Episode 014 – The Faith Movement/ Prosperity Gospel

29 May 2021

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

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B: Well gidday T, how are we?

T: Yeah I’m good, I’m good. How are you?

B: I’m good. It’s episode 14. How’s that for craziness?

T: I know, that is craziness, isn’t it. That’s months and months we’ve been doing this now.

B: It is, and those last three episodes that we dropped in one weekend, we certainly had a lot of traffic through with people listening to that and engaging in the conversation, didn’t we.

T: Yeah definitely. Downloads in the hundreds for each episode, which is pretty cool.

B: It was very, very cool, and our audience is certainly growing. We’ve got people, lots of listeners in Australia, and also the States and lots of other spatterings across Europe. I always love to look at those countries where we’ve got one or two listeners, like Poland and Latvia and Lithuania. 

T: Latvia.

B: It’s almost like having votes in Eurovision. Latvia usually get less votes.

T: Yeah right, but they do fucking amazing liverwurst in Latvia.

B: Everyone loves a liverwurst.

T: When I was in high school I used to work in the deli at Coles, and Latvian liverwurst was one of the things we sold. But yeah it’s growing, and it’s amazing. I’m really thrilled. The other thing I wanted to point out is the Facebook group is coming alive. We’ve got some personalities turning up in there, and people having their say and I think it would be good to make a point that just because we do or don’t respond doesn’t mean we are for or against what’s being said.

B: We definitely want to maintain that environment of healing and going forward, rather than – we don’t want to be bagging people out too much. There’s obviously the naming of a few characters that we’ve come across in our time, but we certainly don’t want to be looking back and throwing stones at everyone, for sure. 

T: Exactly right. Well mate, why don’t you tell us what we’re talking about today?

B: It’s Luke 14. We are going to talk about the prosperity doctrine, often referred to as the hyper faith movement, and many, many other names, some of them aren’t as complimentary. It’s an interesting space, and it’s something that both T and I have come across, been involved in, been observers, but also been in the middle of it, and bloody hell it’s a weird space. It is an incredibly weird space. We’ve got quite a few little stories to tell, don’t we T.

T: Yeah exactly right. I think it’s important to note that we are not going to necessarily theologically deconstruct this because you and I both think hey, to each his own. If you want to believe that, you can believe it. But we’ll tell our stories and say this is how it messed us up. 

B: Yeah absolutely. Look, I’m happy to kick off on this one. I came across this doctrine quite early in my faith journey, it was an early church I was involved in. they had this guy come out who was quite a big name, it was John Avanzini. Can you remember the names of some of his books? It was like Unanswered Prayer, 30-60-100 fold, things like that. Everything was about claiming and prosperity.

T: Yeah and I think in the early to mid 90s, maybe not quite the mid 90s but in the early 90s he was a big name. He was up there with Kenneth Copeland and these others. I don’t know if he’s still around or doing stuff, but definitely back then he was a big name, wasn’t he.

B: He was, and he is around. I can confirm that, because I Googled him the other day when I was preparing for this podcast, and thinking oh I wonder what he’s doing? And he’s still around. I don’t know how often he speaks. He’s quite old now – I don’t know his age, but he’d be certainly getting on in years, but he came to this church, and it was quite surprising. The church wasn’t a big one, it was maybe 150-200 people, it had grown very fast. They had this guy come along, and he was dripping in gold. He was your typical televangelist, and I remember that we were told to prepare for miracles. To prepare for big things that were going to happen, those that had debts come along because there was a good chance those debts would be gone after you’d come to these meetings. Now this one meeting I remember – he preached for three or four nights in a row, and he had full church every night. This one night, my parents had only become Christians probably maybe six months before, and they had come into this space very open. They, along with the rest of the church, were told bring your mortgages along. Bring your car loans along. Bring your loans, your hire purchase, whatever it is, put it into a manila folder, give it to John Avanzini – with a generous gift – and he’ll pray over it and no need to pay any more of those payments for those loans, because they’ll be gone. So no worries, take care of it, and move on.

T: So you’re saying with a generous gift, I know you sort of went over that really quickly. So people had to put money into these requests, or whatever you want to call them.

