By Oyewole O. Sarumi
Something has gone profoundly wrong in the house of faith. Across the landscape of contemporary Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity, a subtle but devastating shift has occurred.
The language of faith has been repurposed. The vocabulary of confession has been detached from its biblical moorings and reattached to a framework of human self-actualization.
Believers are told that their words carry metaphysical power, that their thoughts can manipulate reality, and that the primary evidence of genuine faith is the acquisition of health, wealth, and personal comfort.
This is not the faith once delivered to the saints. It is something else entirely, a syncretistic blending of Christian vocabulary with Eastern metaphysics, American pragmatism, and the self-help ethos of the late nineteenth century.
The apostolic church understood confession as the verbal articulation of saving faith in the crucified and risen Christ. When Peter confessed, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16), he was not speaking a reality into existence. He was bearing witness to a reality that existed independently of his speech, a reality that had walked on water, healed the sick, and would soon hang upon a Roman cross.
When the Ethiopian eunuch confessed, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God” (Acts 8:37), he was not engaging in positive declaration. He was responding to the truth of the gospel with the assent of a regenerate heart. Confession in Scripture is responsive, not creative. It is the creature’s acknowledgment of the Creator’s initiative.
But the modern Word of Faith movement has inverted this order. It has placed the human tongue upon the throne of divine sovereignty. It has transformed faith from trust in a sovereign God into a technique for manipulating spiritual laws. It has redefined the Christian life from conformity to Christ, including conformity to His sufferings, into a programme of personal enrichment.
This article will dissect this distortion in its historical, theological, and pastoral dimensions, recovering a vision of biblical faith that is robust enough to sustain believers through suffering, faithful enough to honor God’s sovereignty, and deep enough to form spiritual maturity in those who lead Christ’s church.
THE HISTORICAL ROOTS: FROM EMERSON’S BOSTON TO HAGIN’S TULSA
The Word of Faith movement did not emerge from a vacuum. Its intellectual genealogy can be traced with considerable precision to the metaphysical movement known as New Thought, which originated in the United States in the late nineteenth century.
New Thought was not a Christian movement, though it borrowed Christian vocabulary. It was a syncretic spiritual philosophy influenced by Eastern religions, particularly Hinduism, as well as by the emerging fields of psychology and self-help literature.
At its core lay the belief that positive thoughts manifest positive outcomes, that negative thoughts bring about negative circumstances, and that the human mind possesses the power to heal the body and attract prosperity. This is the law of attraction, dressed in the language of faith.
The man most responsible for importing these ideas into Pentecostal Christianity was Essek William Kenyon (1867–1948), a radio preacher and Methodist minister who attended Emerson College of Oratory in Boston, an institution noted for its promotion of New Thought metaphysics and Mind Science.
Kenyon wrote over fifteen books in which he stressed the power of words spoken in faith and the supremacy of what he called “revelation knowledge” over knowledge obtained by the senses. His teaching that “a strong confession of positive faith brings God on the scene” and that “faith counts the thing done before God has acted” represents a fundamental departure from historic Christian theology.
This is not faith in a sovereign God who acts according to His own will and wisdom. This is a technique for compelling divine action.
Kenyon’s ideas directly influenced a generation of Pentecostal and charismatic preachers in the 1960s, and the movement grew rapidly in the 1970s through the promotion of Word-Faith preachers by the Trinity Broadcasting Network. Kenneth Hagin (1917–2003) became the most influential promoter of these teachings, founding the RHEMA Bible Training Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1974 to train successive generations in Word-Faith doctrine and practice. Hagin taught that reality is “created in the minds and affirmed in the speech of believers”, a proposition that is indistinguishable from the New Thought metaphysics of the nineteenth century. The theological content had changed. The metaphysical structure remained the same.
This is not a matter of guilt by association. It is a matter of intellectual honesty. The Word of Faith movement’s core claims, that words have creative power, that faith is a force released through speech, that believers are “little gods” who can call things into existence, are not found in Scripture. They are found in the metaphysical traditions that Kenyon absorbed at Emerson College and that Hagin and others systematized into a movement.
When Word-Faith teachers attempt to ground these claims in Scripture, they do so by reading the biblical text through the lens of their metaphysical presuppositions rather than allowing Scripture to critique and correct those presuppositions.
