) use poverty and sickness to force us to be reliant on Him. Take the epistle of James for instance. James tells them that the rich man that’s stealing their wages is like he is already burning in hell, and well, they need to remember that this life is not the end all be all – their riches are elsewhere.
What this passage is NOT saying is that if you are rich you are evil and if you are poor you are holy. What it IS saying is that the rich man was evil and the poor people needed to remember that envying the rich man would be the worst thing possible.
The other direction of your argument is that those that are poor (you know, like those persecuted for the Gospel who aren’t allowed to buy or sell) must somehow struggle to remove their shame (that is, their poverty) in order to let their light shine.
that’s just crazy.
Now take away the persecuted church part – because I don’t want you to be able to hide behind it. Just poor-joe who lives on the other side of the world. He should be ashamed because he is poor. He should realize that because he doesn’t have earthly riches he must not be able to glorify God as much (which you MUST conclude if you say that God is not glorified in poverty). You see, as a Calvinist I believe God can be glorified in all things – be it through later wrath or current blessings. My economic situation in life does not add or subtract to that, but my heart sure does.
In Christ,
Zack
August 19th, 2010 | 10:23 pm | #47
“Gnosticism referred to some secret or hidden knowledge to which only a few were privy. WOF offers no such hidden knowledge or secret revelation. What it teaches, it teaches out of the conviction that it can be plainly found in Scripture by anyone. You might as well say that Calvinism is gnostic because it interprets Scripture in a way Arminians don’t. Or vice versa. Or pick any other issue about which Christians disagree. All it really means it that they each have a particular interpretation of certain Scriptures, not that they proffer hidden wisdom to a select group.”
Jeff, if you have been in the WOF movement for any length of time at all, you know how many times (I would estimate in every single sermon) you hear WOF ministers disparage other ministers, denominations, and believers because they don’t see the “plain truth” of God’s Word. And if anyone disagrees, it is because that person simply does not accept “revelation knowledge,” or they’re operating out of their “head” rather than their “spirit”–because obviously the spiritual person (as opposed to the fleshly masses–the “mud people,” as the early Gnostics called Christians) would “get” what the WOF minister is teaching.
In fact, how many times have you heard WOF ministers say that the vast majority of Christians are living on the “lower level” because they haven’t gotten the “revelation” yet of God’s “uncompromised” Word? This “uncompromised” Word has been brought forth “in these last days” by the WOF movement–because the majority of ordinary, run-of-the-mill Christians simply do not understand the meaning of the Word.
Sorry, but that’s gnosticism.
August 20th, 2010 | 9:06 am | #48
Jeff –
Poverty, sickness and sin bear a similar relation to the glory of God. Sin does not glorify God as such, but God is glorified when He judges and condemns sin, either in the unrepentant sinner or in Jesus on our behalf. He is also glorified when He turns what is intended for evil into good.
Poverty and sickness do not glorify God in themselves, but God is glorified when we patiently bear them, giving glory to Him in the process. Not that we do not pray for or seek relief, but their mere presence in our lives is neither a judgment against God (because their origin is in our own sin), nor an unambiguous testimony to sin or a lack of faith on our part. Consider Job and the man born blind.
And it is not necessary for the sick person to be healed in thls life for God to receive glory in their sickness. Have you never sat at the deathbed of a faithful son or daughter of God, and walked away strengthened in your own faith?
God does give an absolute promise of freedom from suffering, sickness and poverty – in His kingdom after our death, when He will wipe every tear from our eyes. But the Scripture is clear that we may bring our tears through the veil into that kingdom, to await His gentle hand.
August 20th, 2010 | 9:08 am | #49
Scratch the parenthetical remark “(because their origin is in our own sin)” above, and replace it with “(because their origin is in human sin – though not necessarily our own)”
August 20th, 2010 | 9:09 am | #50
Pentamom,
Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” in 2 Corinthians 12 was not sickness. He specifically calls it a “messenger of satan.” The Greek word for “messenger” is angelos and is never used of things such as sickness but only of personal beings. It is often rendered as “angel.” So, this was an “angel of satan,” not a sickness, that Paul was dealing with. The devil was opposing his ministry, and Jesus did promise there would be opposition and persecution.
Anthony,
Yes, it is faith – trusting in God – that glorifies God. Not sickness, not poverty, but faith. Nor does sickness or poverty produce faith, for Paul says that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God (Romans 10:17). God does not need sickness or poverty in order to produce faith in us; He does it by His Word. Nor does God need sickness or poverty to teach us anything because He has already given us the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth and teach us everything we need to learn. So, sickness and poverty do not glorify God, and it is rather slippery to say that they do.
Zack,
God can certainly teach us things in the midst of sickness and poverty, and even bring good out of them. But the teacher He has appointed for us is the Holy Spirit, not sickness and poverty. God is not glorified by our sickness but by healing us in Jesus’ name. He is not glorified by our poverty but by the provision He has made for us according to His riches in glory in Jesus the Messiah. Our sickness and poverty do not please Him, but faith pleases Him. And faith is a matter of believing God, taking Him at His Word, even concerning healing and provision. In the midst of sickness, He is pleased when we believe Him for healing. In the midst of poverty, He is pleased when we trust Him for provision.
I have nowhere argued that those who are poor must somehow struggle to remove their shame. Nor is that a logical conclusion from anything I have said. We cannot remove our own shame; we are not our saviors. Jesus is the Savior and the one who removes our shame. Our part is to trust Him to do what the Word says He came to do.
Nor have I suggested that the poor should be put to shame because of their poverty (or that the sick should be ashamed because they are sick).
I am not a Calvinist, so I don’t believe God is any more glorified by our sickness and poverty than He is by our sin. Rather, He is glorified by being the healer of our diseases, the provider of our needs, the forgiver of our sins – our Savior. David did not say, “The LORD is my Shepherd, so I live in poverty and lack.” Nor did he say, “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits, who forgives all your iniquities and puts all kinds of sickness and disease on you” (Psalm 103). Why? Because poverty and sickness do not glorify God. Rather, David rejoices in God, the Shepherd who provides for all His needs. He blesses God who forgives all his iniquities and heals all his diseases.
Craig,
Yes, there are things that are spiritually discerned, that is, which require the work of the Holy Spirit in us. Paul says that the natural man cannot understand the things of the Spirit and notes that God has given us the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:10-16). Paul tells us that no one can confess that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3). But the Holy Spirit is present in everyone who believes in Jesus. He is the special province of an elite few but is available to all.
John makes that point in his first epistle, in which he deals with issues of early Gnosticism. He says, “But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you£ know all things” (1 John 2:20) and “the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie” (1 John 2:27).
So the Holy Spirit is available to every Christian, to teach us, give us “revelation knowledge.” That does not mean that every Christian pays attention to the work the Holy Spirit wants to do in him, and many Christians try to figure everything out with their head, as if the things of the Spirit can be grasped just by the intellect. No, Paul says, “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). The “natural” man (Greek, psychikos, that is, soulish, of the soul) is trying to understand things out of his own soul, his own thoughts, his own understanding. But he cannot understand the things of the Spirit of God because they are spiritually discerned. That is not Gnosticism, that is basic Christianity.
August 20th, 2010 | 10:12 am | #51
The prosperity gospel is a false gospel based on the premise that “if I do well, things will go well with me.”
Job, the Lord’s servant, and his inept comforters all believed this to some extent. God kindly showed Job that a good life is not a direct reward for good behavior, but rather a gracious gift. We look in and see that the Lord does sometimes intend a great deal of temporal trouble for his servants, not as punishment but perhaps as discipline or even as a result of living in a world opposed to the divine order.
Christians know that health, wealth, and thriving relationships don’t necessarily flow from a relationship with the living God. We may get poor health (even martyrdom), declining assets and division in our families. We cling to the promise of our risen Lord: “In this world, you will have trouble, but take courage, I have overcome the world!” In Him, we overcome – in part now, in full in the world to come!
For believers, the wondrous truth is that we will never have our “best life now.” Our best life is in eternity – this is but a proving ground and a war zone at that. Sadly, for those who don’t accept Christ, their best life is now, however nice or miserable it may be, eternity will only be worse than this life.
I want to live now for God’s glory and the benefit of others. I want to live joyfully and intentionally, being a blessing to those our Lord puts in my life. But I don’t want my best life now. I’ll take it later, thanks very much!
August 20th, 2010 | 10:17 am | #52
Jeff–Thank you for your patient responses. I think you are a good example of something I mentioned elsewhere: that many WOF folks are much better Christians than their theology should allow them to be. And I will leave it at that.
August 20th, 2010 | 11:15 am | #53
Jeff:
I’m not saying what God “needs” in order to build our faith. I hesitate to ever say he “needs” anything at all. However, it seems clear from Scripture that God does indeed use suffering to build our faith, regardless of whether you want to argue that he “needs” to do it that way.