B: Look, it wasn’t mandatory, but it was strongly encouraged. I remember the offerings that were taken up for those. I was watching people put fistfuls of notes in the offering, which was all going to John Avanzini. So it was very, very clear that people really should give, because if you’re not going to be generous, how can you expect to be given back 30- 60- 100-fold, pressed down, shaken together, flowing over. They were the sort of scriptures that were just being bandied around, and being told that that’s fact. You give, you’ll get 30- 60- 100-fold back.

T: So what did he do? Would he stand up and start preaching? How did it all work?

B: Yeah, he did. It was seriously like watching a televangelist, which was quite entertaining, because he was a televangelist, but it was a live show. So he would get up, but everything was about Jesus died so you could be rich. Jesus died so you could be wealthy, you could live, and those who believed in Jesus, the fact was you could be rich. He rarely talked about grace or love. I can’t recall any specific details about that, but the whole thing for me was shrouded in the fact that it was around becoming prosperous, becoming materially wealthy. It was nothing to do with your character, with love, with grace.

T: Yeah well that’s why they call it the prosperity gospel, it’s not a gospel of salvation, except salvation from poverty, maybe. 

B: That’s right, and look I struggled with it, but I tried to get on board. I was relatively new in the faith as I said, and I was told that this is what you did. I fortunately didn’t have any loans or anything at that time, but I saw people bring their mortgages along, I saw people bring their loan documents along and pass them out the front for John Avanzini to pray over. He would just pray over this whole pile, he would claim it for Jesus, say it’s gone, don’t worry about your payments next week, just move on. So what happened practically, I have no idea. Did people then just not pay their mortgages and the bank was chasing them? Did it impact them that they thought they jut didn’t believe enough? Because you were told you had to believe enough. You had to have enough faith, whatever that mean. God only knows what that meant, but you had to have enough faith. 

T: But you would have had a car loan then wouldn’t you? You were working as a tradesman. Did you stop paying your loan?

B: No, I didn’t have a car loan actually, I got a car loan after that when I went to Great Big AOG and my car wasn’t good enough. So I felt the pressure to get a new car when I was there. I didn’t have a loan, but I certainly got into the whole if I believe more then I’ll be wealthier.

T: Did you give money?

B: Yeah, I gave a lot of money. The whole tithing of ten percent of your earnings, it went well beyond that. I can’t remember what I gave, but I remember giving well above what I could afford, and certainly left myself short. I remember thinking maybe my faith wasn’t good enough.

T: Oh, of course.

B: I didn’t get any prosperity back from that, any wealth back from that. All I got was a gift for John Avanzini. 

T: I think he had a book or a tape series or something and I’m pretty sure it was called It’s Not Working Brother, or It’s Not Working Brother John. People were coming to him afterwards saying ahh, it’s not working, and I’m pretty sure he put out a book called that or something similar. But you’ve talked to me about this church in particular – as a matter of fact you’ve talked to us that are listening to you, and you said this was the church that was kind of more accepting and loving, and you left there to go to Great Big AOG. This was the independent one. So how did all this fit with that?

B: It didn’t, and that was the really weird thing. They were always very Pentecostal, there was no doubt about that, but there was definitely an acceptance and love, and a real grace shown within that space, so it did seem to be out of sync with where they were going. But it was quite a journey that they actually kept going along. They had a building fund. They had moved out of a rented premises, they and bought this large property – in a relatively affluent part of the city in the suburbs, and it had a large warehouse on it. So, typical Pentecostal church, turn that warehouse into a church. To do that it obviously took money. I can’t remember how much the aim was for the building fund, but they called upon members to make a commitment, and make a commitment over a time period of, I think it was a couple of years. You’d say ok, I’ll give $5,000, I’ll pay it down almost like a loan, and just give that to the church. They were really clear that if you did that, you committed to it, it was your next step in your faith. It was much more than your normal tithing so you would get more back.

T: Mmmh. Over and above, over and above your tithe.

