Prosperity theology (sometimes referred to as the prosperity gospel, the health and wealth

gospel, the gospel of success, or seed faith)[A] is a religious belief among some Charismatic
Christians that financial blessing and physical well-being are always the will of God for them, and
that faith, positive speech, and donations to religious causes will increase one's material
wealth.[1] Material and especially financial success is seen as a sign of divine favor.

Prosperity theology has been criticized by leaders from various Christian denominations, including
within some Pentecostal and charismatic movements, who maintain that it is irresponsible,
promotes idolatry, and is contrary to the Bible.[2] Secular as well as Christian observers have also
criticized prosperity theology as exploitative of the poor. The practices of some preachers have
attracted scandal and some have been charged with financial fraud.

Prosperity theology views the Bible as a contract between God and humans: if humans have faith in
God, God will deliver security and prosperity.[3] The doctrine emphasizes the importance of
personal empowerment, proposing that it is God's will for people to be blessed.
The atonement (reconciliation with God) is interpreted to include the alleviation of sickness and
poverty, which are viewed as curses to be broken by faith. This is believed to be achieved through
donations of money, visualization, and positive confession.

It was during the Healing Revivals of the 1950s that prosperity theology first came to prominence in
the United States, although commentators have linked the origins of its theology to the New
Thought movement which began in the 19th century. The prosperity teaching later figured
prominently in the Word of Faith movement and 1980s televangelism. In the 1990s and 2000s, it
was adopted by influential leaders in the Pentecostal movement and charismatic movement in the
United States and has spread throughout the world. Prominent leaders in the development of
prosperity theology include Todd White, Benny Hinn, E. W. Kenyon,[4] Oral Roberts,[5] A. A.
Allen,[6] Robert Tilton,[7] T. L. Osborn,[8] Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar,[9] Kenneth Copeland,[10] Reverend
Ike,[11] Kenneth Hagin,[12] Joseph Prince,[citation needed] and Jesse Duplantis.[13]

History[edit]
Late 19th and early 20th-century background[edit]
External videos

Interview with Kate Bowler on Blessed: A History of the

American Prosperity Gospel, March 18, 2014, C-SPAN

According to historian Kate Bowler, the prosperity gospel was formed from the intersection of three
different ideologies: Pentecostalism, New Thought, and "an American gospel of pragmatism,
individualism, and upward mobility".[14] This "American gospel" was best exemplified by Andrew
Carnegie's Gospel of Wealth and Russell Conwell's famous sermon "Acres of Diamonds", in which
Conwell equated poverty with sin and asserted that anyone could become rich through hard work.
This gospel of wealth, however, was an expression of Muscular Christianity and understood success
to be the result of personal effort rather than divine intervention. [15]

The New Thought movement, which emerged in the 1880s, was responsible for popularizing belief in
the power of the mind to achieve prosperity. While initially focused on achieving mental and physical
health, New Thought teachers such as Charles Fillmore made material success a major emphasis of
the movement.[16] By the 20th century, New Thought concepts had saturated American popular
culture, being common features of both self-help literature and popular psychology.[17]

E. W. Kenyon, a Baptist minister and adherent of the Higher Life movement, is credited with
introducing mind-power teachings into early Pentecostalism. [18] In the 1890s, Kenyon
attended Emerson College of Oratory where he was exposed to the New Thought movement.
Kenyon later became connected with well-known Pentecostal leaders and wrote about supernatural
revelation and positive declarations. His writing influenced leaders of the nascent prosperity
movement during the post-war American healing revival. Kenyon and later leaders in the prosperity
movement have denied that he was influenced by the New Thought movement.
Anthropologist Simon Coleman argues that there are "obvious parallels" between Kenyon's
teachings and New Thought.[19]

Kenyon taught that Christ's substitutionary atonement secured for believers a right to divine healing.
This was attained through positive, faith-filled speech; the spoken word of God allowed believers to
appropriate the same spiritual power that God used to create the world and attain the provisions
promised in Christ's death and resurrection.[20] Prayer was understood to be a binding, legal act.
Rather than asking, Kenyon taught believers to demand healing since they were already legally
entitled to receive it.[21]

Kenyon's blend of evangelical religion and mind-power beliefs—what he termed "overcoming faith"—
resonated with a small but influential segment of the Pentecostal movement.[22] Pentecostals had
always been committed to faith healing, and the movement also possessed a strong belief in the
power of speech (in particular speaking in tongues and the use of the names of God, especially
the name of Jesus).[23] Kenyon's ideas would be reflected in the teachings of Pentecostal
evangelists F. F. Bosworth and John G. Lake (who co-led a congregation with New Thought
author Albert C. Grier prior to 1915).[24] (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia፣
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology)

Prosperity gospel, in Protestant Christianity, the teaching that faith—expressed

through positive thoughts, positive declarations, and donations to the church—draws
health, wealth, and happiness into believers’ lives. It is also referred to as the “health
and wealth gospel” or “name it and claim it.” Central to this teaching are the beliefs
that salvation through Jesus Christ includes liberation from not only death and eternal
damnation but also poverty, sickness, and other ills. Adherents believe that God wants
believers to be richly blessed in this life and that physical well-being and material riches
are always God’s will for the faithful. Illness and poverty are seen as curses that,
through atonement, can be broken with faith in Jesus. Prosperity gospel has been a
significant influence in Christianity since the early 20th century and has continued to
grow in the 21st century.
Origins
The early 20th-century New Thought movement, a mind-healing movement based
on diverse religious and metaphysical presuppositions, shaped the later development of
prosperity gospel. Although the movement was not necessarily Christian, religious
strains of New Thought generally emphasized the immanence of God, the divine nature
of humanity, the immediate availability of God’s power to humans, and the belief
that sin, human disorders, and human disease are basically matters of incorrect
thinking. Moreover, according to New Thought, humans can live in oneness with God in
love, truth, peace, health, and plenty, and many groups emphasized Jesus as teacher and
healer and proclaimed his kingdom as being within a person.

