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- As the name "Word-Faith" implies, this movement teaches that faith is a matter of what we say more that whom we trust or what truths we embrace and affirm in our hearts. A favorite term in the Word-Faith movement is "positive confession." It refers to the Word-Faith teaching that words have creative power. What you say, Word-Faith teachers claim, determines everything that happens to you. Your "confessions," that is, the things you say-- especially the favors you demand of God--must all be stated positively and without wavering. Then God is required to answer (Charismatic Chaos, p. 281). Word-Faith believers view their positive confessions as an incantation by which they can conjure up anything they desire: "Believe it in your heart; say it with your mouth. That is the principle of faith. You can have what you say" (Charismatic Chaos, p. 285). - Word-Faith is the fastest-growing movement within the professing church. It has involved two distinct but closely related factions: the Peale/Schuller Positive-Possibility thinkers, with their roots in New Thought, and the Hagin/Copeland Positive Confession and Word-Faith groups, which have their roots in E.W. Kenyon, William Branham, and the Manifest Sons of God/Latter Rain Movement. In Hagin's book, Having Faith in Your Faith, he teaches that anyone can develop universal "laws of faith" to get what he wants. Hagin teaches that for a pastor or anyone to drive a Chevrolet instead of a luxury car isn't "being humble, that's being ignorant" of God's "law of prosperity" that works for "whoever you are," saint or sinner. "Having faith in your faith" is a far cry from what Jesus taught: "Have faith in God." [Other Hagin books that clearly detail his "theology" are How to Write Your Own Ticket with God (Tulsa: Faith Library, 1979) and Godliness is Profitable (Tulsa: Faith Library, 1982).] Hagin claims Jesus told him, "If anybody, anywhere, will ... put these [positive confession] principles into operation, he will always have whatever he wants from Me or God the Father" (Charismatic Chaos, p. 281). - In an early-1990s edition of his magazine, The Word of Faith, Hagin clearly delineates his heresy of "positive confession." The article was entitled, "You Can Have What You Say": "Often you create your own negative situations yourself with wrong thinking, wrong believing, and wrong speaking. So start believing according to God's Word. Then begin making positive confessions of faith and victory over your life. ... You will never receive anything from God beyond the words you speak. ... If you don't like what you have in life, then begin to change the way you are thinking, believing, and speaking. Instead of speaking according to natural circumstances out of your head, learn to speak God's Word from your spirit. Begin to confess God's promises of life and health and victory into your situation. Then you can begin to enjoy God's abundant life as you have what you say!" This is not a slip of the tongue or some new doctrine. This is at the heart of the Positive Confession (PC) movement today, also known as the "name-it-and-claim-it" gospel. The Positive Confession movement is a charismatic form of Christian Science. This can be substantiated by simply comparing the similarities in their common beliefs. Positive Confession is basically warmed-over New Thought dressed in evangelical/charismatic language. (Other well-known PC'ers besides Hagin's most successful protegé, Kenneth Copeland, are Charles Capps, Frederick K.C. Price, Robert Tilton, and David Yonggi Cho. Many of them are graduates of Hagin's RHEMA Bible Training Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma.) - Hagin goes a step further, from heresy to blasphemy, when he tells us, "The believer is as much an incarnation of God as Jesus Christ." He has also said, "If we ever wake up and realize who we are, we'll start doing the work that we're supposed to do. Because the church hasn't realized yet that they are Christ. That's who they are. They are Christ." Hagin obviously does not believe God is sovereign. Jesus, according to Word-Faith theology, has no authority on earth, having delegated it all to the church. (He develops this point in his book The Authority of the Believer (Tulsa: Faith Library, 1979). And though most Word-Faith advocates would affirm the personality of the Holy Spirit, their teachings, in effect, depersonalize Him by consistently speaking of Him as a power to be drawn upon rather than it is we who are to be His instruments (Charismatic Chaos, p. 267). - When one starts believing that he is Christ, with the power of Christ to create reality, the stories become ludicrous. Surely Hagin has the most unusual story of all. He says that when