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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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 […]