THE THEOLOGICAL DISTORTION: AN INFLATED VIEW OF MAN, A DEFLATED VIEW OF GOD
The late Hank Hanegraaff, writing for the Christian Research Institute, summarized the Word-Faith teaching with stark clarity: God created man in “God’s class,” as “little gods,” with the potential to exercise what they call the “God-kind of faith” in calling things into existence and living in prosperity and success as sovereign beings.
This teaching is not a minor deviation. It is a fundamental inversion of the Creator-creature distinction that runs through the entire biblical narrative. When the serpent said to Eve, “You will be like God” (Genesis 3:5), he was offering a lie that has echoed through every subsequent distortion of biblical faith. The Word-Faith movement has not rejected that lie. It has baptized it.
The consequences of this inversion are severe. In every instance, Hanegraaff observes, the “Word-Faith” teaching presents an inflated view of man and a deflated view of God, thereby compromising God’s message as revealed in the Bible. If words have inherent metaphysical power, then God is not sovereign. He is a spiritual force that responds to human speech according to fixed laws.
If believers can “call things into existence,” then prayer is not communion with a personal God but a technique for controlling outcomes. If health and wealth are the automatic divine right of all believers, then suffering is not a mystery to be embraced but a failure to be overcome, and those who suffer are blamed for their own lack of faith.
This last point is particularly devastating in its pastoral implications. The prosperity gospel “always lays blame on the sick individual, who is thus accused of hidden sin, a lack of faith or not being saved”. This is not merely bad theology. It is cruel theology. It transforms the body of Christ from a community of mutual suffering and comfort into a competitive arena where the healthy and wealthy are vindicated as faithful and the sick and poor are condemned as deficient.
James, the brother of Jesus, would not recognize this gospel. He instructed the church to pray over the sick (James 5:14–15) and to consider trials “pure joy” because “the testing of your faith produces perseverance” (James 1:2–3). He did not instruct the sick to confess their healing into existence or the poor to command wealth into their bank accounts.
The Word-Faith movement’s doctrine of positive confession is a direct contradiction of Christ’s own teaching. In the upper room, Jesus told His disciples, “If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it” (John 14:14). But what does it mean to ask in Jesus’ name? It does not mean to attach a formula to our desires. It means to pray in alignment with His will, His character, and His purposes.
As John MacArthur has observed, the presumption of positive confession is a direct contradiction of Christ’s instruction in the upper room. Jesus Himself prayed, “Not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). If the Son of God submitted His will to the Father’s in the garden of Gethsemane, how much more should we submit our words and desires to the sovereign purposes of God?
The apostolic church understood this submission. Polycarp of Smyrna, writing in the second century, exhorted believers to “stand fast in this conduct and follow the example of the Lord, ‘firm and unchangeable in faith, lovers of the brotherhood, loving each other, united in truth’”.
When Polycarp was arrested and commanded to deny Christ, he responded, “For eighty-six years I have served Jesus Christ, and he has never abandoned me. How can I blaspheme my blessed King and Savior?”. This is not positive confession. This is faithful confession. Polycarp did not speak his way out of martyrdom. He spoke his way into it, because his faith was anchored not in the power of his own words but in the faithfulness of the One who had sustained him for eighty-six years.
THE MISUSE OF SCRIPTURE: WHAT PROVERBS 18:21 AND PHILIPPIANS 4:8 ACTUALLY TEACH
The Word-Faith movement’s proof texts are familiar to anyone who has encountered its teaching. Two of the most frequently cited are Proverbs 18:21, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue,” and Philippians 4:8, “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about these things.” These are precious verses. They deserve careful exegesis, not proof-texting.
Proverbs 18:21, when examined in its original Hebrew context, is not a promise that human words can command the universe. The Hebrew phrase “in the power of the tongue” uses the word yad, which means “hand,” as a metaphor for power. The proverb is a warning about relational wisdom and accountability. It means that your words can practically build someone up or tear them down, and you will face the consequences of what you say. As the commentator observes, “According as he uses his tongue, he falls under the power of death or attains to life”.
The proverb is placing before the reader the great alternative of Deuteronomy 30:15: “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity.” The tongue is the instrument through which this choice is enacted in human relationships. It is a matter of moral responsibility, not metaphysical manipulation.
The rabbinic tradition understood this. The Gemara asks, “Does the tongue have a hand?” and answers that the phrase “merely teaches that a tongue can kill by means of his tongue, which he can use”. The power of the tongue is the power of speech to affect human lives—to encourage or discourage, to bless or curse, to build up or destroy. It is not the power to override God’s sovereignty or to create material reality through verbal declaration.