he was younger and still single, God led him to break off a relationship with a woman by revealing to him that she was morally unfit. Hagin claims God miraculously transported him out of church one Sunday, right in the middle of the sermon. Worst of all, Hagin was the preacher delivering the sermon! (Charismatic Chaos, p. 49.) - In How to Write Your Own Ticket with God, Hagin sees a vision of Jesus, and says to Him, "Dear Lord, I have two sermons I preach concerning the woman who touched Your clothes and was healed when You were on earth. I received both of these sermons by inspiration." (Emphasis added.) Later, Hagin quotes what Jesus told him in reply: "You are correct. My Spirit, the Holy Spirit, has endeavored to get another sermon into your spirit, but you have failed to pick it up. While I am here, I will do as you ask. I will give you that sermon outline. Now get your pencil and paper and write it down." (Emphasis added.) Hagin claims to have received numerous visions, as well as eight personal visitations from Jesus (see below). Hagin has written, "The Lord Himself taught me about prosperity. I never read about it in a book. I got it directly from heaven" (How God Taught Me About Prosperity, Tulsa: Faith Library, 1985). That claim, of course, is a lie. (Charismatic Chaos, p. 268.) [Hagin also claims that he knows that Paul wrote Hebrews because Jesus appeared to him (Hagin) and told him so!] Hagin claims that of the eight times Jesus has appeared to him, seven times Jesus was barefoot; the other time Jesus was wearing Roman sandals, and came into Hagin's room, sat down by his bedside, and talked with him for about 30 minutes. During that time, Jesus allegedly taught Hagin how to be led by the inner witness of the Holy Spirit. Hagin describes Jesus as 5'11" tall and weighing about 180 pounds. This is of course impossible (cf. 2 Cor. 5:16). If the resurrected, ascended, glorified Christ chose to visit Hagin for a midnight chat, He would not be wearing sandals, and Hagin would be toast (3/4/96, Christian News, p.12). - Here is just a sample of the direct revelations and/or direct "anointings" Kenneth Hagin claims to have received from the Lord. (All quotes from The Word of Faith magazine.): (a) "'...You have learned faith both through My Word and by experience. Now go teach my people what I've taught you. Go teach My people faith.' These words, spoken years ago by the Head of the Church to Rev. Kenneth E. Hagin, have never lost their sense of divine urgency, Decades have passed, and that heavenly commission still stands" (11/96). (b) "In March 1945 ... On Sunday afternoon I was lying on the living room floor. The Holy Ghost said, 'When you're in your sixties, the two main thrusts of your ministry will be radio and the printed page'" (11/96). (c) "Then almost twenty years later in 1963, during an unusual time of prayer at a meeting in Houston, the Lord told me four things to do: Go to neutral places to hold my own 'All Faiths Crusades' and invite everyone to come; put all my teachings from my daytime teachings on tape; and get on the radio and teach -- don't preach (11/96). (d) "Waves of God's glory swept through the sanctuary, and people broke out in Holy Ghost laughter or dancing in the Spirit. Then Brother Hagin began laying hands on various people in the audience, telling them to 'Be blessed!' He was operating under such a strong anointing that ENTIRE ROWS OF PEOPLE WOULD FALL UNDER THE POWER OF GOD when Brother Hagin touched the first person in the row--or at times just walked by the row! Afterwards, Brother Hagin began to close the service--but the Holy Ghost arrested him, striking him dumb or mute by the power of God! For the next hour, Brother Hagin, unable to speak himself, walked throughout the audience, handing various ministers the microphone so the minister could speak as the Lord led him. But the moment Brother Hagin gave the microphone to someone, THAT MINISTER WAS EITHER STRUCK DUMB, FELL UNDER THE POWER OF GOD, OR WAS OVERCOME BY HOLY GHOST LAUGHTER" (Description of a meeting conducted by Kenneth Hagin at the Winter Bible Seminar '96 on the RHEMA campus, 5/96). (e) "One morning at a recent Holy Ghost Meeting, the Lord asked me a question ... The Lord said to me, 'Do you think I'd ask you to do something that I wouldn't be willing to do?'" (10/96). (f) Claims the Lord spoke audibly to him and told him when was the proper time to applaud (clap) during a worship service: "The Lord didn't say, 'Don't ever clap.' He was explaining the right and wrong time to clap. ... I'm only telling you what the Lord told me!" (10/96). - Hagin promises health and wealth to Christians, and says: "All you have to do is visualize it, speak it into existence." Hagin claims that Jesus appeared to him in a