What Is the Word of Faith Movement?

The Word of Faith movement is the stream of teaching that treats faith as something a believer speaks, and that treats those spoken words as the way healing and supply come. Kenneth Copeland Ministries (1) tells readers to use the force of faith, combined with the power of their words, to speak to a situation and trust God to move. Historian Paul King, writing in The Pneuma Review, says E. W. Kenyon is generally recognized as the chief originator and Kenneth Hagin as the most widespread popularizer. Churches that reject the teaching say those words do not compel God. This page quotes the claim and the disagreement. It does not decide.

Key points

• Copeland’s faith-confessions page (1) says faith is powerful, and so are the words a person speaks, and it tells the reader to speak to “mountains” in life, body, relationship, or job.
• The same page says, “I call those things that are not as though they were,” and “He said I can have whatever I say.”
• Paul King (2) says Kenyon (1867–1948) is generally recognized as the chief originator of the modern faith movement, and that Hagin draws the majority of his teaching from Kenyon.
• Rhema’s site (3) titles a page “Kenneth E. & Oretha Hagin Founder of Rhema Christian Faith Ministry.” This page does not quote a Hagin book. A sentence of his that was not opened here is not invented.
• Mark 11:23CloseFor verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.Mark 11:23 · King James VersionOpen source (4) is the verse the confessions page is using when it says to speak to a mountain. What that verse is doing in Mark is on Is the Prosperity Gospel Biblical?.
• The spoken practice is What Is Positive Confession?. The gift treated as a seed is What Is Seed Faith?.

What Copeland’s page tells a reader to say

Faith Confessions (1), on Kenneth Copeland Ministries’ site, opens:

Faith is powerful, and so are the words you speak. Use the force of faith, combined with the power of your words to speak to your situation and trust God to move on your behalf.

The confessions under that line tell the reader to do as Jesus did and speak to the mountains of a blank the reader fills in, to command the thing to be removed and cast into the sea, and to believe it is received. One line says, “I call those things that are not as though they were and hope for what I do not have.” A later line thanks God for a great high priest, Jesus Christ, “and He said I can have whatever I say.”

That is their account of Mark 11:23–24Close^11:23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. ^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.Mark 11:23–24 · King James VersionOpen source (4) and of Romans 4:17. They are telling a believer to speak the end they have not yet seen, and to treat Jesus’ words as permission to have whatever they say. Romans 10:17CloseSo then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.Romans 10:17 · King James VersionOpen source (5), which the same ministry uses on another confessions page, says faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. The Word of Faith reading takes that hearing into the believer’s own mouth.

Kenyon and Hagin, as the historians name them

Paul L. King (2), in The Pneuma Review on 30 April 2011, is a signed essay, not a synod. He writes that E. W. Kenyon (1867–1948) is generally recognized as the chief originator of the modern faith movement. He writes that Kenneth Hagin, “who is considered the most widespread popularizer of modern faith teaching, draws the majority of his teaching from Kenyon,” and also from evangelical and Pentecostal leaders King lists, including George Müller, Spurgeon, A. B. Simpson, John G. Lake, and Smith Wigglesworth.

Rhema (3) calls Kenneth E. and Oretha Hagin founders of Rhema Christian Faith Ministry. The homepage title of that site is “Home of Rhema Ministries | Kenneth Hagin Ministries.” This page stops there. It does not put words in Hagin’s mouth from a book this site has not opened.

King also records the fight about where Kenyon learned the teaching. D. R. McConnell’s A Different Gospel and Hank Hanegraaff’s Christianity in Crisis, as King describes them, trace the movement to New Thought. King says Dale Simmons, Joe McIntyre, Robert Bowman, and others locate the primary influence in the Wesleyan, Higher Life, and Keswick holiness movements. The quotations on both sides of that historical argument are on Where Did the Prosperity Gospel Come From?.

What the movement is claiming, and what it is not

Read from Copeland’s page, the movement is claiming that God moves when a believer speaks in faith to a situation. The trust named in the first sentence is trust in God, not a claim that the speaker created the world. The New Age sentence is different. Wallace D. Wattles, quoted on Is Manifesting a Sin?, says a person causes the thing to be created by impressing thought on formless substance. Copeland’s page says to trust God to move.

Churches that answer the movement say the practical result is still a person using words to secure health and wealth. The Assemblies of God say faith compels God’s action in the extreme form of this teaching, and that no one will compel God. Cape Town denies that God’s miraculous power can be treated as automatic or manipulated by human words. Those documents are quoted on What Do Churches Say about the Prosperity Gospel?. This page does not add a verdict after them.

What Do Pentecostals Believe? is the wider Pentecostal confession. The Word of Faith is one stream in that world, not the Statement of Fundamental Truths.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Word of Faith the same as the prosperity gospel?

What Is the Prosperity Gospel? uses the Cape Town definition: a right to health and wealth, by positive confession and by sowing seeds. The Word of Faith is the movement those practices travel in. Seed faith is the giving piece. A church can talk about healing and provision, as the Assemblies of God do, and still reject the claim that words compel God.

Did Kenneth Hagin found it?

King says Kenyon is generally recognized as the chief originator, and Hagin as the popularizer who draws most of his teaching from Kenyon. Rhema’s page title calls the Hagins founders of Rhema Christian Faith Ministry. Those are two different sentences. This page does not have a Hagin book open, so it does not quote one.

What verse are they using?

Mark 11:23CloseFor verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.Mark 11:23 · King James VersionOpen source (4) says that whoever says to this mountain, Be removed, and does not doubt, shall have whatever he says. Copeland’s page tells the reader to speak to mountains in the reader’s life. The next verses in Mark are prayer and forgiveness, on the biblical page.