Word of Faith Movement

C.R.I. PAPER ON WORD FAITH MOVEMENT

Some of the best-known American television evangelists subscribe either in whole or in part to the unbiblical teaching known as “positive confession,” the “faith” teaching, or the “prosperity” message. Its chief representatives include Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin, Fred Price, Paul and Jan Crouch, John Avanzini, Robert Tilton, Benny Hinn, and Marilyn Hickey. In the past, CRI has attempted to meet with some of the people listed above to dialogue with them concerning their false teachings; however, most of them have refused.

The major tenets of the Word of Faith movement betray the fact that it is in opposition to mainstream, evangelical Christianity. It asserts that God created human beings in “God’s class” as “little gods.” Before the fall, humans had the potential to exercise a “God kind of faith” and could call things into existence. Humans took on Satan’s nature by rebelling against God in the Garden of Eden, thus losing the ability to call things into existence. In order to correct this situation, Jesus Christ became a man, died spiritually (taking Satan’s nature upon Himself), went to hell, was “born again,” and rose from the dead with God's nature. After this, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to duplicate the Incarnation in believers so they might fulfill their calling to be little gods. It follows, then, that those who have had the Incarnation duplicated in them by the Holy Spirit (thus giving them the ability to exercise the “God kind of faith”) should be successful in every area of their lives. Furthermore, hardships like indebtedness, illness, and even being left by one’s spouse show lack of faith because these problems should be eliminated by “claiming” God’s promises. This teaching best in error and at worst heretical.

Kenneth Hagin     "I am fully convinced - I would die saying it is so - that it is the plan of Our Father God, in His great love and in His great mercy, that no believer should ever be sick; that every believer should live his full life span down here on this earth; and that every believer should finally just fall asleep in Jesus" (Kenneth E. Hagin, Seven Things You Should Know about Divine Healing, p. 21).

Kenneth Hagin, in The Name of Jesus, says, "In teaching on divine healing and health, I have often said, `I haven't had a headache in so-many years.' (At this writing it has been 45 years.) I guess the devil got tired of hearing me say it. Just a few months ago, as I left the office building and started home, suddenly my head started hurting. Someone might say, `Well, you had a headache.' No, I didn't have one! I don't have headaches.

Fred Price              "It's a matter of your faith. You got one-dollar faith, and you ask for a ten thousand-dollar item, it ain't gonna work. It won't work. Jesus said, "According to your faith", not "according to His will, if He can work it into His busy schedule." He said, "according to your faith be it unto you." Now I may want a Rolls Royce and don't have but bicycle faith. Guess what I'm gonna get? A bicycle" (Frederick K.C. Price, "Praise the Lord" broadcast on TBN, 21 September 1990

Kenneth Copeland               Kenneth Copeland explains this verse on page 51 of his book, The Laws of Prosperity, says, "You must realize that it is God's will for you to prosper. This is available to you, and frankly, it would be stupid of you not to partake of it".

Benny Hinn           Poverty comes from Hell. Prosperity comes from Heaven. Adam had complete dominion over the earth and all it contains. A. Adam could fly like a bird. B. Adam could swim underwater and breathe like a fish. Adam went to the moon. Adam walked on water. Adam was a super being, He was the first superman that lived. Adam had dominion over the sun, moon & stars. Christians do not have Christ in their hearts. Sow a big seed, when you confess it, you are activating the supernatural forces of God. (Benny Hinn, Praise-a-thon (TBN), recorded November 1990)

"Christians are "Little Messiah's and "little gods" on the earth. Thus [Encouraging the audience]...say "I am a God-man....This spirit-man within me is a God-man..." say "I'm born of heaven-a God-man. I'm a God man. I am a sample of Jesus. I'm a super being. Say it! Say it! Who's a super being? "I walk in the realm of the supernatural." Say it!...You want to prosper? Money will be falling on you from left, right and centre. God will begin to prosper you, for money always follows righteousness....Say after me, "everything I ever want is in me already." (Benny Hinn, TBN, 1990)

