Mick Turner
Joseph, an old and dear friend of mine, is actively involved in what has come to be called the “Word of Faith” movement, among other things. A long time Christian, Joseph became involved with this rapidly expanding movement about 15 years ago. Another of my friends, Richard, is a self-styled “heresy hunter” and “watchman on the walls,” determined to keep the Christian faith pure of what he claims to be “false teachings.”
As you can imagine, it is difficult having Joseph and Richard in the same room together. No matter the setting and despite the fact that these two guys are really good friends, if they are together more than 10 minutes, sparks start to fly. It is usually Richard that instigates the animated discussions. Joseph is usually content to let sleeping dogs lie. Richard, on the other hand, cannot tolerate the Faith Movement and considers it a major cause of apostasy in the ranks of Christianity.
Without a doubt, the Faith Movement is not without controversy. Some of the major proponents of this teaching make a few bold and bizarre claims. Kenneth Copeland, for example, claims to have seen God and describes him as a tall man, around 6’2’’ or 6’3”. Other controversial teachings associated with this movement center on the idea that Christ not only died on the cross, but also underwent a spiritual death, briefly took on the nature of Satan, and eventually had to be “born again.” I don’t want to get into all of this strange speculation, but instead, want to focus on several other Word of Faith teachings that I believe do have some positive merit to them. I firmly believe when we, as Christians, are exploring any teaching, it is important to be objective, discerning, and especially careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water.
Let’s start with the notion of what has been called “positive confession.” The idea here is that as believers, we can take God up on his promises as made in the Bible. We can positively state what it is we want and, if we speak our “faith-filled words,” we will get what we ask for. The key here is the notion of speaking in faith. In the Faith Movement, words of critical importance. Just as God brought creation into existence with his words, we, too, are “speaking spirits” and can create our reality through proper speaking. In essence, we are to look to scripture, find a scriptural promise that speaks to our desire or need, then, through positive confession, bring the fulfillment of that desire or need into existence.
This process of positive confession has been called “name it and claim it,” blab it and grab it,” “Prosperity Gospel,” among other things. To those outside the Word-Faith Movement, these monikers seem appropriate. Further, the primary criticism launched against this sort of thing is that, at best, it renders God subject to our power and our whims. Moreover, it transforms the Christian God into little more than a “cosmic bellhop.” It is to this criticism I want to speak.
A superficial reading of Word of Faith teachings would easily lead one to see the connection of what these folks are doing with the cosmic bellhop theory. It seems that we tell God what we need, remind him of his promises in scripture, and then demand he deliver. However, a deeper look at some of the actual theology of most of the proponents of this movement reveals a different reality.
According to Word Faith teaching, God, through Christ, has already provided everything we need in order to live a fulfilled, abundant life. God has given us salvation, sanctification, and has “blessed us in every way in the spiritual realm.” We already have all the faith we are ever going to have; we already have all the holiness and purity that we are ever going to have; we already have all the wisdom we are ever going to have. The reality is, however, these blessings from God exist in the spiritual realm, which Word Faith teachers see as more real than the tangible world around us. As believers, we, through faith, apply positive confession to bring these blessings down from the spiritual realm into the physical realm.
With positive confession, we are not telling God what to do – because he has already done it. We are not prodding God into taking action on our part – because he has already taken action. By applying positive confession, using words filled with faith, we are simply appropriating the gifts the Creator has already blessed us with. This is much different that the cosmic bellhop idea. Instead of a divine Step and Fetch It, or Cosmic Vending Machine, God is in actuality all he claims to be through scripture. Do you see the subtle difference? By using Word Faith methodology, we are not telling God to get busy, we are expressing belief in and gratitude for the fact that he has already acted.
Another charge often thrown at the Word Faith Movement is centered on the view that E.W. Kenyon, consider the founder of the movement, was strongly influenced by New Thought in general and a writer named Ralph Waldo Trine in particular. The primary source of this criticism, which sees New Thought as being a metaphysical cult, comes from self-styled “heresy hunters” who see the Faith Movement as perhaps the greatest threat to Christianity since Darwin.