When Word-Faith proponents cite this verse to support their teaching that believers can “speak things into existence,” they are reading a New Thought philosophy into a Hebrew proverb.
Philippians 4:8 is equally misunderstood when pressed into the service of positive thinking. Paul wrote this letter from a prison cell, likely in Rome or Ephesus, around 62 CE. He was not sitting in a comfortable study, surrounded by the tokens of health and wealth. He was in chains. He was facing the possibility of execution. And from that prison, he wrote the most joyful letter in the New Testament. When he instructed the Philippians to think about whatever is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, and admirable, he was not teaching a mind-over-matter technique. He was instructing believers to anchor their minds on the unchanging truth of God’s Word, not to manifest a better earthly circumstance.
The context of Philippians 4:8 is crucial. Paul had just written, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice” (Philippians 4:4). He had just promised, “The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7). This peace is not the product of positive thinking. It is the gift of God to those who present their requests to Him with thanksgiving, trusting in His sovereignty rather than in the power of their own words. Paul’s call to “think about these things” is a call to holy thinking, to thoughts that line up with the character of God. It is a call to renew the mind (Romans 12:2), not to manipulate reality through the power of positive cognition.
The Puritan tradition understood this distinction between faith and presumption. John Owen, the great Puritan theologian, wrote, “Faith without repentance issues in presumption; repentance without faith issues in despair”.
Presumption is the belief that we can claim God’s promises without submitting to His character and will. Faith is the trust that God will be faithful to His promises even when our circumstances suggest otherwise.
The Word-Faith movement has confused presumption with faith. It has taught believers to demand rather than to trust, to command rather than to submit, to speak rather than to listen. And in doing so, it has left them vulnerable to despair when their presumptuous confessions do not produce the desired results.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PASTORAL CONSEQUENCES: TOXIC POSITIVITY IN THE CHURCH
The theological errors of the Word-Faith movement do not remain in the realm of abstract doctrine. They have concrete psychological and pastoral consequences. Recent research on “toxic positivity”, a construct that has captured the attention of mental health professionals, provides a helpful framework for understanding these consequences.
A systematic literature review published in 2025 examined eight peer-reviewed studies conducted between 2020 and 2024 and identified three dominant patterns: emotional suppression as a maladaptive coping mechanism, digital culture reinforcing the “happiness imperative,” and workplace norms promoting emotional labor and burnout. The findings demonstrate that toxic positivity functions as a socially reinforced emotional bias that negatively affects mental health and organizational well-being.
This research has profound implications for the church. When positive confession is taught as a spiritual obligation, believers who experience sadness, grief, or doubt are made to feel that their emotions are evidence of spiritual failure.
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They learn to suppress their authentic feelings and present a facade of perpetual happiness. But this suppression does not lead to spiritual maturity. It leads to burnout. It leads to isolation. It leads to a shallow faith that cannot withstand the storms of life because it has never learned to lament.
The biblical writers knew nothing of this toxic positivity. The Psalms are filled with lament. David cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1). Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, laments, “My joy is gone; grief is upon me; my heart is sick” (Jeremiah 8:18). Even Jesus, in the garden of Gethsemane, confessed, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death” (Matthew 26:38). If the Son of God could acknowledge His sorrow, why do we teach believers that they must always be positive?
The pastoral consequences of this distortion are particularly acute for leaders. When pastors are taught that their words have creative power and that their confessions determine their circumstances, they are placed under an impossible burden. Every failed church program, every financial shortfall, every unanswered prayer becomes a personal spiritual failure. The leader who has not “spoken the right words” or “maintained the right confession” is blamed for the results. This is a recipe for burnout, for depression, and for the kind of spiritual abuse that has driven countless believers away from the church.
The research on toxic positivity in the workplace is particularly instructive for church leaders. The study found that workplace norms promoting emotional labor and burnout create environments where authenticity is suppressed and well-being is undermined.
The church, which should be the one place where authenticity is welcomed and suffering is shared, has too often become a place where a cheerful facade is mandatory and lament is silenced. This is not the community that Jesus envisioned. He said, “Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). The weary and burdened do not need a lecture on positive thinking. They need a Savior.
CURRENT DATA: THE PROSPERITY GOSPEL IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
The prosperity gospel is not a fringe phenomenon. It is a global movement with significant influence, particularly in the Global South. Recent research from Lifeway Research, published in January 2025, reveals a marked division between pastors and congregants on this issue.
While fewer than 10 percent of Protestant pastors (8 percent) believe that individuals must do something for God to receive material blessings from Him, the percentage of congregants who hold this belief is significantly higher.
