Most Christian leaders condemn the “prosperity gospel,” the idea that God will reward the faithful with health and wealth. Yet observers say it is enjoying popularity in this economically tenuous time, when many people are not prospering. What’s come to be known as the prosperity gospel began as a staple of fire-and-brimstone preaching in early 20th-century revival meetings. It surged in popularity with television preachers in the 1980s, until scandals revealed that some preachers used money donated for ministry to support their own lavish lifestyles.

Observers say the prosperity gospel is spreading among churches large and small, denominational and independent, as well as through the ministries of televangelists such as Creflo Dollar, Joyce Meyer, Paul Couch and Kenneth Copeland.

These pastors, critics say, encourage their followers to “sow a seed” of faith by spending money – often in the form of a donation to their ministries – in order to reap prosperity in the future.

Many Christian leaders have long condemned prosperity gospel as aberrant theology, but most did so quietly. In 2005, African-American pastors met at a national conference to discuss a problem they see spreading in their denominations. Megapastor Rick Warren declared the prosperity gospel is wrong, and he challenged evangelical Christians to focus less on themselves and more on the poor and needy. Critics have even questioned the ministries of such nationally prominent megapastors as T.D. Jakes – whose Potter’s House does extensive outreach to the poor — and Joel Osteen — pastor of Lakewood Church, the largest megachurch in the country — saying their brand of divinely assisted self-improvement is just a vamped-up version of the prosperity gospel.

Why it matters

Much of the country’s philanthropic giving is funneled through religious organizations, and religious leaders exert heavy influence on how those dollars are spent.

Questions for reporters

How popular and influential is the prosperity gospel? Has the economy influenced its popularity? What changes do prosperity gospel teachings undergo when people are not so prosperous? Are more religious leaders condemning or supporting the prosperity gospel? All Christian clergy preach about the promises of the Gospel, so how do they explain why they differ so much on exactly what God promises? Where do Christian self-help movements fit in?

Prosperity gospel primer

Definition

“Prosperity gospel” is the teaching that God will reward signs of faith with health and wealth. It was popularized by a number of preachers during the 1950s, especially by Oral Roberts and his Expect a Miracle television broadcasts. It is also called “word faith,” “name-it-and-claim-it,” “health and wealth gospel” and “positive confession.” It is most often found among more fundamentalist and evangelical churches but has begun spreading among Hispanic and African-American congregations.

Bible citations of supporters

Supporters of prosperity gospel frequently refer to the following Bible passages to support their preaching:

• Malachi 3:10 — “And prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”
• Mark 11:24 – “Therefore I say unto you, what things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.”
• John 14:14 — “If you ask anything in my name, I will do it.”

Bible citations of critics

Critics of prosperity gospel point to the following passages:

• 1 Timothy 6:7-10 — “For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.“
• Matthew 6:19-21 — “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven. … For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
• Luke 18:22-25 — “Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me. … How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
• Revelation 3:14-17 — “To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:
  
  • These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.”

 

Preachers

These are some of the people identified by scholars, journalists and watchdog organizations as proponents of the prosperity gospel:

• Kenneth and Gloria Copeland

  Kenneth and Gloria Copeland are based in Fort Worth, Texas. Their television show, Believer’s Voice of Victory, reaches at least 76 million households in the United States and airs on 135 international stations.

• Paul and Jan Crouch

  Paul and Jan Crouch are based in Costa Mesa, Calif. Their Trinity Broadcasting Network collects more than $120 million a year from viewers of its Christian programming — more than any other TV ministry. Crouch calls his version of the prosperity gospel “God’s economy of giving.”

• Creflo Dollar

  Creflo Dollar is the founder and president of Creflo Dollar Ministries and pastor of World Changers Church International in College Park, Ga., which claims 25,000 members. His television show, Changing Your World, reaches 1 billion people, according to the WCCI website.

