Word of Faith
Evangelical Christian movement which teaches that Christians can access the power of faith or fear through speech
Word of Faith is a movement within charismatic Christianity which teaches that Christians can achieve power and financial prosperity through prayer, and that those who believe in Jesus's death and resurrection have the right to physical health.
The movement was founded by the American Kenneth Hagin in the 1960s, and has its roots in the teachings of E. W. Kenyon.
History
The Baptist minister E. W. Kenyon (1867–1948) is generally cited as the originator of Word of Faith teachings. Kenyon's writings influenced Kenneth Hagin Sr., who scholars have emphasized played the central role in shaping and expanding the modern Word of Faith movement. According to Simon Coleman, Hagin's teachings were closely tied to his personal experiences of healing and his interpretation of biblical passages surrounding faith and speech. After World War II, Hagin became involved in healing revival ministries before gradually moving away from the stricter style of traditional Pentecostalism to charismatic Christianity. This drift allowed him to reach out to a much broader audience, and ultimately led to Hagin leaving the Assemblies of God, as his more flexible approach to faith practice conflicted with the denomination's established norms. His Faith Seminar of the Air, a radio show that aired throughout the U.S and Canada, helped him gain national recognition after moving his ministry, known as the Kenneth E Hagin Evangelistic Association, or Rhema, to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1966. Hagin also used mass media platforms, such as the Word of Faith magazine, to reach thousands of households every month. Approximately 16,000 alumni from almost thirty countries, the majority from North America, had graduated from Rhema by the mid-1990s, and Rhema trained thousands of ministers who in turn taught and spread the Word of Faith.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Word of Faith” is evangelical Christian movement which teaches that Christians can access the power of faith or fear through speech. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Word, Faith and Evangelical, not as a finished interpretation.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q941184. The Library of Congress control number is sh91004086. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1867, 1948 and 1966.
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This entry incorporates text from “Word of Faith” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.