I would never assume that a man’s lack of healing or prosperity is a result of his personal spiritual failings. Yet that is precisely what WOF practitioners often do. And that is why I’ve moved away from that crowd altogether.
August 20th, 2010 | 11:31 am | #54
Anthony, I wasn’t saying what God “needs” to build our faith. I was pointing what the Bible says about how God does build our faith: Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God (Romans 10:17). We also read that faith is a gift (Ephesians 2:8), and we read that there is a special Holy Spirit gift of faith (1 Corinthians 12:9). But what we don’t read in the Bible is that faith comes by sickness or poverty or by enduring suffering. So it is not about how God “needs” to do it but what the Bible says about how God actually does it, namely, by the Word and the Spirit.
Like you, I do not assume that a person’s lac of prosperity or health is a matter of personal spiritual failing. But neither do I assume that God wants them to be sick or broke. I never try to establish blame. I focus instead on establishing faith.
August 20th, 2010 | 11:48 am | #55
I recall seeing a “20/20″ TV news segment decades ago about a prosperity gospel preacher from NYC (Harlem, I think) named Brother Al (who I think has since gone to his reward, minus his several palatial houses and automobile collection), whose most memorable line was during a sermon. I think it was something like this: “You’ve heard it said that money is the root of all evil. But I tell you it’s the lack of money that’s the root of all evil.”
I think what witnesses most concretely, most tellingly against the prosperity gospel is the blood of the martyrs.
August 20th, 2010 | 12:33 pm | #56
Well, you leave for a few days, and an entire new string gets launched. Some historical points to help:
1. Word of Faith is connected to a group of independent preachers that became part of the pentencostal movement in the west and mid-west of the U.S. For example, Kenneth Hagin, who founded Rhema Bible center in Tulsa, OK, came into the pentecostal movement in 1937 after receiving what Pentecostals call the baptism in the Spirit.
2. Surprisingly to some on this blog will be that there is a Reformed trajectory to at least one stream of Word of Faith, mainly because of the writings of E. W. Kenyon, who influenced Kenneth Copeland, among others. The idea is that in faith one accesses immediately all the benefits of Christ’s death (for Westminster folks think of John Murray’s Redemption Accomplished and Applied). Thus in the same way that faith is the instrumental cause of justification and even positional sanctification on those Reformed views that emphasize the forensic, faith is also the instrumental cause of bodily healing and prosperity.
3. This view essentially attempts to extend the atoning work of Christ beyond spiritual healing to healing in all ways, in short, to complete prosperity. It’s problem is that it is essentially trying to fit a square peg (physical healing and prosperity) into a round whole (penal substitutionary atonement). The notion of penalty is extended beyond the guilt for sin to death and physical disease; and thus just as the atonement allows for sin to be immediately forgiven through instrumental faith, so it allows for physical diseases to be healed. . . .
4. It’s clear to me from reading this debate that there are fundamentally different theological systems at work that will not allow some to understand what is at stake in the Word of Faith position. For example, if you approach the sufferings of Jesus and the martyrs in a Christus victor framework, you come out with different perspectives. The emphasis is not on sin as guilt but as a power to be defeated. Deification is about flourishing as a human being, even if one wishes to take the accent off of material wealth (which one should).
OK, I’ll stop.
August 20th, 2010 | 12:55 pm | #57
Hello Dale,
I process the healing and prosperity teaching of WOF with an understanding of the kingdom already/not yet. Also with a view of atonement that is more aligned with Christus Victor. And also post-millennialism. I’m looking for the kingdom of heaven to manifest on earth more and more, in every area of life.
August 20th, 2010 | 1:05 pm | #58
Jeff,
I think placing WOF in a Christus victor framework is the way to go, both in terms of offering an important corrective to the movement while also affirming the emphasis on salvation as not simply reducible to justification.
Within that framework, you can debate what is NOW about the kingdom.
However, I don’t think Kenyon began there. He and others like F. F. Bosworth were emphasizing the forensic dimensions of salvation and utilizing atonement paradigms that simply did not work for the theology of healing they wished to promote.
August 20th, 2010 | 1:12 pm | #59
Dale, Jeff, et al,
Let’s suppose that Word-Faith/Prosperity Gospelers are a subset of all Pentecostal Charismatics.
What (rough) percentage of Pentecostal Charismatics are Word-Faith/Prosperity Gospelers?
20%?
40%?
60%?
Higher?
Any reasonable guesstimates?
August 20th, 2010 | 1:27 pm | #60
Tom Gilson: I don’t want to answer for Joel Osteen, but just for myself.
(Sorry to be so slow in responding but my eldest son was returning to the Naval Academy yesterday after a few weeks leave, and so my day was dedicated mostly to being with him. I see Jeff Doles has already done a great job of answering so I’ll just add a few things.)
–”1. What place does he give to suffering in the Christian life? (See Romans 5).”
I would say there are two kinds of suffering.
To walk in love when people call you a heretic is suffering. To get an STD because you did things you weren’t supposed to be doing is also suffering. I’m pretty sure God wants us to suffer the first and not the second.
To tithe is suffering but a suffering most Christians don’t seem to be interested in. To fail to receive what God offers because we have failed to ask is also suffering. I’m pretty sure God wants us to suffer the first and not the second.
Being patient when everyone around you is being rude involves suffering. Getting a speeding ticket is also suffering.
To continue believing God’s word when all the circumstances seem to contradict it is to suffer. Doubting God resulting in eternal separation is also suffering. I’m pretty sure God wishes us to suffer the first and not the second.
Not sure what you are referring to in Romans 5 the context is we boast in tribulations … because we are confident he’ll deliver us from them.
(Romans 5:9, 10) 9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. 10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
–”2. What does he present as the attraction? What is it that he’s presenting as a reason to follow Christ?”
That you might have life and have it more abundantly.
–”3. What does he say sin is, and how serious is it?”
I would say Sin is failure to conform to God’s order. Sin is deadly serious, it separates from God, i.e it separates from life.
–”4. Does he indicate that prosperity is a sign of God’s blessing?”
Nobody in Word of Faith circles would talk of prosperity as a “sign.” We don’t believe in signs. We consider looking for signs to be a mark of spiritual immaturity.
–”If so, how does he regard the persecuted church?”
The persecuted church needs to know the message of God’s abundant provision more than the pampered church. Joel Osteen’s ministry, as his fathers before him, is famous in word of faith circles for the huge amounts of money they give to missions.
–”What about Psalm 73?”
There is a prosperity that comes to the wicked and there is a prosperity that comes from God. We are trying to teach people to look to God for their prosperity not the world system, or the work of their hands.
–”5. How does he interpret Jesus’ or Paul’s lack of material goods?”
Hmmm I think I would be able to answer this a little better if you referenced particular scriptures. I don’t believe there is any evidence for Jesus lack of material goods, in the period before his crucifixion. I believe Jesus poverty is a pious fable. See for example Luke 8:3. Do a google search for “Was Jesus poor?” and you’ll find much material on this subject.
I don’t know what scriptural evidence there is for Paul’s poverty. But Paul was a traveling minister, who depended for his support on the people he ministered to, sometimes they supported him sometimes they did not. Paul does not commend their lack of support he chastises them for it. See for example Php 4:10-19. That Christians failed to send money to support the Apostle Paul tells you pretty much all you need to know about Christians and their love of mammon.
–”6. How does he prepare his followers for disappointments?”
I’m a bit of a smart ass so please forgive what follows. One way he could do so is by putting all God’s promises off until they’re dead, that way he’d get a lot fewer complaints. The same way I teach them to deal with any disappointment, figure out what you did wrong, correct it, and get up and fight again and be certain of one thing, God is a good God and He is not your problem.
–”7. How does he teach them with respect to theology, christology, soteriology, pneumatology, ecclesiology? ”
Well I can’t speak for Joel but I’m not a big fan of importing Greek philosophical categories into Christian teaching. Word of Faith ministers are, for the most part, Bible teachers. We’re not really preachers at all. Teach, teach, teach is pretty much all we do, but teach from the Bible not from philosophical speculations about the nature of God. That said, Joel Osteen’s positions on those issues are pretty orthodox. No Word of Faith minister that I know of would have any problems with the statements made in the Nicene creed.
–”Is there any real teaching at all, other than how to be happy with life?”
The first rule of rhetoric is to determine your audience. Joel’s not aiming at me he’s aiming at the more general public so he adjusts his message to be understandable to them. He’s interested in changing lives not impressing theologians and for that I greatly commend him.
–8. Does he present God himself as the ultimate blessing to be desired? Does he promote the promises or the promise-giver?
I’m not sure you’ve thought that question out sufficiently. If God was going to send you to hell regardless would you still worship him just because he was the creator?