B: Over and above. So it wasn’t about giving for the sake of giving because you wanted to make the world a better place, or do something different, or contribute to community, it was very much peppered with look give, it’s going to help us out, but you’re going to get bucketloads more back and you are going to be prosperous. I was only about 19 at this time and I remember being quite pressured to commit to this. I thought, I can’t commit to this. I’m living week to week as it is. I don’t think the church was getting enough people committing, so they were starting to make home visits. They would send their ministry teams around, who were connected to the building fund, and they would come around and ask you to commit to it. The pressure from that was phenomenal. I remember being told at that time, someone came around and they said we need you to determine how much you’re going to give. I said I can’t determine that. I don’t know. And they said go away and pray. I thought I’d be given a couple of days, I was given five minutes. I was told to go to another room, go and pray, seek guidance, and come back with a number. I didn’t know how that worked. I went away, I prayed, I came back, and I said I’ve got no idea. And they started throwing numbers at me. $5,000? Nah, I said I can’t afford $5,000. $3,000? Nope. So it fell on a couple of thousand at the end that I ended up committing, and you essentially had a ledger that you would contribute, and they would knock that amount off your ledger. My parents also got pressured into giving, I don’t know how much they got committed to them, but I can tell you within 12 months they had paid that building off. So they had obviously gotten significant contributions from people. 

T: Yeah, I can imagine some of the language that would have been used, and if not used it certainly was in other churches. Things like a faith pledge, planting a seed, all that kind of stuff. I think it’s really interesting listening to you that it’s not about missions, it’s not about saving souls, like you said it’s not about working with kids on the street or the poor, or anything like that. It’s just give so you will get.

B: Absolutely, and building a property portfolio. I mean, this property was beautiful, it was no doubt. The pastor lived on the premises as well, so this paid for his house as well, because it was all part of the one property.

T: So did this happen after John Avanzini or before?

B: Um, after, from memory. It was a flow on from it, so I’m sure it was a challenge set by the leadership. It was like, all right, if we’ve committed to this prosperity doctrine, then let’s try and make it work. And there’s enough you can do with a bit of marketing and pressure, there’s no doubt about that. 

T: Yeah, for sure. I first came across the faith movement stuff after the Revival Centre, because the Revival Centre doesn’t like anyone who’s not Revival Centre, right, so we weren’t really exposed – except you’d hear names like Smith Wigglesworth and this kind of stuff, in fairness to good old Smith, he probably wasn’t a prosperity preacher, but he was certainly a word of faith preacher. But I remember the same people that were helping me out gave me some Kenneth Hagan books. That was the guy who I was first introduced to – Kenneth Hagan,

B: Daddy Hagan.

T: Yeah granddaddy Hagan, also I remember another friend of mine used to call him Dr Hagan. He used to talk about Dr Hagan says, as if somehow this guy was some sort of academic, but obviously he wasn’t. He probably got his PhD from his own bible college, or maybe even from the bottom of the lucky charms box. But his stuff was mixed in with that taking authority, demons, all that, so it was definitely a big chunk of the faith and prosperity, but it was also mixed in with healing, mixed in with taking authority over the Devil and casting out demons. So I was reading all this stuff prior to my whole deliverance and all that, that was definitely fed by Kenneth Hagan, because Kenneth Hagan used to talk about the little monkey demons on his shoulders, and Jesus used to talk to him all the time. He’d write in his books the Lord appeared to me and said this and said that. So that’s where I started. Then when I got involved with Great Big AOG, it was definitely permeated everywhere, but I don’t know if you remember, Great Big AOG never really stood up and said watch Kenneth Copeland or read Kenneth Hagan – it was there, but they didn’t ever really put their rubber stamp on it.

B: No, I agree, but there was definitely pockets of people who promoted it more strongly than others within Great Big AOG. But I agree it was never said from the pulpit.

T: I dated this girl later on who I had a massive crush on and she was right into it, and her family were right into – I mean on a whole ‘nother level, brother. I mean, they were just out there with this whole faith stuff, and I was right into her, so that led me back into it. Even to the point where I was at bible college at that stage, and Kenneth Copeland came to Australia and did a series of crusades or whatever he called them, and I skipped bible college for the whole week. People were claiming to be healed, and all that, and it was all about being wealthy but from Kenneth Copeland’s perspective it was also very much about being healed and also about signs and wonders.

B: And taking victory.

T: Oh yes, Believer’s Voice of Victory was the name of his TV show, which I used to record every morning on channel 9 on VHS, then wake up later and watch it back, him and Gloria. Praise God, I give him glory, it used to move my heart brother, I tell you. 

