Word of Faith Movement
say it, speak it, believe it, have it
-- by Pam Dewey



       
The Word Faith movement is a combination of the Pentecostal, Charistmatic, and British Israeli movements. Not all Pentecostals, Charismatics, or British Israelis accept Word Faith teachings. Teachers in the Word of Faith movement claim that the Bible promises perfect health and unlimited prosperity to all believers. Therefore if any believers are sick or in poverty, it must be because they do not understand how to apply these promises for themselves, have sin in their lives, or lack faith in God. According to Word Faith teachers, the way to appropriate that health and wealth is through the "power of the tongue" to "confess" the believer’s faith in what he determines to be the Biblical promises of God.  They believe that if we have faith, God is obligated by His word to act on our behalf when we are doing things correctly. They believe God is moved to perform an action when someone speaks in faith. Just as God created the world and all in it by "His Word," human believers are assumed to be granted similar power in their words. They simply call it faith basing the teaching on the belief that God used faith to create. However, it is by faith that we understand that God created. It does not mean that God created all things with the supernatural faith ability. This is where Word of Faith doctrines become New-Agey or rather mystic in nature.

        Many believe that you should never pray to God about your problems nor talk about your problems to others. They believe such acts give place to the devil in your life.

        The truth is, only when true believers "inherit the kingdom" in the resurrection will they have unlimited prosperity.

        The Bible does not offer perfect health and freedom from injury to all who believe. Only in the resurrection will believers have such perfection. Although there are miraculous healings described in the scriptures, many great servants of God have suffered injury or illness, with no instantaneous relief. Word Faith teachers often insist that believers must "confess" that they are healed from all affliction even though all of the symptoms of such affliction, such as cancer or diabetes, are still present. And they must avoid any mention of these symptoms lest they hinder the reality of their healing from "manifesting." Some believers are thereby convinced to abandon all conventional methods of dealing with such afflictions, such as taking insulin for diabetes. And many others, who are unable to experience healing despite their dedicated, positive confession, are led to the point of despair because they assume that the lack of healing indicates a deficiency in their faith.
        The notion that God is somehow "bound" by the words of the mouths of fallible humans is blasphemous. God is sovereign, and can do anything He wishes any time He wishes. The true believer is a child of God and can come boldly before Him and make requests. But only God knows what is best for His children at any given moment, and what may be best for them is to deny their request. Just because they believe their request is based on a scripture which seems to "guarantee" that they are promised the thing that they are asking does not make it so.
        We are told in the scriptures that, as children of God, we now have direct access to Him, and can "come boldly unto the throne of grace to make our petitions." Many Christians are indeed timid with their prayers. There is a fine line between boldness and presumption. We must not deter ourselves from Godly boldness.
        Many Christians do indeed conduct their lives as if they are utterly convinced that God no longer interacts with His creation. They do not expect any miracles from God, they do not expect Him to guide them personally through the Holy Spirit, and they do not expect Him to intervene in any way with circumstances in the world around them. They view Him as a God who is "afar off," and although He will one day again send Jesus to the earth, that Jesus is only a figure on a throne in heaven at this point in time. Yet Jesus said, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the End of the Age." It is certainly possible to understand that God takes a very intimate interest in our daily lives, and interacts with us, and intervenes actively at times in our circumstances, without insisting that we control Him with our words.
        The scriptures do not promise that every affliction that Christians will endure in this life will be lifted miraculously and instantaneously from them if they can just grasp the proper "keys" to such miracles. However, the Bible most certainly does claim that God can and does intervene miraculously at times to fulfill His own will in the lives of His people. And it thus admonishes us to pray for one another in such circumstances, and directs an individual who is sick to call for the elders of the church to anoint him. It is obvious from the letters of Paul that healing did not happen for everyone all the time. For instance, in one place he notes that he "left Timothy sick at Miletus." And in another place, he suggests to Timothy that he drink a little wine to help his stomach problems. These were both men of great faith, who served God mightily. No doubt such sickness interfered with Timothy's ability to accomplish as much as he would like in his ministry. Yet neither he nor Paul was evidently able to "claim" a healing for Timothy. At the same time, there is absolutely no indication that either stopped believing that God could and would perform future miracles including healing. Nor should believers of our time doubt this.

Though I disagree with this movement, I do not believe it is as harmful as Satanism, Racism, Calvinism, Augustinianism, Occult, Islam, Nazism, or Evolutionism.

They generally believe:
1) God does not desire that anyone dies lost.
2) Some believe in the trinity and some disbelieve the trinity.
3) Eternal Heaven is for the righteous and Eternal Hell is for Satan, his angels, and the unrighteous.
4) Jesus paid the price for all sins, afflictions, and problems.
5) Very few are Calvinistic. Most are Arminian or Wesleyan. Some deny both Arminianism and Calvinism.

In my opinion, the Word of Faith doctrines are very similar to Scientology.

- - Jeremy Brown 2003

Works Cited:
Dewey, Pam. Word Faith Movement, Field Guide to the Wild World of Religion. USA, 2003.

I don't agree fully with the information on the link below but its info is possibly true: http://www.watchman.org/profile/wordpro.htm

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