–9. Does his message effectively attack self-centeredness, or does it support it, whether covertly or overtly?
I guess you’d have to see if the people in his church do more for others than the average church member. I’m not sure how you would measure that accurately.
Greg Marquez
August 20th, 2010 | 1:31 pm | #61
TUAD,
I really don’t know the answer to that question because WOF is a theological position that developed out of Pentecostalism. It’s ecclesial home is within a large group of independent churches that form something of a network and see Rhema Bible Institute in Tulsa, OK, as a somewhat central player. These churches have a great reach through the television broadcasts of the primary players.
As to the impact of the theology itself, it has been resisted by many classical Pentecostal denominations like the Assemblies of God, the Church of God in Christ, and the Church of God (Cleveland, TN). However, the theology is having an increasing impact on Africa in particular because of its resonance with traditional African understandings of salvation as holistic. In other words, the work of salvation is not simply reducible to removal of guilt that some forensic models will push, but involves the transformation and deliverance of the entire person, body and soul.
Also, historically Pentecostals are not charismatics. The phrase charismatic was used to describe the impact of Pentecostal experiences upon mainline Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox churches. Hence the emergence of the charismatic movement is usually traced to the Episcopal rector, Dennis Bennett’s saying to his congregation that he had received the baptism in the Spirit in 1962.
August 20th, 2010 | 1:42 pm | #62
Dale, Jeff,
I agree word of faith is Christus Victor, though I’m not sure it makes much difference to the average bear. Coming from a Word of Faith background it’s shocking sometimes to see the crucifixion emphasized over the resurrection. I asked a Catholic about it once and he told me the resurrection wasn’t important because he didn’t need miracles to believe. Wow! I was dumfounded. I’m sure that is not an orthodox Roman Catholic position but still…wow!
With respect to the Kingdom of God I’m with Bob Lindsey and the Jerusalem School guys on that one. The Kingdom of God is present tense only and refers to God’s activity on the earth or as Paul puts it “the power of God unto salvation.” The future is the age to come not the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is synonymous with the age of messiah, which I assume most Christians would agree we are in right now. See David Flusser’s Jesus, pg. 264 I think you can access it at Google Books.
Greg Marquez
August 20th, 2010 | 1:49 pm | #63
Greg,
It does make a difference if you are dealing with positive confession categories where folks say you don’t have enough faith to get healed. If healing in the atonement is connected to a penal substitutionary model, then it seems one should get healed in the same way that one should get justified (the moment faith is exercised). Faith unlocks the saving benefits. However, this can reduced salvation to justification and thus a moment rather than a process.
Christus victor calls for a process of overcoming and thus it allows for pastors to say, well, you’re not healed now because God is more concerned about the process than He is about any particular moment in the process. In other words, victory can be defined in all kinds of ways like the martyrs dying and yet still conquering.
I think some average bears might be helped to see that WOF should not be connected to positive confession in ways that it has been at times. Positive confession understood in certain ways is damaging theologically.
August 20th, 2010 | 2:46 pm | #64
After reading some of the comments I wanted to add a little to your understanding of WOF. I would say that the defining characteristic of WOF is growth. Grow in love. Grow in faith. Grow in grace. Grow spiritually. Grow in patience. Grow in peace. Grow in joy. Grow in the knowledge of God.
Since we are so focused on growing when someone fails to receive, healing, or prosperity or answered prayer, we WOF guys don’t point the finger at God but at ourselves. God has already let us know his will in the Bible, if we fail to receive His will in our lives it can’t be because it’s not His will it must be because we were weak, insufficiently developed.
So the Bible says: James 5:14 Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.
We say, The Bible says the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well, if the sick person didn’t get well it must be because our prayer was not offered in faith. It can’t be because it wasn’t God’s will because God’s will is plainly stated, “…the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well.”
It’s amazing to me that people find it difficult to believe that Christians could grow in faith. Some apparently find it impossible to believe that one Christian could have more faith for healing than another Christian. Do they also not believe that Christians can grow in love or in patience?
I know I have met some Minnesota Lutherans that I envied because they were so much more developed in peace and patience than myself. I have met Catholic priests and nuns who had grown much more in submission and humility than I. I have met Baptists who were so full of zeal for the salvation of the lost that my desire for the lost seemed like nothing. Is it so hard to believe that someone else could have more faith for healing than another person?
Craig Payne argues that WOF is appealing to a gnostic type of revelation or understanding. But I can plainly tell you that what we call faith is exactly the same knowing that happens to an evangelical when he is born again. That same strange warming that John Wesley felt in his heart is what we understand as faith. That same realization that Martin Luther had with respect to the just shall live by faith, is the same thing we mean by faith.
But we don’t believe the development of your faith stops with being born again. We believe that you can experience that same type of realization with respect to the rest of the Bible. You can through reading the Word of God, meditating in God’s promises, hearing Bible based teaching and preaching, you can receive that strange warming with respect to answered prayer, healing, prosperity, deliverance, the infilling with the Holy Spirit, and any of the promises of God.
Romans 10:16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? 17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Thanks Joe
Greg Marquez
August 20th, 2010 | 3:09 pm | #65
Thanks Dale.
Thanks all.
A very instructive thread discussion.
I have faith that all who God foreordained to join Him in Heaven will have all their earthly divisions healed.
August 20th, 2010 | 3:39 pm | #66
here are some good thoughts of balance:
http://www.dougwils.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7915:facing-up-the-down-escalator&catid=146:mere-christendom
August 20th, 2010 | 3:50 pm | #67
“What about Psalm 73?”
This introduction of Psalm 73 into this discussion holds a special interest for me, as I am currently writing a meditation on this psalm. In the first half of the psalm, the psalmist depicts the life of the wicked as one of perfect health and prosperity. He concludes this portion of the psalm at verse 12: “So then, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase their wealth.” Then the psalm turns at verses 13-14: “In vain have I kept my heart clean, and washed my hands in innocence. I have been afflicted all day long, and punished every morning.” When he enters the sanctuary of the Lord, he understands that his envy of the wicked is a mistake, for he sees their ultimate end and perceives that God alone is the source of life and wholeness. For me, the psalm climaxes with this proclamation: “Though my flesh and my heart should waste away, God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever. Whom have I in heaven but you? and having you I desire nothing upon earth.” (25-26).
Greg says about this psalm, “There is a prosperity that comes to the wicked and there is a prosperity that comes from God. We are trying to teach people to look to God for their prosperity not the world system, or the work of their hands.” I would say that the psalm is telling us not to look to God FOR our prosperity but to see God AS our prosperity. I am open to the idea that I am only perceiving the WOF/PG superficially, but what I perceive is that it encourages its adherents to see prosperity only in terms that the world understands. In other words, unlike the psalmist, one can’t have kept his heart clean, his hands innocent, be afflicted all day long and punished every morning, and still see his life as prosperous and blessed.
It seems to me that if Joel Osteen said that you can suffer every privation possible in this world and yet count yourself as rich in the Lord, his audiences would shrink considerably.
August 20th, 2010 | 4:05 pm | #68
“It seems to me that if Joel Osteen said that you can suffer every privation possible in this world and yet count yourself as rich in the Lord, his audiences would shrink considerably.” ~ Steve W.
I don’t think that would shrink his audience. Osteen, Copeland, Dollar and other WOF teachers know that we start off as rich in the Lord, that we are already overcomers through faith, more than conquerors through Jesus the Messiah. That’s why they emphasize, for example, in 3 John2, that the most important thing is that we prosper in soul, in our inner being, according to faith and love and the truth of Jesus. Then all other prosperity is just an outward manifestation of a prosperous soul.
However, that does not mean that the opposite is true. A man many appear to be prospering outwardly, but if he is not prospering in his inner being, his outward prosperity will not endure. When it folds, he will fold with it. But a man who is prosperous in spirit will endure even if all outward prosperity be taken away.
I do not think Joel’s audience is so shallow as you seem to think.
August 20th, 2010 | 9:35 pm | #69
I don’t want to derail an interesting thread. However, has it occurred to anyone else that perhaps “sola scriptura” is revealed here as a problem? After all, every side in this argument is quoting the Bible and arguing that his/her interpretation of the scriptures quoted is correct. If a good Protestant is saying, “Your interpretation of the Bible is wrong and mine is right,” I want to know: Based on what authority? The “plain sense” of the Bible? But isn’t that what is under discussion?
As I said, I’m not going to argue this point and derail the discussion. Just something to think about.
Getting back on track: Greg and Jeff are obviously good examples of Christians, no matter their theological bent. But I think in their responses they are giving away what they don’t really want to give away.