B: For those on our Facebook page, you would have seen that T posted the Kenneth Copeland video this week where Kenneth Copeland was claiming victory over COVID-19, and it’s a rather passionate victory speech, isn’t it.

T: Why don’t we have a listen to it right now? We can just play a little snippet of it, and people can look at the whole thing on the Facebook group.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSIrQBGfUtw

B: That certainly is confronting.

T: Yes. Do you notice he takes authority, right? I take authority over COVID – I love it. As much as it’s confronting and offensive, I love it, it’s just like going to Disneyland for church. It’s brilliant.

B: It is, and I do love the little echo voice at the back, the guy who’s standing to his side who, every now and then, gives him a little bit of affirmation.

T: Yes, yes. Do you remember there was also – not that we’re going to get into this, but there was also that one where he and Rodney Howard Browne were talking to each other in tongues. That was another good one. Actually, why don’t I play that as well, because that’s a bit of fun, too.

https://youtu.be/y4K24Qw_Odw?t=177

B: Wasn’t that part of the whole Pensacola/Brownsville movement?

T: Yeah yeah, the Toronto Blessing and all that kind of thing, but they’re fun aren’t they.

B: Uh, a lot of fun. Disturbing. I remember that one was bizarre, and by then I had definitely started to question a lot more than I already had, and for me that was a bit of a tipping point. I just went, what.the.actual.fuck.

T: I was way out of the faith movement by the time that came along and that was just looney tunes. I can remember when I was right into it there was a multiple sclerosis charity was selling tickets for a car in a shopping centre, so the car was there, so I went along, laid hands on the car, and claimed it in Jesus’ name. Didn’t buy a ticket. Because see, it’s about faith, right, not about tickets. So I laid hands on this Mercedes, spoke out in Jesus’ name, took authority, claimed it – nah, didn’t win it.

B: I’m surprised. 

T: Yeah well I didn’t realise you had to be in it to win it, I guess.

B: I mean, let’s be honest, it comes down to your lack of faith.

T: Well there’s that, and the fact that the emperor has no clothes. Even to look back now and tell that story is just oh gosh, I feel like a fool, but that’s how real it was. I was really thinking I’m going to get this car.

B: Oh absolutely, the whole blab it and grab it, as we used to call it. I saw many people do that. I claimed things, there was no doubt I claimed things. It was what I did a couple of times, but when it didn’t work, sure I looked at myself, got a bit introspective, but I think all in all I just went I don’t think that’s what it’s all about. It’s a little bit weird, I tell you what – this person is related to me who used to go and lay hands on everything. You’d be in the car with them and they’d be claiming cars that drove past, and they would break out in tongues, and they’d be claiming stuff. You’d be walking past something and they’d be laying hands on it and claiming it. They once rented a house, and I remember them claiming that house for them, that it would be theirs, mortgage free. The person would give it to them. Hot tip, it didn’t happen.

T: Spoiler alert!

B: Stay tuned people, it gets better. But they were a single parent, they weren’t doing that well financially, really wanted to take their kids on a holiday, and to be honest – I need to backtrack the reason why they weren’t doing well financially – they’d sold a house and given every single cent away. This was back in the early 90s, and it was close on $100,000. $100,000 back then could buy you a house outright. They had given it away, along with all the things that they had bought with that payout, because they believed they would get it back, 30- 60- 100-fold. 

T: So they gave it to a faith preacher directly? Or how did that work?

B: Nah, gave it to people, gave it to people they knew that were struggling, they definitely gave a lot to the church they were involved in, and it all went. So they were in a place where they’re thinking God I’d really love to take my kids on a holiday, what will we do? Well, we’ll believe for it. How will we do it? We’ll drive out to the nearest airport with the kids, put the car in long term car park and just sit there and wait in the terminal and pray, until someone comes up and gives you airline tickets and accommodation for you to go on holiday.

T: Spoiler alert – how did that work out?

B: Let’s just say they didn’t have a holiday, except for about 14 hours at the airport, and the poor kids were completely distressed. The parent was obviously caught up in this thing that had told them that if they believed hard enough, they’d been working their faith, exercising it pretty hard, but it didn’t come in. It was not shaking their faith at all, though. This is the disturbing thing – after that they looked at themselves, at the failure, at the fact that they didn’t get what they wanted and what they’d been praying for and believing for, because they had a lack of faith.

