On August 3, 2009, Texan televangelist Kenneth Copeland gave an impassioned sermon to a crowd of more than 9,000 at the Southwest Believers Convention in Fort Worth amid one of the worst economic downturns in American history.
“God needs you saved,” said Copeland, the wealthiest pastor in America. “He needs you filled with the Holy Ghost. He needs you well. And he needs you strong. And he needs you rich.”
These words may strike those unfamiliar with Copeland’s preaching as an odd thing to say to an audience overburdened with debt. But they’re emblematic of the heady world of the Word of Faith, a nondenominational Christian movement pioneered by another Texan, Kenneth Hagin. Word of Faith goes by many names—Word-Faith, the Faith movement, Positive Confession—and is most well known for promoting the prosperity gospel, the notion that true believers can use their words to bring about supernatural blessings and material well-being.