For example, in talking about how to counsel people in dealing with disappointments, Greg says, “The same way I teach them to deal with any disappointment, figure out what you did wrong, correct it, and get up and fight again and be certain of one thing, God is a good God and He is not your problem.”
Again, there is the implicit theology: If your loved one died after you prayed, it is your fault or their fault for lack of faith. “Figure out what you did wrong.”
Would any critic ask for a more damaging self-disclosure? And, although Greg’s position is motivated well (to preserve the WOF vision of God’s goodness and perfection and faithfulness to His Word), it is wrong, and can be so destructive. A little leaven leavens the whole lump–and this is more than a “little” leaven. No matter how loving and compassionate the individual WOF minister may be, THE IMPLICATION IS STILL THERE: If you are not healthy and prospering, it is your fault.
It ain’t scriptural. It ain’t true. It ain’t compassionate.
August 20th, 2010 | 9:38 pm | #70
P.S. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar were definitely WOF believers.
August 20th, 2010 | 10:01 pm | #71
“P.S. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar were definitely WOF believers.” ~ Craig Payne
You know, Craig, you are certainly free to disagree with me or WOF, and I will certainly not think any less of you for it. After all, I certainly disagree with you and your assessment of WOF and the Scriptures in this matter. But the kind of thing you just posted in #70 is nothing but a cheap shot. It is not an argument worthy of any kind of consideration, just a gratuitous thumb in the eye. And it makes you look like you have run out of any good arguments.
August 20th, 2010 | 11:50 pm | #72
Not at all. Job’s friends basically said to Job, “What you are going through is your fault; if you repent of whatever mistakes you have made and get right with God again, God will (materially) bless you again.”
What is the essential difference between that and “Figure out what you did wrong”?
August 20th, 2010 | 11:55 pm | #73
At any rate, thanks again, Jeff and Greg. I think, based on my experience with the WOF message, that you have defended it about as well as it can be defended. You have certainly defended it better than its leaders would; also, you are willing to do so, which is something. I have heard most of the prominent WOF ministers state publicly that they refuse to debate the WOF message with any other Christian leader.
So farewell for now. May God continue to keep us all in His will, as much as possible.
August 21st, 2010 | 8:04 am | #74
Jeff: “. . . the most important thing is that we prosper in soul, in our inner being, according to faith and love and the truth of Jesus. Then all other prosperity is just an outward manifestation of a prosperous soul.”
But, as Craig points out, isn’t that the crux of the problem? What does it mean if there is no outward manifestation of prosperity? Does it mean that one does not have a prosperous soul? That one has not grown in the Lord? Could a homeless person be prosperous in “faith and love and the truth of Jesus” and remain homeless?
Nothing in Psalm 73, to return to my particular interest, indicates that turning to the Lord will result in any prosperity that resembles the prosperity of “the wicked.” Yes, their prosperity does not last in the presence of the Lord, but the psalm concludes simply, “But it is good for me to be near God; I have made the Lord God my refuge.” (28) I do not see that the psalmist is expecting a reward comparable in any way to the prosperity he sees in the lives of the unfaithful.
August 21st, 2010 | 8:46 am | #75
Craig,
Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar accused Job of sin and told him that he needed to repent. That is not what WOF does, and that is why I do not accept your accusation of WOF.
WOF is not going to blame God for the cancer that killed a young mother, and the traffic accident that took a young husband, or the rape of a young woman, of the fire that burns down a house. It will not say to the victim of any of those, “Oh, God just wants to teach you a lesson,” or “God did this to humble you,” or “God just needed another mommy in heaven.” Many Christians are quick to blame God’s will for these ~ que sera sera ~ as if God really wanted these things to happen instead of merely allowing them to happen (I am no longer a Calvinist, as you might). It does not suppose that there is any problem on God’s end.
On the other hand, WOF does not suppose that healing and prosperity must come instantly. It does not suppose that any of us is perfect and complete in faith, that there is no room in us for discipleship and growing grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus, that there is no practical spiritual advice that can be of help.
But WOF does not go around accusing anyone of sin who is sick or poor. So that are not like Job’s “miserable comforters” at all. That is why I reject your comparison ~ it is not even an argument, merely an accusation.
August 21st, 2010 | 9:05 am | #76
Steve W.,
If there is no outward prosperity, it does not follow that there is no inward prosperity of soul. It does not mean that one is not a faithful, loving Christian. It does not mean that such a one has sinned.
Some people expect that bodily healing, or restoration of marital/family relationships, or success in business or finances, or other outward forms of prosperity must manifest quickly. And sometimes they may, but often it takes some patience, and we may need some encouragement in our faith while we are waiting between “Amen” and “There it is.”
Psalm 73 may not particularly address outward forms of prosperity, but that does not negate numerous other Scriptures that do. It does not nullify the many outward blessings found in Deuteronomy 28:1-14. Nor does it do away with Psalm 1 or Psalm 112. Nor with Proverbs 3:7-10. These and many other passages describe tangible blessings and outward prosperity. Psalm 73 is true and has been an encouragement to me many times in the past, but it does not contradict any of these other passages.
August 21st, 2010 | 6:35 pm | #77
Osteen essentially denied Jesus as the only way on the Larry King Show.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfwYU2pmWYQ
He also says homosexuality is not “God’s best”.
http://www.bluecollarphilosophy.com/2010/01/prosperity-preacher-joel-osteen-gives.html
How about calling people to repent from sin?
August 21st, 2010 | 7:35 pm | #78
Craig:
I’m not giving anything away I don’t want to give away I’m trying to be honest. You asked:
6. How does he prepare his followers for disappointments?
When I responded you replied:
THE IMPLICATION IS STILL THERE: If you are not healthy and prospering, it is your fault.
I think you correctly characterize my position. But to me that’s like saying:
If you don’t go to church, it’s your fault…
If you don’t read your Bible, it’s your fault…
If you don’t pray, it’s your fault…
If you don’t walk in love, it’s your fault…
If you don’t walk in gentleness, it’s your fault…
If you don’t walk in patience it’s your fault…
If you fornicate it’s your fault…
If you look at pornography on the internet it’s your fault…
If you lie it’s your fault…
If you steal it’s your fault…
So when you ask what I do when people are dissappointed, what I hear is: What do you do when people try to walk in love and fail to do so?
Or What do you do when people determine to be more patient and fail? Or What do you do when people determine to walk by faith and fail?
My response is therefore: The same way I teach them to deal with any disappointment, figure out what you did wrong, correct it, and get up and fight again and be certain of one thing, God is a good God and He is not your problem.
Let me ask you a question.
What do you do when people determine to stop viewing pornography on the internet and fail?
Do you tell them it’s not their fault?
What do you do when Christians fail to walk in love? Do you tell them it’s not their fault?
What do you do when Christians steal something? Do you tell them it’s not their fault?
What do you do when Christians fail to develop their faith? Do you tell them it’s not their fault?
That’s the way I’m understanding your question.
August 21st, 2010 | 10:55 pm | #79
“THE IMPLICATION IS STILL THERE: If you are not healthy and prospering, it is your fault.
I think you correctly characterize my position.”
Dear Greg: Thank you for your honesty. (It rather startled me, in fact.) And, of course, many people do lose their health and financial well-being through their own bad choices.
But it is not a biblical rule that all sickness and lack is one’s own fault, through a lack of faith or other fault. To think this way is precisely to put oneself on the side of Job’s “comforters.”
Speaking God’s Word in the face of difficulties is a great source of power and a wonderful strength. When it all shakes out eventually, that’s what will remain of the WOF movement, and that’s a good thing.
The bad part is the crushed lives and damaged faith of those held to be at fault for what is not in their control.
August 21st, 2010 | 11:37 pm | #80
“But it is not a biblical rule that all sickness and lack is one’s own fault, through a lack of faith or other fault.” ~ Craig
Nor is it WOF teaching.
August 22nd, 2010 | 12:11 am | #81
Craig:
I think it my help you to understand the implications of what you’re saying if you answered some of my questions as honestly as I have answered yours.
When a Christian fails to walk in love what do you tell them? Do you tell them it’s not their fault?
Greg Marquez
August 22nd, 2010 | 8:25 am | #82
Sometimes is may be our own fault ~ a repentance we need to make, someone we need to forgive, an attitude we need to correct. Nobody is born again without the need for discipleship or something that needs correction in their life or without any room to grow in their faith.
But other times it is not a matter of fault, not ours or God’s or anybody else. Sometimes it is a matter of patience, continuing to believe what God has said even though the circumstances seem to oppose it. Sometimes healing is instant, but often it happens over time. So, if we do not see it instantly, that does not mean that it is not coming, nor does it mean that anyone is at fault.
