Prosperity Gospel

The prosperity gospel holds that God intends abundance rather than poverty or sickness for the faithful, and that a believer secures that abundance through three linked practices: positive confession, speaking one's desired outcome aloud in faith so that it is activated; seed faith giving, treating a financial gift, often to a ministry, as a seed that God is obligated to multiply back to the giver; and a reading of Christ's atonement as extending beyond spiritual salvation to guarantee physical healing and material prosperity in this life.

Proponents ground the teaching in a specific cluster of biblical texts, read together rather than individually: 3 John 1:2, a greeting wishing a traveling companion good health and prosperity; Malachi 3:10, on tithing and the opened windows of heaven; Mark 10:29 to 30, on receiving a hundredfold return for what is given up for Christ; and 2 Corinthians 8:9, on Christ becoming poor so that believers might become rich. Historian Kate Bowler, whose academic history of the movement remains the standard scholarly reference, traces this cluster of teachings to a fusion of nineteenth century American metaphysical religion and early twentieth century Pentecostal healing revivalism, carried forward by E. W. Kenyon and later systematized by Kenneth Hagin's Word of Faith movement.

The doctrine is not a formal teaching of any historic Christian denomination; it circulates instead through independent Pentecostal, charismatic and neo-charismatic ministries, and through softer, non-Word of Faith versions preached in some mainstream megachurches.

Mainstream evangelical scholarship has mounted a sustained exegetical case against the prosperity gospel's central proof texts, argued at length by bodies including the Lausanne Movement and in the pages of Themelios, the theological journal of the Gospel Coalition. Each text, critics argue, is misapplied outside its original context. 3 John 1:2 is a conventional Greek letter opening wishing a traveling companion good health, a form of address common in first century letters, not a doctrinal statement about wealth. Malachi 3:10 addresses the priesthood of ancient Israel under the Mosaic covenant's temple tithe system, not an individual New Testament pledge, and its promised blessing is corporate rather than a guarantee to any one giver. Mark 10:29 to 30's hundredfold return is read by critics as describing the shared life of the early Christian community, since the same passage has Jesus calling his followers to leave everything behind, a demand the prosperity reading does not apply to itself. 2 Corinthians 8:9 is read in context as Paul's appeal for the Corinthian church to give generously to poorer churches, not a promise about the giver's own income.

The doctrine has also drawn regulatory scrutiny distinct from its theology. Between November 2007 and January 2011, the United States Senate Finance Committee, under Senator Charles Grassley, examined the tax exempt finances of six prosperity preaching ministries. Two of the six, Joyce Meyer Ministries and Benny Hinn's World Healing Center Church, fully cooperated and made financial reforms; the other four provided incomplete or no response. The inquiry closed in 2011 without finding that any of the six had violated federal tax law, though the findings were unfavorable to several of the ministries.