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.”

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 […]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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.