Word of Faith Movement

Definition and Meaning

The Word of Faith movement is a religious movement that took shape in American Pentecostal and charismatic circles during the mid-to-late twentieth century. It teaches that when believers trust the promises of Scripture and declare them aloud, those words become reality. This teaching is commonly called positive confession. Because the movement emphasizes health and material prosperity as God's will, it overlaps considerably with prosperity theology. Its message is sometimes summed up by the phrase "Name it and claim it," an expression used mainly by critics.

Biblical and Historical Background

Adherents cite passages such as Mark 11:22–25, Romans 10:8–10, Proverbs 18:21, 3 John 1:2, and 1 Peter 2:24. They understand faith as laying hold of the word of God and confessing it. They also hold that Christ's atonement (his paying the penalty for sin on behalf of sinners) encompasses not only the forgiveness of sins but also healing from sickness and deliverance from poverty.

The movement's leading figure is Kenneth Hagin, who founded a Bible training center in Oklahoma and trained many ministers. Hagin's teaching has been described as heavily influenced by the earlier writer E. W. Kenyon. The divine healing ministry of Oral Roberts and his "seed faith" teaching on giving are also often mentioned as part of the same stream.

Critics charge that the movement treats faith as a force or law that moves God and that it attributes sickness and suffering to a lack of faith. Some scholars argue that Kenyon was influenced by the nineteenth-century New Thought movement. Adherents respond that their teaching is grounded in Scripture. The Assemblies of God in the United States reportedly issued a position paper on positive confession in 1980 that cautioned against certain of these teachings.

In Korean Churches

No denomination in South Korea bears the name "Word of Faith movement." However, the books of Hagin and others have been translated and introduced there, and they have been read chiefly in Pentecostal and charismatic churches and prayer retreat centers.

Pastor David Yonggi Cho of the Korea Assemblies of God, a body in the Korean Full Gospel tradition, taught the "threefold blessing" on the basis of 3 John 1:2. Because this teaching emphasizes three blessings together—the prospering of the soul, prosperity in all things, and bodily health—it is frequently compared with the Word of Faith movement. Full Gospel leaders have explained it as a message of holistic salvation that embraces both the soul and the whole of life.

Theologians in the Reformed tradition, including Presbyterians, have criticized the movement for diminishing the sovereignty of God and the meaning of suffering. Across denominational lines, concerns have also been raised within Korean evangelical circles that it encourages a blessing-seeking faith (gibok sinang), an attitude that places the pursuit of blessings at the center of religious life.