A 2022 study found that 45 percent of Protestant churchgoers say they have to do something to “receive material blessings from God,” a percentage that has increased markedly from 26 percent in 2017. Perhaps most striking, 76 percent of congregants believe that God wants them to be financially prosperous.
This data reveals a profound disconnect between pulpit and pew. Pastors are, by and large, rejecting prosperity theology in their formal teaching. But congregants are absorbing it from other sources, from television preachers, from social media influencers, from the broader culture of American self-help and positive thinking. The church is not immune to the cultural currents that surround it. The prosperity gospel has become so pervasive that many believers assume it is simply what Christianity teaches.
The global dimensions of this phenomenon are equally significant. Sub-Saharan Africa has seen Christianity grow from 9 percent of the population in 1910 to 63 percent in 2010, and Nigeria now has more Protestants than many European countries combined.
Pentecostalism, with its emphasis on the Holy Spirit and its openness to the miraculous, has been the fastest-growing branch of Christianity in the world, with an estimated half-billion adherents. But this growth has been accompanied by the spread of prosperity teachings that promise health and wealth as the automatic right of believers. The result is a church that is growing numerically but may be shallow theologically.
This is not to suggest that all Pentecostals or charismatics are Word-Faith adherents. Many faithful Pentecostal and charismatic leaders have rejected the prosperity gospel and its metaphysical presuppositions. But the influence of the movement is undeniable, and it is particularly strong in contexts where poverty and sickness are daily realities.
The promise of health and wealth is attractive to those who have neither. The problem is that when the promise fails, and it always fails, because no one lives forever and no one escapes suffering, the believer is left with a crisis of faith. Was the promise false? Or was their faith insufficient? The Word-Faith movement offers only one answer: your faith was insufficient. And that answer destroys souls.
RECOVERING BIBLICAL FAITH: TRUST, SUBMISSION, AND SUFFERING
What does biblical faith actually look like? The author of Hebrews defines faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). This is not a technique for manipulating reality. It is trust in the God who has revealed Himself in Scripture. It is confidence that He is faithful to His promises, even when we cannot see how those promises will be fulfilled. It is the kind of faith that Abraham displayed when he “obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance, and he went out, not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8). Abraham did not speak his destination into existence. He trusted the God who called him.
This faith is inseparable from submission. When Jesus taught His disciples to pray, He began with the words, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:9–10). The petition for daily bread comes after the petition for God’s will to be done. The Word-Faith movement has reversed this order. It has placed the believer’s desires at the center of prayer and transformed God into a cosmic vending machine who dispenses blessings in response to the correct verbal formula. But the Lord’s Prayer teaches us to submit our wills to God’s, to seek His kingdom first, and to trust that He will provide what we need.
This faith is also inseparable from suffering. The New Testament does not promise that believers will escape hardship. It promises that God will be with them in the midst of it. “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you” (Isaiah 43:2). The promise is not the absence of water or fire.
The promise is the presence of God in the water and in the fire. James writes, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance” (James 1:2–3). Trials are not evidence of faith’s failure. They are the means by which faith is refined and matured.
The great cloud of witnesses in Hebrews 11 understood this. They “were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, of whom the world was not worthy” (Hebrews 11:37–38). These were not people who lacked faith. They were people whose faith was so strong that they endured suffering rather than deny their Lord. The Word-Faith movement would have blamed them for their poverty and their persecution. But Scripture honors them as heroes of faith.
THE FORMATION OF SPIRITUAL MATURITY: LEADERSHIP IN A TIME OF CONFUSION
For those who lead Christ’s church, the task of spiritual formation in this context is urgent and demanding. The pastor who stands before a congregation that has been shaped by the Word of Faith movement must be prepared to gently but firmly correct error while simultaneously nurturing genuine faith. This requires more than intellectual argument. It requires the formation of a spiritual imagination that is shaped by Scripture rather than by the culture of positive thinking.
The first task of leadership is to recover the centrality of the cross. The cross is not a symbol of positive thinking. It is a symbol of suffering, shame, and death, and of the love that endured all three for the sake of the beloved. When Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he determined to know nothing among them “except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). He did not boast in his eloquence, his wisdom, or his positive confessions. He boasted in his weaknesses, “so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
A leadership that is formed by the cross will not promise prosperity. It will promise presence, the presence of the crucified and risen Lord who walks with His people through the valley of the shadow of death.