So, if healing does not come immediately for a person, I do not go looking for some sin in their life. Nor do I go looking for some lack in their faith. I don’t try to establish blame in them. Now, it may come out in discussion that there is something that needs to be addressed, and I will explore that with them. But I am not looking to place blame or shame or anything else on them. Or God may give a word of wisdom about the next step in their healing; sometimes that may be about correcting a fault, other times it may simply be wisdom about what to do next. And, always, I seek to encourage them with the Word of God, to keep building them up in faith, and I will keep standing with them in faith for their the healing.
This is the training I have received from WOF.
August 22nd, 2010 | 4:39 pm | #83
Dear Greg: Perhaps if we go back to Post 77 we will notice something. Every question you have listed describes a moral fault; furthermore, everything you have listed is in one way or another directly prohibited by Scripture.
So are you equating the two? In other words, if a Christian is not healthy and prospering, it is equivalent to a moral fault?
If you are equating the two, then your list of questions makes sense. Otherwise, it doesn’t. I can blame someone for stealing while not blaming them for leukemia. The two are not equivalent.
Dear Jeff: I would ask you the same thing I asked Greg: “If you are not healthy and prospering, it is your fault–because you have not properly appropriated in faith the Word of God for your situation. If you were living in what the Word says, you would be healthy and prosperous.”
Do you agree with that or not?
If not, then perhaps you and Greg need to talk over what the WOF movement actually teaches. But I would argue that that is exactly the crux of the WOF message: that, according to the WOF, God’s Word gives us authority over all sickness and lack, and so if someone dies of a sickness, that person was not walking in the fullness of faith and the Word of God.
Even when I was living back in Broken Arrow, I knew a woman in a wheelchair who finally quit attending WOF meetings. She got the (implied) message.
By the way, I am not asking if you would ever actually SAY these things to a person. Based on what I can read of your character (and Greg’s) in your posts, I assume you would not. But it’s still implied in the theology. As I’ve said many times by now, most WOF believers I know are great people, full of faith and love. They are much better than their theology.
But some are not. I heard Kenneth Copeland myself, saying that if the people who died in 9/11 had been listening more closely to God, they wouldn’t have died, because God was trying to warn all of them before they went to the Twin Towers that day. How he claims to know this, I have no idea. Talk about condemnatory!
So, do you agree with him? After all, he is probably the leading WOF minister in the world today, with the possible exception of Joel Osteen, if you count him as a WOF minister.
I also (with you) believe that God’s healing and blessing and provision are for today. I have seen miraculous healings and miraculous answers to prayer. But I cannot accept as scriptural the WOF theology that claims these things as mandated for everyone.
August 22nd, 2010 | 5:40 pm | #84
Craig:
I think this conversation has reached the point of not just diminishing but no returns. You want to ask questions but you refuse to respond to any; which in my opinion is fundamentally dishonest on your part.
Greg Marquez
August 22nd, 2010 | 5:57 pm | #85
Prosperity Gospel, indeed! The guy is just the latest incarnation of “Christian” hucksterism. The Rev. Plastic Fantastic.
August 22nd, 2010 | 6:00 pm | #86
Craig,
We all start off as sinners. Even when we are born again, that is no guarantee that we do not have sinful behaviors in our life, or attitudes that need to be changed, or negative effects from poor decisions or behaviors in the past. All this really means that it that none of us is born again spiritually mature or perfect. We all go through a process of growth that we call discipleship. We call it discipleship because it is a process of learning new attitudes, thoughts, behaviors and responses. We call it process because it happens over time, not instantly. It can often be like that with healing and it is almost always like that with prosperity. So there is often a process of learning new behaviors and attitudes, often in healing, almost always in prosperity. This requires patience. There may often be things God wants to show us about our healing and prosperity, wisdom He wants to give us regarding it. Sometimes, all that is need is patience as healing often happens over time and prosperity almost always takes time.
It seems rather jaded to me to describe the necessity of discipleship and patience as “faults” or to speak as if it means someone is to blame. They are very positive things, not negative ones.
It is ironic that the ones who talk about blaming someone for not getting healed or prospering are not those who follow WOF teaching but those who are against it. I have never heard any WOF teacher say tell someone that they did not get healed because they did not have enough faith. Nor have I ever seen them assume that someone did not get healed because of sin in their life.
WOF does not teach that all sickness and lack is one’s own fault. Sometimes it may be. I doubt you would say that sickness or lack is never one’s own fault. But sometimes all that is is needed is a little time, and I do not consider that any kind of fault (I think it would be unreasonable to do so).
As I have already said, when I minister to someone concerning healing or prosperity, I don’t try to establish blame. I don’t assume that they are at fault. There may be more steps for them to take, and I will be happy to explore that with them. But again, I don’t consider additional steps to be indicative of faults (I think that also would be unreasonable).
So, sometimes someone may be sick or in lack because of their own fault. And sometimes not. I don’t assume either way.
Now let me turn the question around for you: Do you think sickness or lack is ever our own fault? Or would you agree with me that sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t?
Regarding 9/11, I have heard some of the testimonies of people who got out of the building in time (or never went into the building that day) because they the heard the voice of the Lord of felt a strong leading of the Spirit, and they heeded that voice, or that leading. Do you think it is possible to hear the Lord or sense the Spirit like that? Do you think that it is possible that God might speak to us like that or somehow nudge us somehow by His Spirit and yet we might not heed that? I think both of those are possible. I know God spoke to some on 9/11, the ones who heeded His voice and got out. Did God maybe speak to some others but they did not respond to it? Seems possible to me. WOF does not teach that it is always our own fault; nor does it teach that it is never our own fault.
I have followed the Copeland ministry for over a dozen or so years, and it is from them that I learned WOF. One thing I’ve often seen them teach about healing, when it doesn’t come instantly, is to not give up but to keep standing in faith and speaking in agreement with the Word of God until healing does come. That does not find fault or blame anybody for anything.
I believe that God’s desire is for every believer to walk in wisdom, health and prosperity. I have seen it too much in Scripture to think otherwise.
August 22nd, 2010 | 6:57 pm | #87
Dear Greg: You wrote, “I think this conversation has reached the point of not just diminishing but no returns. You want to ask questions but you refuse to respond to any; which in my opinion is fundamentally dishonest on your part.”
I think, if you go back to my post, I did write, “I can blame someone for stealing while not blaming them for leukemia. The two are not equivalent.” In other words, I did answer your questions: the answer is yes. You can morally blame someone for fornication, stealing, lying, etc. What I said was that this is not equivalent to someone’s being sick, for which the WOF does blame them. I wanted to know if you thought sickness and lack were moral faults like stealing and fornication. After all, you are the one who brought up the comparison, right?
I don’t blame you, however, for ignoring my entire post in your (pretended?) huff. I would not want to respond, either, in your position. After all, what I have been asking you calls into question the basis for a specifically WOF ministry!
So, may God lead us all more perfectly into His will.
Dear Jeff: You wrote, “WOF does not teach that all sickness and lack is one’s own fault.” Well, I can only repeat that you and Greg need to talk over which one is right. I can say, however, from my own experience, that you are wrong in this. What I wrote was this: “I would argue that that is exactly the crux of the WOF message: that, according to the WOF, God’s Word gives us authority over all sickness and lack, and so if someone dies of a sickness, that person was not walking in the fullness of faith and the Word of God.”
You did not respond to this directly. But this is still the crux of the WOF message. If not directly stated (and, as I have said repeatedly, I do not think you or Greg would say this to someone), it is implied in the WOF theology.
And, since at this point I am simply repeating previous arguments, I suppose we are finished. Thank you for the discussion; and I mean that. As I said before, most WOF ministers would not debate or defend their beliefs, especially not in a forum like this blog. I appreciate it.
Best in Christ, Craig
August 22nd, 2010 | 7:13 pm | #88
You frame your questions from the way you see, and it’s fair to do so. If you do not feel I have answered your question directly the way you framed it (and the way you see), it is because I have answered the question from the way I see. And I think that is fair, too. So, if our Q & A don’t jibe, I don’t know what to do about it.
You’re experience of WOF tells you I’m wrong about it. But my experience of WOF tells me I’m right about it. Not sure what to do about that, either, except to maintain the position I have expressed here.
August 23rd, 2010 | 2:13 pm | #89
Here’s a recent post from a former member of a Word-Faith church: My biggest gripe with Word-Faith theology.
August 23rd, 2010 | 8:09 pm | #90
I grew up in a Word of Faith church, and although I am no longer technically in the movement (I moved to the Assemblies of God), I have few problems with the actual theology. One complicated feature about such theology, however, is that the Word of Faith has so many teachers and so little orthodoxy. In other words, there is a bit of disunion between how one person talks about the Word of Faith and how another one does.
Given how many good comments have already been posted, I wanted to simply note that I think there is a major misunderstanding with using buzzwords like “name it and claim” it to describe the movement (although it IS the movement’s fault that such phrases exist).