T: Yeah, that’s the thing – when you were telling that story and having a giggle, until you said they were a single parent and struggling, then I was like uh ok, now it’s sad, now it’s tragic.

B: Yeah, it really was. This was someone I knew really well, and it was really difficult to watch. The same person, they got remarried and everything was about better believing. Having a better faith, working really hard at it. They used to have scriptures all over their house, they used to have a list of scriptures on the fridge that they would repeat over and over, and they were all about prosperity, they were all about victory, about claiming the blood of Jesus over everything. There was lots of that, and this new partner of this person, I don’t think that was them, but it soon became them because there was a real pressure to conform to that, so they quite often would be dragged to the fridge to read out those scriptures. If they would exhibit any negativity they had to repeat those scriptures – because if you repeat them over and over you’ll get better at it, you’ll have bigger, stronger faith.

T: Yeah it really is the whole emperor has no clothes, right. The whole thing about that story was you can see it’s not working, but you dare not admit it lest it comes back on you because of peer pressure, that there’s something wrong with you, that you are somehow in deficit. That’s what it came down to, wasn’t it, the reason why it’s not working it because YOU don’t have enough faith, not because this is bullshit. Not because the emperor has no clothes. 

B: That’s right. It does, and here’s an environment that’s meant to be supporting, loving, building people up, accepting them in grace and love, and all it does is really tear them down because it tells them they’re not good enough. If they don’t win or get victory or become wealthier then it’s about them, it’s about their failure, not about the fact that that church or body of people hasn’t looked after a single parent, hasn’t helped them out, hasn’t guided them, hasn’t said to them hey, probably should stop giving away all your money and look after yourself in that you’ve got the ability to look after yourself – don’t make yourself on the bones of your ass by giving everything away. And that’s what happened. They ended up on the bones of their ass.

T: Mmm sure. I can remember when I was at bible college and realising that this doesn’t work, I was introduced to a book called Christianity in Crisis by a guy named Hank Hanegraaff. It was written by Conservative Evangelicals, right, and they’ve got their own issues – but nevertheless I was a bible believing Christian, brother, so it confronted me with why this is not biblical or spiritual. Then there was another book which preceded this, but I didn’t read it in this order, which was called A Different Gospel by this guy called D R McConnell. He did his PhD paper, I think he was at somewhere like Oral Roberts University, which is a hyper Pentecostal place. He basically showed how Kenneth Hagan had ripped off large amounts of another author named E W Kenyon, who was a sort of a positivity faith preacher, but he was a Baptist. So he ripped off portions of this and said that the Lord had revealed it to him, or that angels had spoken to him or that Jesus had said this stuff to him, and it was word for word, line for line out of E W Kenyon’s book. 

B: Wow.

T: So a lot of this faith stuff, if you trace it back to E W Kenyon – and he was influenced by Christian Science, positive thinking and all that, so that’s where it came from. When I read that as a bible believing Christian, I went oh. Ok. This is shit. So I was still in Great Big AOG when that happened, and of course true to T form, started telling people. Did you know this is shit, and here’s why? And of course I started to lose friends, I started to be isolated by those pockets in the church, because they don’t want to know. You’re being anti-faith brother. It’s bad enough you go to bible college and lose your faith, let alone reading these books. But yeah, I lost friends.

B: You know why? Because you are forever the evangelist.

T: Well this is true.

B: This is true, and that’s one thing I love about T, when T has a deep conviction about something he wants you to hear why.

T: He starts a podcast.

B: He goes hey B, want to do this podcast? And I’m going yeah what the fuck.

T: You remember when I got right into Buddhism I was telling you, I was saying hey, here’s why we should all meditate.

B: And I mixed it up and I started medicating and wondered why it all went wrong.

T: I think you can do both – you can medicate and meditate.

B: Hmmm true, some people like yoga and meditation, I like yoghurt and medication. Whatever.