The second task of leadership is to recover the practice of lament. The church must become a place where grief can be spoken, where doubt can be voiced, where the brokenhearted can find refuge. This requires leaders who are willing to be vulnerable about their own struggles, who do not present a facade of perpetual victory, and who create space for the full range of human emotion in the life of the congregation. The Psalms give us permission to lament. The prophets give us models of lament. Jesus Himself lamented. A church that cannot lament is a church that cannot heal.
The third task of leadership is to recover the doctrine of God’s sovereignty. The Word-Faith movement has placed human words at the center of the universe. Biblical faith places God at the center. “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases” (Psalm 115:3). This is not a doctrine of fatalism. It is a doctrine of comfort. If God is sovereign, then our words do not have to be perfect. Our confessions do not have to be flawless. Our faith does not have to be strong enough to compel God to act. We can rest in the knowledge that He is working all things together for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28), even when we cannot see how.
The fourth task of leadership is to model a faith that is content in all circumstances. Paul wrote from prison, “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:11–13). This is the secret that the Word-Faith movement has lost. Contentment is not the absence of need. It is the presence of Christ in the midst of need. The leader who has learned this secret will be able to guide others through the disappointments and hardships of life without abandoning their faith.
THE TONGUE, THE MIND, AND THE THRONE
As I wrap up this piece, let me reiterate again the following. First, that the tongue is powerful. The book of James devotes more space to the tongue than to almost any other subject. “The tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire!” (James 3:5). Our words matter. They can wound or heal, curse or bless, destroy or build up. But the power of the tongue is moral and relational, not metaphysical. It is the power to shape human lives, not to manipulate divine action.
Second, the mind is important. Paul calls us to think about whatever is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, and admirable. He calls us to renew our minds, to take every thought captive to Christ. But the goal of this mental discipline is not the manifestation of earthly prosperity. It is conformity to the character of God. It is the transformation of the whole person, mind, heart, and will, into the image of Christ.
Thirdly, the throne belongs to God alone. He is sovereign over all things. He creates and sustains. He raises up and brings down. He gives and He takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord (Job 1:21). When we place our words on the throne, we commit idolatry. When we place our thoughts on the throne, we commit idolatry. When we place our desires on the throne, we commit idolatry. The first commandment is still the first commandment: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3).
The apostolic church knew this. Ignatius of Antioch, writing on his way to martyrdom, exhorted believers to “confess our faith, persuaded and convinced as we are that” Jesus Christ is truly the Son of God. He did not tell them to confess their desires. He did not tell them to speak their prosperity into existence. He told them to confess the faith once delivered to the saints, the faith that had been entrusted to the apostles, the faith that would sustain them through persecution and death.
Polycarp of Smyrna, when commanded to deny Christ, refused. “For eighty-six years I have served Jesus Christ, and he has never abandoned me. How can I blaspheme my blessed King and Savior?”. This is the confession that matters. Not the confession that demands God’s blessings. The confession that clings to God’s faithfulness. The confession that trusts in God’s sovereignty. The confession that rests in God’s love.
The church today needs to recover this confession. We need leaders who will teach their people the difference between faith and presumption, between trust and manipulation, between the cross and the crown. We need leaders who will model a faith that can endure suffering without blaming God or blaming themselves. We need leaders who will place the tongue under the authority of the throne, the mind under the authority of the Word, and the whole person under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
The Word of Faith movement offers a counterfeit gospel. It promises health, wealth, and happiness in exchange for the correct words and the correct thoughts. But the true gospel offers something far greater. It offers the presence of the living God in the midst of suffering, the peace that surpasses understanding, and the hope of eternal life. It offers a Savior who has walked through the valley of the shadow of death and who promises to walk with us. It offers a faith that is not dependent on the power of our words but on the faithfulness of the One who spoke the universe into existence and who will speak the final word at the end of all things.
That word will not be spoken by us. It will be spoken by Him. And when He speaks, death will be swallowed up in victory, and every tear will be wiped away, and there will be no more mourning, nor crying, nor pain, for the former things will have passed away (Revelation 21:4). Until that day, we walk by faith, not by sight. We confess with our mouths what we believe in our hearts: that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:11). And we trust that the God who raised Jesus from the dead will be faithful to complete the good work He has begun in us (Philippians 1:6). Not because our words are powerful. Because His word is.
Maranatha!!
Prof. Sarumi, a disciple of Jesus and teacher of the Word of God, write from Lagos
Culled from Church Times