The reason I say this, is that growing up, I was never taught that you could just “name and claim” anything you wanted, and that God would do whatever you said he should do. The whole point was to align your desires and thoughts to His Word and be guided by the Holy Spirit (also in accordance to His Word).
For me, what it came down to was emphasis. As I became an adult (now 25), I realized that the teaching in Word of Faith churches was pretty darn narrow. This doesn’t mean most of it was wrong (though I have a few disagreements). I simply didn’t want to hear all about speaking in faith and spiritual warfare. I thought it was mainly a problem of emphasis, which is another thing I think that keeps it from being better understood in the public at large.
If all you do is talk about prosperity and healing, people can build a much more convincing caricature.
All of that said, I have no particular liking for Joel Osteen. He rarely uses scripture, rarely mentions about Satan, speaks in anecdotes, and — as I already mentioned — is highly lopsided when it comes to emphasis. I don’t think all Word of Faith preachers are as shallow as he is…at least, not from my experience. I understand that he reaches a particular “down-to-earth” audience, but he does no favors for serious Word of Faith theologians.
August 23rd, 2010 | 10:26 pm | #91
I grew up as a pastor’s kid to two WoF ministers. I have been deeply involved in it and heard more sermons and read more books than I can count by it’s leaders. I have also preached sermons myself in WoF churches.
Yet as already mentioned by other commentors, their theology is very narrow and their knowledge and understanding of the whole biblical corpus is grossly lacking. If you note above, Jeff and Greg like all WoF prescribers wrap their theology around a handfull of texts divorced from their context. For example, they ALWAYS use Ps. 35:27 that God desires the prosperity of his people. Yet this is not a declaration of God but a prayer of the psalmist. He’s praying that things will be such that his friends will say these words. There is no promise here.
I have also beened alarmed at how many verses are ripped from their context with such carelessness and explained in such a way that has nothing to do with what is being discussed. This is not just by a few WoF ministers, it is all over. Follow a WoF sermon and look up all the scriptures they use, don’t take their word for it. I have heard Habbakuk 1:5 used as a verse to support the movement, “I m going to do something in your days that you would not believe.” I looked it up one day and saw that Yahweh is talking about coming wrath not something good.
I encourage Jeff and Greg to read through the Bible book by book. Pause at the end of each book and ask if this book preaches the Prosperity Gospel or WoF. You will find this is not at all the flavor of scripture as it flows from beginning to end.
What you have here is a over-realized eschatology that fits perfectly into hyper consumerism of the West. It is Christian-Judeo Capitalism. Greg pointed out Papias and Ireneaus but let me bring up a quote from another father. “Give heed, therefore, you who glory in your wealth, lest those who are needy should groan, and their groans should ascend to the Lord, and you should be shut out with all your goods beyond the gate of the tower.” -Hermas
In addition, you both mention things that the WoF do not teach. Yet how is one to know when there are so many WoF preachers who are saying different things. You say, “WoF does not teach that so and so is to blame for the suffering they endure (my paraphrase).” Yet I can show you a million times in a million places that they do including, Creflo, Copeland, Winston, Duplantis etc.
The question is not that God wants to meet our NEEDS (not wants or desires) but the EXCESS that is chased after by these preachers driving Rolls Royces, living in mansions, flashing benjamins, and displaying their wealth around the world to people who are naked, starving, poor and orphaned.
I think John Piper may have somed up God’s feelings toward this movement with his own–hatred. No matter how we may try to wrap this Prosperity Gospel up in pretty little Christian-like garbs, it is another gospel. Note how all of these WoF ministers who succeed spent so much wealth on themselves. That my friends is the fruit that Christ warns against, self indulgence. I think the WoF/Prosperity Gospel ministers could learn some valuable lessons by looking at the spending habits of a man like John Piper, Jesus, and Paul.
August 23rd, 2010 | 10:35 pm | #92
I would like to ask these questions of Jeff and Greg:
Would Jesus drive around in a Rolls Royce?
Would Jesus live in a mansion?
Would Jesus wear Italian made suits?
If we are called to live humble lives of servants (Mt. 19:14) does this jive with you?
If Jesus was so concerned with you having wealth why doesn’t he plainly teach it?
If it is such an emphasis then why isn’t it a more dominate theme in any of the epistles, Acts, or Gospels?
August 24th, 2010 | 8:02 am | #93
Joining late in this discussion so forgive me if I mention something that’s already been covered.
For those of you are using Deuteronomy 28 as the basis for material wealth, I would ask that you step back and consider to whom this is being addressed and its significance in God’s plan for history. We have to consider that this instruction was given to Israel through whom God would make himself known to the surrounding nations. Their consecration by God was denoted by obedience to the Law and outward manifestation of wealth.
However, this was a foreshadow to Christ who fulfilled the Law and instituted a change so that the revelation of God would no longer be manifested in outward signs but in inward renewal. This was the significance of Pentecost. The emphasis of the NT, therefore is focused on Christ and his church as the conduit for God to make himself known. Christ as the fulfiller of the Law, made the Law ineffective so that obedience to him takes on a different form than what can be expected under the Old Covenant. Therefore, it is erroneous to use Old Testament examples as prescriptions for believers in Christ.
There are plenty of passages that point to the fact that we are not to pursue material blessings nor is it an outward sign of favortism of God.
What do you do with 1 Timothy 6:3-11, where Paul tells Timothy the gospel is not about financial gain but pursuit of righteousnesss?
What about 1 Corinthians 4:9-16? Paul paints a picture that is very contradictory to what the prosperity gospel teaches and then says be imitators of me (vs. 16). That doesn’t mean he is exhorting to be impoverished just that outward wealth is not a symbol of godly status. The focus is Christ and we should be willing to give up our reputations to proclaim him.
Ephesians 1 is an indication that blessings come in the form of being found in Christ and not material gain.
I would challenge promoters of the prosperity gospel to find New Testament evidence that outward wealth is not only promised to believers but used as a manifestation of God’s presence in that believers life.
August 24th, 2010 | 8:25 am | #94
I would also add the outward manifestation of God’s presence in the life of the believer and the church is the fruit of the spirit and how we are proclaiming Christ through spiritual gifts and interactions as a body.
Consider Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12-14, Ephesians 3:9-10; Colossians 3
August 24th, 2010 | 9:21 am | #95
Jeremy,
I am not limited to a handful of verses to support my position. But I am limited, by the constrictions of a blog thread, from presenting all the numerous Scriptures and how they pertain. It would take a few volumes to talk about them all.
And even the ones that are usually presented are not squarely and consistently dealt with. Take Psalm 35:37. No, it is not a direct statement of God. But it is something that David teaches under divine inspiration. Shall we suppose that what David says here is not true, that God does not delight in the prosperity of His people, because it is David and not God who says it? Then, to be consistent, we should also have to doubt “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want,” because that is not a direct statement from God but something that David said.
And what shall we do with Psalm 1, which describes the blessing of the man who does not walking in ungodly counsel, stand in the path of sinners or sit with mockers, but delight in the law of the LORD? The psalm writer says there that whatever such a man does will prosper? This is not a direct statement uttered by God but something written about God by the psalm writer.
Thank you for your kind invitation to read through the Bible book by book. I have done so, and I have found throughout that God’s desire is for His people to walk in wisdom, health and prosperity. As I read, Jeremy, I do pay attention to the context and what such passages mean in context, and the legitimate ways they apply. My method is the basically one I learned early on. It is three questions I ask of a text: What does it say? What does it mean? How does it apply?
No doubt, there are many WOF whose exegesis and hermeneutics leave much to be desired and who seem to do little more than proof-texting. But I am always looking to understand the text in its proper context and then exploring what application it has for Christians today.
It is purely a matter of opinion as to whether or not we have an over-realized eschatology. My opinion is that many Christians have an under-realized eschatology. BTW, I take a post-millennial viewpoint, which most WOF do not (at least as far as I know). It has been called “victorious eschatology,” which I much prefer to the defeatist eschatology I’ve seen in many Christians. I also agree with N. T. Wright, that the end of the story has broken into the middle of the story in the cross and resurrection of King Jesus the Messiah. I view the cross and the atonement in terms of Christus Victor). I do not subscribe to the platonic, or sometimes almost gnostic type of separation many Christians make between matter and spirit, so that they want to “spiritualize” all the promises of God as if they have no earthly application.
WOF is not about consumerism or hyper-consumerism or capitalism. It is about believing the promises of God, including His promises to fully provide for us in all things, even to the point of abundance so that we have something to give to every good work and bless others. “Blessed to be a blessing,” is a motto I have very often heard from WOF people.
WOF does not teach that anybody should in wealth, love wealth, trust in riches or serve mammon. Quite the opposite, it teaches us to love, trust, serve and glory in God alone. WOF is about honoring the Word of God and having faith in it alone, even though every circumstance and emotion and thought might contradict it.