The works of William Walker Atkinson (Thought Vibration: or, The Law of Attraction
in the Thought World, 1906) and Prentice Mulford (Your Forces and How to Use Them,
1910) articulated the concept that positive thinking and positive speech bring wealth,
health, and other desired benefits. Many other self-help books of the 20th
century promulgated these concepts, including Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
(1937), The Power of Positive Thinking by the Protestant minister Norman Vincent
Peale (1952), You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay (1984), and The Secret by Rhonda
Byrne (2006), each selling millions of copies.

It was largely within American Pentecostalism that New Thought concepts were adapted
to Christian theology and evolved as the teachings of prosperity gospel in the 20th
century. Pentecostalism itself is a diverse movement comprising numerous churches
and denominations, many of which do not affirm prosperity theology, and it stresses the
role of the Holy Spirit in post-conversion religious experience and spiritual gifts, such
as faith healing and speaking in tongues. Pentecostals tend to emphasize
conversion, moral rigour, and a literal interpretation of the Bible, and it was within this
framework that the notion of a more transactional relationship with God through
salvation in Christ was developed.

Oral Roberts
American televangelist Oral Roberts.
The Word of Faith movement, put forth by Essek William Kenyon (1867–1948) and
Kenneth Hagin (1917–2003), encourages “positive confession”—that is, the naming of
specific blessings so that they will be granted. Similarly, the charismatic Christian
“healing revival” movement of the late 1940s and ’50s promised miraculous faith-based
cures to believers. The Voice of Healing Revival, which ran between 1947 and 1958,
featured a number of notable prosperity gospel teachers who grew the movement,
including Hagin, James Gordon Lindsay, T.L. Osborn, and the evangelist Oral Roberts.
It was Oral Roberts, through his subsequent rise as a televangelist, who became known
as the first mainstream proponent of prosperity gospel. He preached “seed-faith,”
proclaiming that money donated to his ministry would return to the donor sevenfold.

In the first half of the 20th century, many Black spiritual leaders embraced the idea that
positive thinking is a key to healing and material blessings. These leaders included M.J.
Divine, or “Father Divine,” sometimes considered a cult leader; Marcelino Manuel da
Graça, known as “Sweet Daddy Grace,” a pastor and faith healer; and Lightfoot Solomon
Michaux, an international radio evangelist in the 1930s and a televangelist in the 1940s.
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Developments from the late 20th century

Benny Hinn
Televangelist Benny Hinn preaching during a sermon in Charlotte, North Carolina, April 13, 2001.(more)
Prosperity gospel burgeoned with the growth of televangelism and the rise of certain
“megachurches” in the second half of the 20th century. In addition to Oral Roberts,
televangelists in the U.S. such as Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker (later Messner),
Paula White-Cain, Creflo Dollar, and Benny Hinn gained followers and significant
wealth through their prosperity theology.
Joel Osteen
Joel Osteen, 2015.
Prosperity gospel teachings are also associated with Joel Osteen, the senior pastor at
Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, whose services, attended by approximately
45,000 members every week, are live streamed as well as televised in more than 100
countries. He is the author of several best-selling books, including Your Best Life
Now (2004) and Think Better, Live Better (2016). Osteen preaches that “it’s God’s will
for you to live in prosperity instead of poverty” and that “you must boldly declare words
of faith and victory over yourself.” Like many preachers associated with prosperity
gospel, he eschews the label.

Other prominent figures associated with prosperity theology in the U.S. include Word of
Faith televangelist and author Kenneth Copeland; bishop, author, and filmmaker T.D.
Jakes; speaker and author Joyce Meyer; and bishop, author, and pastor Dale C.
Bronner.

Prosperity gospel has spread from the U.S. to Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In Latin
America tens of millions of people left the Roman Catholic Church in the first quarter of
the 21st century for Pentecostal churches that promote prosperity theology, such as
those led by Silas Malafaia, a prominent televangelist and political figure in Brazil.
Joseph Prince, the pastor of a megachurch in Singapore, preaches prosperity gospel, as
did the late David Yonggi Cho, a cofounder of the church that once claimed the
largest congregation in the world, Yoido Full Gospel Church in South Korea, which had
more than 800,000 members in the early 21st century.
Criticisms
Critics of prosperity gospel within Protestant and Roman Catholic Christianity have
claimed that its transactional model and its focus on material riches are gross
distortions of the faith. Both religious and secular critics have expressed concerns that
the teaching blames individuals’ lack of faith for misfortunes and that it may be used to
financially exploit the poor and the emotionally vulnerable.

Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker

Evangelists Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker in the 1980s. The couple hosted the Christian television
program The PTL Club.(more)
Many Christian leaders associated with prosperity gospel have been criticized for their
opulent lifestyles, and a few have been convicted for embezzlement and fraud. Writing
in 1992 from federal prison, having been convicted of fraud associated with his
ministry’s fundraising activities, televangelist Jim Bakker sought forgiveness for his
prosperity gospel teachings and asked, “If we equate earthly possessions and earthly
relationships with God’s favor, what are we to tell the billions of those living in poverty?”
Similarly, Benny Hinn, one of the major proponents of prosperity gospel since the
1980s, rejected the theology several times throughout his ministry; in 2019 he again
recanted, stating, “The blessings of God are not for sale.”

Defenders of prosperity gospel point to many Bible verses that seem to support the
teaching, to individual success stories, and to the transformative value of hope.
(https://www.britannica.com/topic/free-church-Protestantism)