Justin Peters is quickly gaining respect for his thorough and non-caustic treatment of the Word of Faith Movement. Though Justin is known for his work as an expository preacher, his seminar A Call for Discernment: A Biblical Critique of the Word of Faith Movement has become his magnus opum. This is a clip of one of the three sessions Justin taught at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is also featured in a stunning documentary on the WoF Movement entitled Suffer the Children. Justin's message is clear, "this is another gospel."
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DD: So you have a lot of people come up to you and say, “Justin, thank you!” or they’ve been through the same type of emotion where they didn’t think they had enough faith? And, it was brought onto them by these faith healers.JP: Sadly, Dusty, yes. Everywhere I go. It doesn’t matter if I’m in a church of 1500 people or 25 people, every time I present A Call for Discernment numerous people tell me that either they themselves or one of their loved ones has been affected by this movement.
DD: What is the Word of Faith movement?
JP: The Word of Faith movement is the proper term to the more commonly known name of the movement, that is the Prosperity Gospel – the Health and Wealth Gospel, the Name-it and Claim-it Gospel. Basically the doctrine says, it is always God’s will for a Christian to be wealthy, and it’s always God’s will for a Christian to be healed. No sickness should ever come his or her way and in the unlikely event that sickness does come, healing is guaranteed. The proper term for this movement which is lead by people such as Benny Hinn, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Jesse Duplantis, is the Word of Faith movement.
DD: Help us with some of these terms like: Word of Faith; Faith Healers; Health, Wealth and Prosperity; Name it and Claim it; Positive Confession.JP: Right, the Word of Faith movement is so termed because of the fundamental belief, the teaching of this system that God did not create the world out of nothing. He did not create ex nihilo as we say. But rather, God used a substance and the substance he used was “faith”. These individuals teach that faith is a literal tangible substance. When God created He spoke, and His words were containers – almost like Tupperware containers of this substance called faith, hence, Word of Faith. The proponents of this movement teach that we as believers can do the same thing. We can create our own reality. We can speak things into existence by using our “words of faith”. So the Word of Faith movement is a proper term.
Of course, faith healers, people that claim to have the gift of healing, particularly Benny Hinn – he’s probably the most prominent, but there are others, Ken and Gloria Copeland, Jesse Duplantis, teach that as long as people have enough faith they will be healed.
The Positive Confession doctrine, very much related to the name of this movement, Word of Faith, claims that we can positively confess our own realities and make them come into existence.
DD: You’ve used a few names Benny Hinn, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, Jesse Duplantis, Creflo Dollar, Joyce Meyer, Paul and Jan Crouch; why do you want to go after these guys? A lot of people say, “These are great people. These are godly people.” What's the danger in their message?
JP: Well Dusty, the danger is, is that it’s a different gospel. It is my personal belief, and I believe the overwhelming testimony of Scripture, that the greatest threat to Orthodox Christianity does not come from outside of the church, it comes from within the “church”. The Bible, the Old and New Testaments both, are replete with warnings of false prophets. Jude talks about these men who have crept in unaware (Jude 1:4) and we see how Satan disguises himself as an Angel of Light (2 Cor. 11:14). So the greatest threat to Orthodox Christianity comes from within the “church”.
The danger of this movement is that much of what these individuals are teaching is right. Not everything that a Benny Hinn and a Ken and Gloria Copeland teach is wrong, but there is enough error and heresy mixed in with it to corrupt the entire message. The Bible says that a little leaven, leavens the whole lump (1 Cor 5:6). It truly is a different gospel.
The Word of Faith movement; a lot of people don’t realize this, but its origins are not Christian at all. The origins of the movement can be traced back directly to the metaphysical cults, such as Christian Science, New Age and New Thought. There is a healthy dose of Gnosticism in the modern prosperity gospel. So what we have is cultic doctrine that’s been wrapped in Christian terminology to make it more palatable to people like you and me. The Word of Faith movement does compromise, and at times deny, some of the fundamental tenants of Orthodoxy Christianity.
On minor issues of doctrine we can have differences of opinion and still have fellowship in Christ, but when it comes to the fundamentals, there’s no room for compromise. There’s no room for debate. It is a different gospel.
to be continued...