Now, of course, like any theology or teaching, there is the core teaching, and then there are the various extremes some people might take it to. I do not agree with everything every person going under the banner of WOF says. In fact, there are a number of things I disagree with. And some of the ways some have abused the core teaching have been quite egregious. So, when I speak about WOF, I am speaking only of the core teaching. I believe that a theology or teaching should not be judged on its worst presentation or by how it has been abused at the fringes but, rather, should be evaluated at its best presentation and what it is at its core.
Now, to your second post and the questions you ask there:
Although it may play to stereotype, big mansions and fancy cars are not what WOF teaching is about. Such amenities are extraneous to it. I’m not concerned whether anybody has such things, nor it is my job to tell people how big a house they should live in or how nice a car they should drive or how nice their clothes should be. If Jesus were on earth today, I don’t know what kind of car He might drive, how big a house He might live in or what kind of clothes He might wear. And neither do you. Such speculations tend to be made on whatever one’s particular ideology is. So it sort of begs the question.
I jive very strongly with Matthew 19:14 and living as a humble servant. That is what King Jesus came to be and is what we are called to as His disciples. Indeed, I believe it is the nature of God. God IS love, and it is the nature of love to give and serve. Jesus made Himself the Humble Servant of all, and has not ceased to be, even now as He reigns at the right hand of the Father. And so should we all be.
But being a humble servant does not mean being sick and broke. Being healthy and prosperous does not conflict in any way with being a servant of others. Indeed, when we are healthy and prosperous we are able to serve others all the better, and when we have abundance we are able to give to the need of others. As I noted earlier, a common motto among WOF is that we are “blessed to be a blessing.”
Jesus did speak clearly about wealth and abundance, but some Christians are too dull of hearing to recognize it. We are not to serve mammon or wealth, but we are to use wealth for His kingdom. I can go into that further, but this post is already long as it is. There are many places throughout the Old and New Testaments which speak of the prosperity and abundance God has for His people. There is no room here to talk about them all, and if I mention just a couple, you will suppose that that it all there is.
August 24th, 2010 | 10:03 am | #96
Lisa,
I believe that Deuteronomy 28:1-14 does have application to Christians today. God promised great blessing and abundance on earth to Israel if they would obey His voice and observe His commands. Of course, they failed to do so, quite miserably. But Jesus the Messiah came as the perfect Israelite who obeyed God fully and completely on behalf of Israel, and indeed, on behalf of the whole world, for all who believe in Him. Deuteronomy 28 is, of course, part of the oldcovenant, cut with the blood of bulls and goats. However, Jesus has instituted a new covenant by His own blood. It is not only a new covenant, it is also a better one. It does not do away with any of the promised benefits of the old covenant — that would make it a lesser covenant — but it adds to the blessing of that covenant. And now, all who believe in King Jesus the Messiah, who is the perfect Israelite, are grafted into Israel, because we are in Him. And so the blessings and promises to Israel have begun to be fulfilled upon the earth, not only in a “spiritualized” way but also in tangible, material ways. The kingdom of God has broken into the world and brings with it the will of God being done on earth as it is in heaven. The more the kingdom pervades the earth, the more heaven pervades on earth. And in the end, heaven and earth will be completely joined together as one.
Paul’s words in 1 Timothy 6:3-11 are about those who try to manipulate the Gospel and godliness for the purpose of great gain. Their love is for money, not God and by their greediness have strayed from the faith.
I do not think WOF fits that description. Oh, there are some on the fringes who appear to be trying to “work the system.” But that is not what WOF teaching is about. We are not to love money, trust in money, serve money or glorify money. We are to love, trust, serve and glorify God alone. It is His kingdom we are to seek, not our own. We are not blessed to consume it upon our lusts but to be a blessing to others.
In 1 Corinthians 4:9-16, Paul is describing the persecution he and other apostles experienced. Jesus promised us there would be persecution of His sake and the Gospel’s, and I have been regularly reminded by WOF teachers that this is so. Of course, Paul is here only describing half the story. In other places, he tells the other half — he know both how to be abased AND how to abound. Sometimes he suffered deprivation because of persecution for the Gospel; other times he experienced the abundance of God and had all the material provision he needed so that he lacked nothing.
As you said, outward wealth is not a symbol of godly status. I agree. And so does WOF. Lack of outward wealth is not a sign that one is not right with God. And there are many people who have outward wealth but are ungodly; Kenneth Copeland says that such a person is “just a poor man with money.” WOF teaches that true prosperity begins with prosperity of soul (3 John 2), and until you begin to prosper in the inward man, you are not prospering at all, now matter how much money you have or how successful you may be in the eyes of the world.
Financial prosperity and material wealth are, for WOF, the least of God’s blessing for His people. Creflo Dollar says it is a very small slice of the pie. Much greater are the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, etc. God also manifests the blessings of the Gospel through the gifts of the Spirit.
Every blessing we have is found in Jesus the Messiah. In Him, God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3). This does not preclude material blessing, success and prosperity but, rather, encompasses them. For the nature of the physical realm is that it is found on the spiritual realm. God, who created the heavens and the earth — that is, the material world — IS Spirit. So, in Jesus the Messiah, we have EVERY blessing. The material is not to be separated out from the spiritual, as if we were Platonists or Gnostics.
August 24th, 2010 | 10:59 am | #97
“The material is not to be separated out from the spiritual, as if we were Platonists or Gnostics.”
Hi again, Jeff. I thought I could leave this alone, but here we are again.
I wanted to point out this, which you said twice in your posts. You are absolutely correct on this, though you applied it only to the separation of spiritual and physical blessings. So what about “I am a spirit, I have a soul, and I live in a body.” Does that sound familiar? Isn’t that something virtually every WOF teacher says, and has the congregation repeat?
I mean, that’s practically Gnostic cheerleading. :)
August 24th, 2010 | 11:04 am | #98
“As you said, outward wealth is not a symbol of godly status. I agree. And so does WOF.”
Except for all the WOF teachers who, using 3 John 2, argue that outward health and wealth are the signposts of inward spiritual growth. As one teacher told me directly (and repeatedly), “Health and wealth are the ‘show and tell’ God uses to indicate to the world what is going on inside us spiritually.”
I think one problem here, Jeff, is that you are defending a theology that holds a lot of beliefs you yourself do not hold! As I have said before, WOF folks are typically much better Christians than their WOF theology should warrant.
August 24th, 2010 | 11:18 am | #99
Jeff,
You said
“However, Jesus has instituted a new covenant by His own blood. It is not only a new covenant, it is also a better one. It does not do away with any of the promised benefits of the old covenant — that would make it a lesser covenant — but it adds to the blessing of that covenant.”
I would point your direction to Romans 7:1-6, Ephesians 2:13-16 and Hebrews 7:11-26. This does not indicate that Christ added to what was already there but rendered it ineffective. The grafting in of Israel does not mean we graft the Old Covenant into the new and represent that as Christianity. It means that Gentiles are no longer excluded from the promises of God to be called his people. Galatians 3-4 indicates this as well.
I would also draw your attention to the correlation between the Law and the Spirit. Obedience to the Law marked the representation of Israel as God’s people.(note that Pentecost was a day to comemmorate the the giving of the Law – ironic). That has been replaced by the internal dwelling of the Spirit, which affects obedience to Christ. That obedience is sourced in belief in him and who he is in order to proclaim him and be an authentic witness.
I don’t reject the added benefits that God can bestow on us because he loves us, but neither should they be required as an indication that we are blessed.
August 24th, 2010 | 11:32 am | #100
Craig,
I think you are mistaking some of the sayings of some WOF for WOF theology. It is common among a lot of different Christian positions that when preachers get to preaching, theological nuance gets lost. Most WOF preachers are not theologians but are more oriented to exhortative teaching. So some things get said on the fly which may sound pretty good to them at the moment, and may even stick around for a while.
I do not like the formulation, “I am a spirit, I have a soul and I live in a body” because I think it does tend toward the Platonic separation.
I do not claim to be 100% aligned with WOF. In fact, I have said that there are things I disagree with. Some are aspects of doctrine, others are the way they say certain things, such as the above.
August 24th, 2010 | 11:47 am | #101
Lisa,
Jesus has fulfilled the law so that for us who are in Him, the law can no longer stand against us and accuse us. We are declared righteous concerning the requirements of the law. What is more, the promises God made to Israel remain ~ they have not been done away with. God fulfills His covenant with Abraham, which He confirmed to Isaac and Jacob (Israel). He fulfills it in Israel through Messiah Jesus, the perfect Israelite. And it is in Him that we receive all the promises and blessings of the covenant God made with Abraham. The blessings of Deuteronomy 28:1-14 are not promises that have nothing to do with God’s covenant with Abraham, they are expressions of what that covenant means.