T: The thing is it’s again that same sort of, when you start to think for yourself, when you start to voice opposition – within Pentecostalism, not just the faith movement, but the faith movement is a prime example. When you start to voice opposition you start to lose people. You start to lose friends, people ostracise you, people isolate you, people will even say bad stuff about you. It’s crazy.

B: But do you know why I reckon that is? I reckon part of it is very confronting – when you start to provide a rationale of an alternate reality and you’ve got something that says if you don’t believe hard enough it’s all about you, why you don’t get what you want – then you’ve got to get rid of that. You’ve got to get rid of that negativity in your life and you’ll be seen as negative because you’re affecting their opportunity. So they’ve got to cut you and I think that’s the rationale.

T: You’re challenging their world view, aren’t you.

B: Yeah, and ain’t nobody got time for that.

T: I mean, as you and I know, if your world view crumbles it’s painful, and maybe intuitively you know this is actually threatening the very foundations of my world view, better back off brother.

B: Both of us haven’t really been involved in the space for quite a while but I wonder if this hyper faith movement is still something that’s quite present.

T: Oh very much so.

B: Is it?

T: Oh very much. I see stuff on social media from time to time so you’ve still got Kenneth Copeland running around, we heard him with the COVID thing a moment ago, you’ve got Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen, and the one that I love – the best name for a faith preacher – is Creflo Dollar. 

B: That was the one I was just going to bring up. Isn’t he something like Creflo G Dollar?

T: Brilliant name. He should be a doctor as well – Dr Dollar. 

B: Pretty sure he is.

T: Yeah that’s right, he got his PhD from Kenneth Hagan’s college. At the bottom of the lucky charms box.

B: Look, it is a frightening space, and these people are so influential. There’s a lot of people that really hang their hats on that, so it’s a scary space, and for listeners that are out there, reach out, start talking amongst yourselves in the Facebook group, if this is something you’ve got a little bit of baggage from, if you’ve got things you need to bring up and talk, put them in there. Get some support from each other. 

T: I agree. It’d be a good conversation to prompt. But at the end of the day, you’re not alone, you know that anyway. We think it’s shit, we worked out it was shit.

B: Like many things I sort of sat back and said this doesn’t feel right. I’m a very – I rely on my gut a lot, and intuition is something I’ve relied on all my life. I didn’t get anchored in this. It wasn’t something that really hooked me in. I gave it a crack, I reckon it was maybe six to twelve months of my journey that I thought I’ll try this, and I remember coming out the other side of it going that was just ridiculous. I had quite an objective view on it coming out the other side, but I think what helped me was seeing some people in my life being so incredibly involved in it, putting everything into it, like that person I spoke about before, and getting nowhere. I thought this is just destructive. It wasn’t part of what really attracted me to the space in the first place – the love, grace, the acceptance and community – it just didn’t marry up.

T: Yeah well like I said for me it was those books. I can be very cerebral, and I had those books introduced to me and I read them. The reason I think I was primed for accepting the books was the fact that I knew it wasn’t working. And most of the people that were right into it were just odd. There was a denial of reality – it wasn’t about the faith stuff so much, it was just a denial of reality. I think it’s important to note that where we’re coming from now – it’s not about being anti-belief. If people want to believe stuff – if they want to believe John, Paul, George and Ringo were in the Rolling Stones, I don’t care. Believe what you want. But when it’s destructive to people, when it’s destructive to their mental health, to their wellbeing, when it’s putting people in financial dire straits, then the preachers own 747 planes, Kenneth Copeland has an airport named after him where he lands his own 747s, as you said John Avanzini took all those offerings, then it’s shit and we need to call it out. The emperor has no fucking clothes, and this is bad for people.

B: Yeah I completely agree. It’s frightening that it still exists. It’s frightening that people haven’t cut it down and culled it, but I guess people just want to keep on believing. They want something to be real, don’t they.

T: Well that’s exactly right. Well look mate, on that positive note we have come to the end of our time. I think we should wrap it there. Next week we’re going to look at evangelism. We’re going to talk about winning souls and bringing people to the Lord, brother. It’s going to be an interesting one.

B: And I think like many things here, we’ve got different journeys but also a convergence of some of those bits and pieces as well, which I think will resonate with people, so really looking forward to having a chat about that. So until then, we’ll see you next week.

T: See you next week people. Buh bye.

B: See ya.