Short Take 3: Why is the Word of Faith movement so popular?

Brandon Kimber with us today here on The Christian Real View, the creator of American Gospel, both films. There's a first film, the subtitle is Christ Alone. The second one, which was just released, is called Christ's Crucified.

Brandon, I'm going to play another soundbite from the film. We've gone from moralistic preaching to the works gospel. Now let's go over to the what you mentioned earlier that had impacted your family so much growing up, which was the Word of Faith movement. And this particular soundbite has one of the most popular Word of Faith preachers, Kenneth Copeland, also Benny Hinn, and then finishes with Justin Peters, who you also mentioned, who has cerebral palsy and was falsely promised to be healed when he was younger and has spent much of his adult life in ministry speaking out against the false gospel of the Word of Faith movement.

Let's hear that soundbite, Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, and others, from your film American Gospel. Is it God's will to heal? If so, is it His will to heal me?

The answer is yes and yes. When I'm praying for somebody, the first thing that has to happen is I have to be absolutely convinced that it's God's will to heal people every time. The Word of Faith movement is the term that's given to a movement that's more commonly known as the health and wealth gospel, the prosperity gospel, name and claim gospel, this teaching that it is always God's will for a Christian to be wealthy, it's always God's will for a Christian to be physically healed, we should never be sick.

Believe me when I tell you, I never get sick. Or if we do get sick, we can be healed as long as we have enough faith, we can attract positive things to ourselves through positive thinking. And Norman Vincent Peale, the great Norman Vincent Peale was my pastor, the power of positive thinking. And the Word of Faith movement is led by people such as Benny Hinn, the world's most famous faith healer, Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen, Joseph Prince, T.D. Jakes, Andrew Wommack, these are just some of the more prominent leaders of the movement. But what has happened is that the United States of America has created this false theology and has now exported it to the rest of the world to the point that now the face of Christianity in most of the world today is Word of Faith.

Okay, that was Justin Peters from your film American Gospel. Brandon, you've obviously in your family have had much experience with this Word of Faith movement. Why do you think it's so prevalent, has just exploded around the world? As Benny Hinn says in that trailer, nobody wants to die, nobody wants to be sick, and nobody wants to be poor. You know, those are natural human desires. And so if you take those desires and hold them out as the attraction to come to Christ, of course that's going to be popular. They're not necessarily sinful, but they can be idols. So the Word of Faith movement are using God as a means to another end. It's kind of like marrying someone for their money. That message of God has a wonderful plan for your life of health, wealth, and happiness, and all your dreams will come true. It's contradicting the gospel message of deny yourself, take up your cross, and those promises of suffering and persecution that come when you put your faith in Christ.