• Benny Hinn

  Benny Hinn is the leader of Benny Hinn Ministries in Grapevine, Texas. His “This Is Your Day” program is seen throughout the United States and in nearly 200 foreign countries. His ministry took in $60 million in 2001 and now exceeds $90 million annually, according to the Colorado Springs Gazette. Contact through the form on his website.

• T.D. Jakes

  T.D. Jakes is the leader of the Potter’s House, a 30,000 member Pentecostal church in Dallas. He is a nationally known pastor and author.

• Bishop Eddie Long

  Bishop Eddie Long is pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in suburban Atlanta. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Long received more than $3 million in salary, benefits and perks – including the use of a $350,000 Bentley – between 1997 and 2000 from a charity he founded. In response, Long told the newspaper that “Jesus wasn’t poor.” Long’s weekly ministry program on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, Taking Authority, is seen nationwide.

• Joyce Meyer

  Joyce Meyer heads Joyce Meyer Ministries based in Missouri and was selected by Time magazine as one of the 25 most influential evangelicals in America. Her program Enjoying Everyday Life is carried on television and radio stations around the world. 1-800-727-9673  Media inquiries are handled via the website.

• Clarence McClendon

  Clarence McClendon is a preacher whose show Take It by Force appears on TBN and CET. He is based in Gardena, Calif.

• Joel Osteen

  Joel Osteen preaches that faith leads to health, prosperity and happiness. He is the author of the best-selling Your Best Life Now: 7  Steps to Living at Your Full Potential (Warner Faith, 2004). He is based in Houston, where he heads Lakewood Church.

• Robert Tilton

  Robert Tilton is based in Miami. His Word of Faith Family Church in Farmers Branch, a suburb of Dallas, and its attendant ministries and television shows collapsed after a financial scandal in the early 1990s. He has a weekly online broadcast that proclaims his “Success N Life” message.

• Johnnie Colemon

  Johnnie Colemon is founder of Christ Universal Temple in Chicago, where the first statement of belief is “We believe that it is God’s will that every individual on the face of this earth should live a healthy, happy and prosperous life.” She blends traditional prosperity gospel with New Thought theology – the belief that one’s mind creates one’s reality. Her church bills itself as the largest New Thought Christian church.

Background

• “Africans Warn ‘False Gospel of Prosperity’ May Displace Churches”

  Read a June 2000 Christianity Today story about African Christian leaders warning about the dangers of a “false gospel of prosperity.”

• “The prosperity gospel”

  Read a piece on the Washington Post giving background on the prosperity gospel.

• “Sexual Misconduct and the American Prosperity Gospel”

  Read an Oct. 8, 2012, article in the Huffington Post about sexual misconduct being linked to prosperity gospel churches.

• “African-American Churches Weigh Gospel Debate”

  Listen to a July 31, 2005, All Things Considered story on National Public Radio about African-American churches debating the prosperity gospel.

• “Interview: Joel Osteen on Life, Tragedy and Why He Shuns ‘Prosperity Gospel'”

  Read an April 21, 2013, interview with Joel Osteen, pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, about his aversion to being lumped in with “prosperity gospel” preachers.

National sources

Academic

• James H. Cone

  James H. Cone, Bill and Judith Moyers Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York, is the author of Risks of Faith: The Emergence of a Black Theology of Liberation, 1968-1998. He is widely considered to be one of the founders of black liberation theology, which frames Christianity as a means out of oppression.
  

• Dr. Margaret Poloma

  Dr. Margaret Poloma is Professor Emeritus in Sociology at the University of Akron in Ohio. She wrote about miracles as supernatural/ paranormal phenomenon in Main Street Mystics: The Toronto Blessing and Reviving Pentecostalism (Alta Mira Press, 2003). She describes herself as a Pentecostal Christian who has experienced paranormal phenomena within the framework of her religion.

• Craig Blomberg

  Craig Blomberg is a distinguished professor of New Testament at Denver Seminary in Colorado and author of Neither Poverty Nor Riches: A Biblical Theology of Possessions, a study of prosperity theology. 
  

