Love Truth Blog

Here is a new blog on Do Ministers Like Joel Osteen and Charles Finney Help or Hinder the Church?  at blog.equip.org.

Recently I came across the following Open Letter to Joel Osteen , which I thought to be a creative and helpful take on the spiritual bankruptcy of the prosperity gospel. The portrait of God that Osteen paints is truly antithetical to the Christian faith, particularly when one considers it is premised upon the idea that faith is a force, words are containers of that force, and through speaking faith-filled words one can speak forth their own health and wealth into existence. Yet, it does not even stop there, for in the theology of the Word of Faith movement, which Osteen draws upon, God also needs to use the force of face to create reality. Mere mortals may even call upon God to their every wish through faith-filled words. This name-it-and-claim-it gospel offers an attractive package, whether or not it can bring people into communition with God Almighty is another story. Here are a couple of other articles on the problems of Joel Osteen that I found helpful: Christianity Still in Cr...

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser…I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:1, 5) Nowadays discernment is needed, as it is so easy to get the wrong idea about fruitfulness. An example of this is the whole idea of “seed faith,” which is the misnomer that if one sows a $eed in faith one would get a supernatural return. So if they give, they would get back from God more $eed than they gave—in some instances up to a thousand times more. Of course, this is just a perverted understanding of faith and one of the extreme ways wealth is misunderstood in the Bible. Yet, the biblical message on Christians and fruitfulness is far different. Key to understanding Christians and fruitfulness is coming to grips with Jesus last “I am” statement, which concerns the vine and branches. What a profound statement it is! The identification of the vine as Jesus and the vinedresser as the Fa...

Many professing Christians have been lured into the enticing message of the Word of Faith movement, which promises health, wealth, and prosperity, all by the power of words, spoken through the power of faith, by little gods. Hank Hanegraaff has addressed this extensively in Christianity in Crisis 21st Century (Thomas Nelson). Recently, I came across the following piece, which is both provacative and insightful on the problematic spread of deadly Word of Faith doctrines to overseas missions... Theology Group Reflects on Impact of Prosperity Gospel The growing prevalence of the prosperity gospel around the world, and particularly in Africa, has prompted a group of theologians to release a statement of concern and a call for further reflection. While recognizing that "there are some dimensions of prosperity teaching that have roots in the Bible," the Lausanne Theology Working Group says its overall view is that "the teachings of those who most vigorously promote the 'p...

Hank Hanegraaff’s Christianity in Crisis 21st Century Edition (CNC21) unveils the truth about the doctrinal flaws propagated by the Word of Faith movement. Updating his previous edition, CNC21 address the flawed theology of the Word of Faith movement, which began with E.W. Kenyon, whose aberrant theology was passed on through past Word of Faith luminaries like Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, Fredrick K.C. Price, John Avanzini, Robert Tilton, Marilyn Hickey, Paul Yoggi Cho, Charles Capps, Morris Cerullo, and Paul Crouch. CNC21, moreover, highlights the doctrinal errors of new stars in the Word of Faith constellation, such as Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar, Joyce Meyer, John Hagee, T.D. Jakes, Rod Parsley, and Paula White. Using the mass media engine of the Trinity Broadcasting Network, Word of Faith teachers dispense their deadly doctrinal poison by the mega-dose. Using cultic term twisting, they teach faith is a force and words are containers of that force. They pronounce man ...