vision in 1950 and gave him a special anointing to minister to the sick (4/96, The Word of Faith). After a 1952 vision, Hagin says: "[N]ow when I minister and lay hands on people, I can tell if there is an evil spirit present either through the word of knowledge or the discerning of spirits." He relates a time when "there stood Jesus right in front of me" (after a failed healing) and said Jesus pointed His finger at him, almost touching his nose. Jesus supposedly said, "I told you, 'If you feel that fire jumping from hand to hand like heat waves, there is a demon or evil spirit in the body. Call him out in my name and he will leave.'" (Reported in the 7/1/96, Calvary Contender.) - Hagin explains his criteria for judging between true and false spiritual gifts: "When God moves, everybody will be blessed. If something is of the flesh, everybody will have a sick feeling. And if something is of the devil, it seems like the hair will stand up on your neck. That's a simple way everyone can judge, whether they've got any spiritual discernment or not." There, as explicitly as it can be expressed, is a statement that defines exactly what is wrong with charismatic mysticism. Spiritual discernment is deemed unnecessary. According to Kenneth Hagin, you can judge between what is true, fleshly, or demonic by a process that is really just a simplified system of biofeedback (Charismatic Chaos, pp. 160-161). - Word-Faith teachers owe their ancestry to groups like Christian Science, Swedenborgianism, Theosophy, Science of Mind, and New Thought--not to classical Pentecostalism. It reveals that at their very core, Word-Faith teachings are corrupt. Their undeniable derivation is cultish, not Christian. The sad truth is that the gospel proclaimed by the Word-Faith movement is not the gospel of the New Testament. Word-Faith doctrine is a mongrel system, a blend of mysticism, dualism, and gnosticism that borrows generously from the teachings of the metaphysical cults. The Word-Faith movement may be the most dangerous false system that has grown out of the charismatic movement so far. Because so many charismatics are unsure of the finality of Scripture (Charismatic Chaos, p. 290). -------------------------------- The Hagin Ministry Conglomerate RHEMA Bible Training Center was founded in 1974. In 1978, the name of the ministry was changed to RHEMA Bible Church (a.k.a. Kenneth Hagin Ministries, Inc.). The Training Center is located on a more than 100-acre campus consisting of 20 buildings, including a 96-unit student housing complex and a Prayer and Healing Center (PHC). Since the 1974-75 charter class graduated 58 students, RHEMA has provided training to more than 16,500 graduates. RHEMA's average annual enrollment is 1,800 with graduating classes of 700-800. (Internationally, RHEMA Bible Training Centre South Africa has graduated over 5,600 students since its inception in 1980. There are also RHEMA Training Centers in Australia and Canada.) RHEMA Correspondence Bible School has enrolled more than 57,000 students since its inception and offers an extensive curriculum for home Bible study. "Faith Seminar of the Air" is Hagin's radio ministry, airing on more than 300 stations daily as well as being heard via shortwave radio in over 120 countries and on all continents of the world. In addition, "RHEMA Radio Church," is aired via 95 radio broadcasts weekly which can be picked up in 30 states. Kenneth Hagin and his son, Kenneth Hagin, Jr., have authored 125 charismatic-oriented books. More than 53 million copies of these books are currently in circulation around the world, translated into more than 25 foreign languages. The Word of Faith magazine is sent into more than 540,000 homes each month. More than 58,000 teaching tapes by the Hagins are distributed each month. More than six million tapes have been distributed since the inception of the cassette tape ministry. Kenneth Hagin, Jr., pastors the RHEMA Bible Church that meets on the campus of RHEMA Bible Training Center in a 4,500-seat auditorium. Father, son, and grandson all minister together and individually in crusades, seminars, and other special meetings. Each July, the Hagin's conduct their indoor "Campmeeting" at Tulsa's Convention Center. It has drawn people from all 50 states, Canada, and 42 other countries. In the fall of 1979, Hagin, Sr., began the Healing School on the RHEMA campus (the Prayer and Healing Center). Morning and afternoon healing sessions are held daily, at which students are taught the techniques of healing the sick! Hagin boasts that "The highest percentage of healings is among those with incurable diseases, many of which include cases diagnosed as terminal." Biblical Discernment Ministries - Revised 3/98
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