Nothing I have said should be understood to mean that we are still dealing with Law. We are not. The law is fulfilled in Jesus the Messiah. So we no longer relate to the law. Instead, we now relate to King Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
August 24th, 2010 | 9:33 pm | #102
Jeff,
I have found WoF ministers to be the masters of double talk, word games, and have great abilities in blurring the lines of truth. I say this not as ad hominem but as an observation that every student of the WoF needs to realize and those who are not WoF need to pay attention to. WoF has a way of making it sound all so good and delicious while ignoring the vast portions of scriptures that do not paint it so pretty.
I believe that Jesus is an embarassment to the WoF in many ways as well as Paul in his difficult moments. I think the poverty of certain churches that Paul wrote to is an embarassment. I do not believe you have more than a thread of scriptures…this is a usual cop-out. When I have studied the WoF movement it is always the one dozen scriptures given from you above, KCM’s Bible, the 2005 WoF Prosperity Overflow cd collection I have and listened to many times. The other scriptures are taken out of context.
Now I hear you on reading through the Bible and I will trust your word. But I must say growing up in the WoF I was unaware of 95.5% of the Bible because we always heard the same old positive scriptures. Let’s go back to Ps. 35. Interesting that I only here verse 27 from you but not the rest of the chapter. What about verses 7-8 is this the will of God and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the destruction and death of David’s enemies?
You say David taught this prosperity? The great king of Israel? What of Deut. 17:17? The criteria for a good king is not to take great wealth–silver and gold to himself. I argue that this is exactly what WoF/PG preachers are doing. Taking great wealth to themselves.
Now I know the response is, “No we are a blessing thats why we need to be blessed.” I am fascinated how this “blessing” is more often than not interpreted as riches and material wealth. The usual response if I may continue in my diatribe is to say, “No that’s the least we WoF focus on.” But I have to say I disagree. Because regardless of who you listen to, be it Dollar, Copeland, Duplantis etc. the majority of their sermons and books revolve around material when it comes to blessings.
Please don’t try to hide these guys behind some cloak of modesty because they are all far from modest in their wealth. Dollar drives a $500,000 Rolls Royce and lives in a 3 million dollar home. This is not the lifestyle of Jesus, this is the lifestyle of a Rapper.
And as far as most WoF/PG preachers never answering the question of what Jesus would drive and live in…this is dodging a very necessary bullet. Because if you honestly can’t answer this than you don’t understand Jesus and may not know what he was about. Jesus was not a man of means materially speaking (I must qualify that later). He would have lived modestly and given the rest to the poor and needy because he was selfless and compassionate. He was always moved with compassion to give. I’m sorry but this excessive wealth WoF/PG prescribes to is exactly “storing up treasure on earth.” How do they sleep at night knowing that thousands sleep in boxes? You say we are conduits but these guys are more than conduits they are stop signs that spend a great deal of wealth on themselves.
Does God want to bless us and take care of us? Yes! Does he want to meet our NEEDS? Yes this is what Jesus taught–OUR NEEDS! I can’t stand the trivializing of words like blessing, abundance, prosperity, riches, generosity, talents, gifts, seed time and harvest, sowing and reaping, rewards etc into material gain and money. There is always a cop-out to this by WoF but this is the majority of what they emphasize no matter how you or any WoF/PG subscriber tries to ignore it.
The other shallow come backs are, “Jesus had a treasurer”; “Jesus road a donkey that no man had ridden” (a Dollar quote); “Jesus wore designer clothes” (another Dollar quote); “God is rich, rich, rich, rich…and you can be too” (Copeland). These all reduce the gospel to silliness.
And no my friend, I am not a teacher of sick and broke which is also an accusation that WoF/PG folks throw when you don’t agree with their excess.
The picture you also paint is that we need money to bless and be a blessing. This is false. Jesus blessed most without using any money and so did Paul. God doesn’t need money to spread the gospel, what he would like is for each Christian to take the focus off of themselves all the time and their “stuff” and start telling people the good news. Does the poor woman in the Congo need your money? No, she needs to hear the gospel from a minister–most of which are not PG–and turn and tell her family and friends. That simple. That is what Jesus envisaged. People telling people. Not Copeland getting into his big jet because he’s the only one who can do it.
August 24th, 2010 | 10:07 pm | #103
Well, Jeremy, we obviously disagree. You display quite a lot of animus toward WOF and apparently you want to direct it toward me. I have tried to honestly answer everybody’s questions here, and I think I have done so with a fair degree of patience, but I do not appreciate having my honesty impugned. You seem to want to have a fight, but I’m not going to give one to you. You may consider our interaction on this at an end.
Peace be with you.
August 24th, 2010 | 10:41 pm | #104
Well sir I do agree that we disagree. I do not feel that I am calling your honesty into question especially when I comment that I trust that you have read scripture. I do however question your methodology and approach to hermeneutics.
My point is clear that it is close to impossible to draw out a full debate from WoF because they discuss in circles and hide behind rhetoric and word games, and have been trained to do so. To answer the original question of the post, “What is the problem with the Prosperity Gospel?” A chaos of rhetoric and word games which are not purely grounded in the overall message of scripture. I understand that this view is offensive but factual none the less.
God Bless you Jeff and may God’s grace be sufficient for you and yours.
August 25th, 2010 | 2:34 pm | #105
I did not see anyone mention these books as critiques of the WOF teaching and history:
A Different Gospel by D. R. McConnell
Hendrickson Publishers / 1995
The Disease of the Health and Wealth Gospels
by Gordon Fee
I have read “A Different Gospel” – it is thoroughly researched and clearly shows the actual roots of WOF teaching to be from the metaphysical cults of Christian Science and New Thought. It also proves the plagiarism by Kenneth Hagin of E. W. Kenyon’s writings and provides some evaluation of critical doctrines.
The important focus in evaluation of the doctrines should be their view of the atonement – wherein they maintain that Jesus died “spiritually” and was actually “born again” in hell.
It is evident that the WOF movement as a whole lacks Biblical hermaneutic, contains over-realised eschatology, and when examined carefully alongside the historic faith, contains serious doctrinal error. Its teachings are repudiated even by other charismatic/pentecostal/continuationist denominations such as the Assemblies of God.
August 25th, 2010 | 4:09 pm | #106
For those curious about how WOF and Pent/Char tie together, I point you to “The Disease of the Health and Wealth Gospels” by Gordon Fee, a Pentecostal who has written a sound exegetical critique of the prosperity teachings. http://www.amazon.com/Disease-Health-Wealth-Gospels/dp/1573830666/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282765963&sr=8-1
I also heard from some of the WOF proponents on this thread, veiled denigration of thoughtful scholarly study of the Scriptures (accusations of relying on our own minds and not listening to the Spirit). I would point them to “Full Gospel, Fractured Minds?” by Rick Nañez http://www.amazon.com/Full-Gospel-Fractured-Minds-Intellect/dp/0310263085/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282766284&sr=1-1
I also heard the phrase “blessed to be a blessing” tossed around. Too bad the major voices of WOF don’t live like John Wesley, who truly did take the blessings God gave him and gave them away, continuing to live at the same modest level even as his annual income multiplied many times. He calculated what he needed to live on (and not extravagantly, mind you), then gave the rest away. He said, “When I have money, I get rid of it quickly, lest it find a way into my heart.”
August 25th, 2010 | 4:12 pm | #107
I see someone else also recommended Dr. Fee’s booklet while I was reading this thread (I should have refreshed before posting).
August 25th, 2010 | 4:32 pm | #108
Yes I hear that both Fee’s and McConnell’s books are good and look forward to reading them. I was in the WoF/PG until I heard so many warnings and doctrinal violations were exposed to me. The trouble is is that when you are in it you are under almost a spell. You are seduced into it with so many appealing claims until you find that much of the focus is taken off of Jesus and put on self and how you will be blessed.
There are fear tactics in place to keep you in as well. You are basically made to feel that if you leave these “great men of God” you will lose the blessings and protection of God. Some don’t directly claim this but it is strongly implied.
WoF/PG people often get angry if you point out these issues as if it is ad hominem. But the truth of the matter is this is the very real and practical side of WoF/PG. Observe their leaders lifestyles. They look like they belong in People magazine with the celebs. Then look at the lay people who are struggling always waiting for the day when they will get theirs. But the system is set up so they will not but the leaders will. Why? Because the layman is ALWAYS encouraged to sow into the ministries of the leaders. The layman does not have a 29,000 member church sowing into his/her life like Creflo Dollar.
Once again people get mad about these observations, but Jesus and Paul command us to observe the fruit of the false teachers and prophets so that we can safe guard ourselves, our families, and the Church.
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