Benny Hinn said:
(1) Never, ever, ever go to the Lord and say, 'If it be thy will';
(2) No Christian should ever be sick;
(3) We Christians possess 'power in our mouths' to heal or kill just as witches possess it;
(4) Job tapped into the negative side of the faith force by a negative confession;
(5) Christ 'became one with the nature of Satan' and was 'born again' in hell;
(6) Christ would have sinned without the Holy Spirit and would have remained in the grave 'if the Holy Ghost had changed His mind about raising Him from the dead' [Jesus said, 'I have power to lay down my life and I have power to take it again' (Jn 10:18) for He is God];
(7) We are 'little gods' and even part of God with all the power of God; and
(8) We are 'little messiahs,' everything that Jesus ever was."
[Adapted and/or excerpted by permission from the 2/94 The Berean Call (P.O. Box 7019, Bend, OR 97708, and from a 1992 Media Spotlight Special Report (P.O. Box 290, Redmond, WA 98073).]

John Avanzini is convinced that "Jesus had a nice big house",(4) "Jesus wore designer clothes",(5) and "Jesus was handling big money".(6)

You don't have a god in you, you are one."(1)

"Pray to yourself, because I'm in your self and you're in Myself. We are one Spirit, saith the Lord."(2)

"I say this with all respect so that it don't upset you too bad, but I say it anyway. When I read in the Bible where he [Jesus] says, 'I Am,' I just smile and say, 'Yes, I Am, too!'"(3)

Kenneth Hagin asserts, "Man…was created on terms of equality with God, and he could stand in God’s presence without any consciousness of inferiority…God has made us as much like Himself as possible…He made us the same class of being that He is Himself…Man lived in the realm of God. He lived on terms equal with God…The believer is called Christ…That’s who we are; we’re Christ!" (Kenneth M. Hagin, Zoe: The God-Kind of Life (Tulsa, OK: Kenneth Hagin Ministries, Inc., 1989), 35-36, 41.

Kenneth Copeland declares that "God’s reason for creating Adam was His desire to reproduce Himself…He was not a little like God. He was not almost like God. He was not subordinate to God even." (Kenneth Copeland, Following the Faith of Abraham I (Fort Worth, TX: Kenneth Copeland Ministries, 1989), tape #01-3001, side 1.

Morris Cerullo bellows, "Did you know that from the beginning of time the whole purpose of God was to reproduce Himself?…Who are you? Come on, who are you? Come on, say it: ‘Sons of God!’ Come on, say it! And what does work inside us, brother, is that manifestation of the expression of all that God is and all that God has. And when we stand up here, brother, you’re not looking at Morris Cerullo; you’re looking at God. You’re looking at Jesus." (Morris Cerullo, The Endtime Manifestation of the Sons of God, (San Diego: Morris Cerullo World Evangelism, n.d.), audiotape 1, sides1 & 2.

TBN president Paul Crouch put it, "I am a little god! Critics, be gone!" (Paul Crouch, Praise the Lord program on TBN (July 7, 1986).

Hinn made the following statement, "Man, I feel revelation knowledge already coming on me here. Life your hands. Something new is going to happen here today. I felt it just as I waled down here. Holy Spirit, take over in the name of Jesus…God the Father, ladies and gentlemen, is a person; and He is a triune being by Himself separate from the Son and the Holy Ghost. Say, what did you say? Hear it, hear it, hear it. See, God the Father is a person, God the Son is aperson, God the Holy Ghost is a person. But each one of them is a triune being by Himself. If I can shock you—and maybe I should—there’s nine of them. Huh, what did you say? Let me explain: God the Father, ladies and gentlemen, is a person with his own personal spirit, with his own personal soul, and his own personal spirit-body. You say, Huh, I never heard that. Well you think you’re in this church to hear things you’ve heard for the last 50 years?" (Benny Hinn, Benny Hinn program on TBN (October 3, 1991).