• Tony Campolo

  Tony Campolo is a prominent evangelical pastor who helps lead Red Letter Christians, a progressive Christian movement aimed at building a more just society. He is also an author and a professor emeritus at Eastern University in St. Davids, Pennsylvania. Campolo served as a spiritual adviser to President Bill Clinton.
  

• Craig M. Gay

  Craig M. Gay is professor of interdisciplinary studies and associate academic dean at Regent College in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. He has written about evangelical Christianity and its relation to money.

• Douglas John Hall

  Douglas John Hall is author of The Cross in Our Context: Jesus and the Suffering World, in which he examines whether Christianity teaches some a love of consumption and waste. He is emeritus professor of theology at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. He has written extensively about neo-Orthodoxy.

• Milmon F. Harrison

  Milmon F. Harrison is the author of Righteous Riches: The Word of Faith Movement in Contemporary African American Religion (Oxford University Press, 2005). He is an associate professor of African-American and African studies at the University of California, Davis.

• Sam Pollard

  Sam Pollard is a professor of film and television at New York University in New York, N.Y. He has produced and directed several documentaries, including one about black preachers for the History Channel.

• R. Drew Smith

  R. Drew Smith is a Baptist minister and professor of urban ministry at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He has studied and written about black megachurches and has edited four volumes on American religion and public life, including New Day Begun: African American Churches and Civic Culture in Post-Civil Rights America.

• Stephen Winzenburg

  Stephen Winzenburg a is a professor of communications at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, where he has studied the fund-raising activities of televangelists, some of whom avow the prosperity gospel.

Pastors

• Kirbyjon Caldwell

  Kirbyjon Caldwell is senior pastor of Windsor Village United Methodist Church in Houston. He is the co-author of Entrepreneurial Faith: Launching Bold Initiatives to Expand God’s Kingdom (WaterBrook Press, 2004) and author of The Gospel of Good Success: A Road Map to Spiritual, Emotional and Financial Wholeness (Fireside, 2000). He was a spiritual adviser to President George W. Bush.

• David Demola

  David Demola is the pastor and founder of Faith Fellowship Ministries World Outreach Center in Sayreville, N.J. Financial prosperity is listed among the church’s fundamental beliefs.

• Rick Warren

  Rick Warren is pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., and author of the best-seller The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?

• Randy White

  Randy White is the pastor of Without Walls International Church in Tampa, Fla. Services are broadcast on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. White preaches a “reap what you sow” theology but warns that success is nothing without “significance.”

• Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.

  Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. is pastor emeritus of Trinity United Church of Christ, a predominantly African-American megachurch in Chicago. He participated in a conference of African-American pastors concerned with the effect of prosperity gospel in their churches. Trinity’s mission statement includes a “disavowal of the pursuit of middleclassness” and commitment to work toward economic parity.

Others

• Ole Anthony

  Ole Anthony is founder of the Trinity Foundation, a televangelist watchdog organization that has helped uncover questionable, and sometimes criminal, financial practices of television preachers. Trinity maintains a Web page that reports on the activities of various prosperity gospel preachers. 
  

• Jack Gibbs

  Jack Gibbs is media coordinator for Crown Financial Ministries, a global ministry based in Gainesville, Ga., that teaches a Christian and Bible-based money management system. The group does not stress personal wealth and prosperity but focuses on responsible stewardship. Contact via the website. 
  

Regional sources

In the Northeast

• Bishop C. Milton Grannum

  Bishop C. Milton Grannum is the founder and senior pastor of the New Covenant Church of Philadelphia. He has been critical of prosperity gospel, saying God blesses people with prosperity not so they can buy cars but so they can share with others.

• Maria Luisa Tucker

  Maria Luisa Tucker is program director and multimedia editor at Youth Communication in New York. In January 2006, she posted a blog entry linking the rise and fall of prosperity gospel to national politics.

• Sondra Ely Wheeler

  Sondra Ely Wheeler is a professor of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. She has written about what the New Testament says about money and possessions and can discuss the theological background and implications of prosperity gospel.