Defenders of the movement, meanwhile, go to great lengths to deny that Kenyon had any connection with New Thought and seek to prove that Kenyon was more a product of the Holiness Movement of the late 19th Century. The fact is, at least in my view, both sides of this debate are right and, further, it really doesn’t matter.
That Kenyon was associated with the Holiness Movement and has much in common with its teachers is without question. Even the most casual reading of Kenyon will prove this as his ideas are very similar to Holiness teachers and he even cites many of them in his work. As for the New Thought connection, this is slightly more complicated.
Despite their adamant denial, I believe proponents of the Faith Movement are amiss in distancing themselves from New Thought metaphysics. Read Kenyon and it is hard not to see that much of his teaching came straight out of New Thought. Positive confession, positive thinking, praying in an affirmative manner, and many other Word Faith practices come straight out of New Thought metaphysics.
From a personal perspective, I see no problem with this. New Thought was not so much a cult as it was an amalgam of a number of schools of philosophy and theology. The New Thought phenomenon arose at about the same time as the Transcendentalist School in literature and writers like Thoreau and Emerson fit well into New Thought frameworks. What I am getting at here is, first, that Kenyon was most likely influenced by New Thought, and second, I don’t see this as negative. Fundamentalist Christians who raise this specter of New Thought influence always make the fundamental mistake of assuming that Christianity was founded and developed in some sort of theological “isolation bubble.” These highly conservative critics fail to acknowledge that the Christian faith was born and evolved in constant interaction with the worldviews it encountered. Like it or not, rather than rejecting these worldviews lock, stock, and barrel, the Christian faith often incorporated at least some ideas of the dominant worldview.
New Thought continues to thrive in several forms in the world today, most notably the Church of Religious Science and the Unity School of Christianity. Within the Christian faith today, New Thought principles are clearly found in two places. First, as mentioned, the Word Faith Movement is filled with New Thought teachings and a metaphysical worldview. It is often couched in the lingo of charismatic Christianity, out of which Word Faith evolved, but it is there just the same.
The second place one finds New Thought teaching is in what has loosely called “Positive Christianity.” The first proponent of this style of Christianity was Norman Vincent Peale and later in his successor, Robert Schuller, founder of the Crystal Cathedral. Schuller’s son Robert A. Schuller is now carrying on the tradition.
The major difference between this Positive Christianity and its New Thought colleagues in the Faith Movement is the fact that the latter is highly charismatic in terms of its lexicon and its worship style. Positive Christianity, on the other hand, is more Mainline in its theology and worship. Secondly, the Schuller’s have done little to hide their connection with contemporary New Thought gurus. Instead, the elder Schuller frequently speaks of the influence of not only Peale, but writers like Clement Stone and Joseph Murphy, both New Thought advocates.
My point in all of this is to try to give a more balanced view of the Faith Movement than what one normally finds on the Internet. If you Google Word of Faith or Faith Movement, at least 90 percent of what you find is negative criticism. There is little in the way of positive appraisal. In my view, perhaps this is deserved, but then again, maybe not. I think we have to be very discerning in these days, but, at the same time, we have to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water.
I am not a member of the Word of Faith movement, nor am I an advocate. I find many things in their theology that is highly questionable and the tactics of many of their television preachers highly offensive. Still, there are some positive aspects. I have found the practice of positive confession to be highly beneficial form of prayer and have also found it to be far from something that turns God into some sort of genie in a lamp. Instead, positive confession recognizes God for exactly who he is and, more significantly, what he has done for us through Christ. Positive confession leads to a sense of well-placed gratitude, based on the reality of what God has accomplished in our behalf and the appropriation of whom and what we are “in Christ.”
© L.D. Turner 2008/All Rights Reserved