Kenneth Copeland said, "I was shocked when I found out who the biggest failure in the Bible actually is…The biggest one in the whole Bible is God…Now, the reason you don’t think of God as a failure is He never said He’s a failure. And you’re not a failure till you say you’re one." (Kenneth Copeland, Praise-a-Thon program on TBN (April 1988). He also said, "Adam committed high treason; and at that point, all the dominion and authority God had given to him was handed over to Satan. Suddenly, God was on the outside looking in…After Adam’s fall, God found Himself in a peculiar position…God needed an avenue back into the earth…God laid out His proposition and Abram accepted it. It gave God access to the earth and gave man access to God..Technically, if God ever broke the Covenant, He would have to destroy Himself." (Kenneth Copeland, Our Covenant with God (Fort Worth, TX: KCP Publications, 1987), 8-11 passim.

Benny Hinn claimed that the Holy Ghost personally told him: "Ladies and gentlemen, the serpent is a symbol of Satan. Jesus Christ knew the only way He would stop Satan is by becoming one in nature with him. You say, ‘What did you say? What blasphemy is this?’ No, you hear this! He did not take my sin; He became my sin. Sin is the nature of hell. Sin is what made Satan…It was sin that made Satan. Jesus said, "I’ll be sin! I’ll go to the lowest place! I’ll go to the origin of it! I won’t just take part in it, I’ll be the totality of it!" When Jesus became sin, sir, He took it from A to Z and said, "No more!" Think about this: He became flesh, that flesh might become like Him. He became death, so dying man can live. He became sin, so sinners can be righteous in Him. He became one with the nature of Satan, so all those who had the nature of Satan can partake of the nature of God." (Benny Hinn, Benny Hinn program on TBN (December 15, 1990).

· Kenneth Hagin also claims that Jesus Christ took on the nature of Satan, "[s]piritual death means something more than separation from God. Spiritual death also means having Satan’s nature…Jesus tasted death—spiritual death—for every man." (Kenneth E. Hagin, The Name of Jesus (Tulsa, OK: Kenneth Hagin Ministries, 1981), 31.

Jan Crouch, the wife of TBN president Paul Crouch, approvingly recited the following words from Paul Billheimer’s book during a live communion service aired on TBN: "Because He was "made sin," impregnated with sin, and became the very essence of sin, on the cross He was banished from God’s presence as a loathsome thing. He and sin were made synonymous…[I]t was not sufficient for Christ to offer up only His physical life on the cross. His pure human spirit had not "descend" into hell…His spirit must not only descend into hell, but into the lowest hell…The Father turned Him over, not only to the agony and death of Calvary, but to the satanic torturers of His pure spirit as part of the just dessert of the sin of all the race. As long as Christ was "the essence of sin" he was at Satan’s mercy in that place of torment…While Christ identified with sin, Satan and the hosts of hell ruled over Him as over any lost sinner. During that seemingly endless age in the nether abyss of death, Satan did with Him as he would, and all hell was "in carnival." (Paul Billheimer, Destined for the Throne, special edition for TBN (Fort Washington, PA: Christian Literature Crusade, 1988 [orig. 1975]), 83-84. Quoted by Jan Crouch during the "Praise the Lord" program TBN (August 20, 1987).

Benny Hinn, too, received some "revelation knowledge" on the "rebirth" of Christ in hell: "My, you know, whoosh! The Holy Ghost is just showing me some stuff. I’m getting dizzy! I’m telling you the truth—it’s, it’s just heavy right now on me…He’s [referring to Jesus] in the underworld now. God isn’t there, the Holy Ghost isn’t there, and the Bible says He was begotten. Do you know what the word begotten means? It means reborn. Do you want another shocker? Have you been begotten? So was He. Don’t let anyone deceive you. Jesus was reborn. You say, ‘What are you talking about?’…He was reborn. He had to be reborn…If He was not reborn, I could not be reborn, I would never be reborn. How can I face Jesus and say, "Jesus, You went through everything I’ve gone through, except the new birth?" (Benny Hinn, Our Position ‘In Christ,’ Part 1 (Orlando, FL: Orlando Christian Center, 1991), videotape #TV-254.

Hagin states it, "Every man who has been born again is an incarnation and Christianity is a miracle. The believer is as much an incarnation as was Jesus of Nazareth." (Kenneth E. Hagin, The Incarnation, The Word of Faith 13, 12 (December 1980):14.