• Scott L. Thumma

  Scott L. Thumma is a sociology of religion professor at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut, where he also directs the Hartford Institute for Religion Research. He studies megachurches, nondenominational Christianity and congregational trends.

In the South

• Clint Brown

  Clint Brown is the pastor of Faith World in Orlando, Fla. He has urged members to give sacrificially so that their “blessings increase” and bring them more material wealth.

• Leo Sandon

  Leo Sandon is professor emeritus of religion and American studies at Florida State University and is a co-author of Religion in America (Prentice Hall, 1982).

• John Sullivan

  John Sullivan is executive director and treasurer of the Florida Baptist Convention in Jacksonville. He has written about prosperity gospel as deviant from true biblical teaching.

• Stephanie Mitchem

  Stephanie Mitchem is a professor of womanist theology and African-American spirituality at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, S.C. She is the author of Name It and Claim It? Prosperity Preaching in the Black Church (Pilgrim Press, 2006).

• Forrest Harris

  Forrest Harris is director of the Kelly Miller Smith Institute on African-American Church Studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School in Nashville, Tenn., as well as an associate professor of the practice of ministry. He teaches courses on the theology of ministry in the black church tradition and can discuss liberation theology and social justice.

• Shayne Lee

  Shayne Lee is an assistant professor of sociology at Tulane University in New Orleans. He is the author of T.D. Jakes: America’s New Preacher (New York University Press, 2005).

• Frederick Haynes III

  Frederick Haynes III is the senior pastor of Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas. He helped organize a conference for African American pastors concerned about the spread and use of the prosperity gospel, especially among African Americans.

• Anthony B. Pinn

  Anthony B. Pinn is a professor of humanities and religious studies at Rice University in Houston. He has been critical of the prosperity gospel preached in some black megachurches for its lack of emphasis on community service and charity. He is the author of Why, Lord?: Suffering and Evil in Black Theology and editor of Redemptive Suffering: a History of Theodicy in African-American Religious Thought. He also studies African-American religious humanism and is the author of African American Humanist Principles: Living and Thinking Like the Children of Nimrod and By These Hands: A Documentary History of African American Humanism.

• Joerg Rieger

  Joerg Rieger is a professor of constructive theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. He is an expert on mainline Protestant denominations and says some of those churches, while they do not teach a prosperity gospel, share a “prosperity mentality” when they preach that “good things happen to good people.”

• Nasir Siddiki

  Nasir Siddiki is the founder of Wisdom Ministries in Tulsa, Okla. He is the author of Kingdom Principles of Financial Increase (Wisdom Ministries, 1998) and speaks frequently to businesspeople.

In the Midwest

• Alan Branch

  Alan Branch is a professor of Christian ethics at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo. He wrote an article for The Baptist Messenger about prosperity gospel and Joel Osteen’s relation to it.

• David G. Myers

  David G. Myers is a professor of psychology at Hope College in Holland, Mich. He has written about the pursuit of happiness and consumerism.

• Rod Parsley

  Rod Parsley is the pastor of World Harvest Church in Canal Winchester, Ohio, and the author of God’s Answer to Insufficient Funds (Harrison House, 1992). He has said people have “sinned” by trying to make others ashamed of the wealth in their lives.

In the West

• Michael Scott Horton

  Michael Scott Horton is a professor of systematic theology and apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary in Escondido, Calif. He has called prosperity gospel a “wild and wacky theology.”

• Arlene Sánchez-Walsh

  Arlene Sánchez-Walsh is a religious studies professor at Azusa Pacific University in Azuza, California. She is an authority on Latino evangelicals, and her current research is on the rise of nonbelief among Latinos and Latinas. Her books include Latino Pentecostal Identity: Evangelical Faith, Self and Society.

   

• Steven Leder

  Steven Leder is a Reform rabbi at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles. He is the author of More Money Than God: Living a Rich Life Without Losing Your Soul (Bonus Books, 2004). Contact via Nan Brostoff.
  

Related source guides

• Gospel of dollars: Is Hollywood becoming Holywood?

• Learning money skills in houses of worship