#9. The Prosperity Gospel: The Gospel That Killed My Father

Top Ten Powerful Ideas That Have Redefined the Gospel (and Not for the Better)

Me and my Dad a year before his death

The prosperity gospel killed my father.

Let me explain.

My dad grew up on the wide, flat plains of east-central Illinois. Rambunctious, mischievous, and clever, he was the life of every party—a walking illustration of the saying, “idle hands are the devil’s playground.” His wit was sharp, and his curiosity endless—except when it came to school. That, he had little use for. When he hit his sophomore year, he was kicked out and sent by his father to work on the family farm.

Like many farm kids of his generation, he grew up fast. He was married at 19, a father to a son at 20, a daughter at 23, and finally, me—his last son—at 31.

Dad loved working with his hands. By his mid-20s, he had carved out a niche as a diesel mechanic, specializing in tractors. He became particularly skilled at equipping tractors for competitive tractor pulls. Innovative and deeply committed to his craft, he built such a reputation that pulling enthusiasts would call him in to troubleshoot and repair their rigs when everything was on the line.

A year before I was born, my father came to faith in Jesus. But not long after, he got tangled up with a version of Christianity that would ultimately cost him his life: the prosperity gospel.

My father’s transformation was radical. After coming to faith, his life turned 180 degrees. He devoured the Scriptures, eager to understand every word. He shared his faith with anyone who would listen—neighbors, coworkers, strangers at the gas station. He was an evangelist at heart, driven by a deep, burning love for Jesus.

He went to gospel meetings, attended every church service he could, and carried with him business cards that read:

George Fleming
Your partner in prayer.
Call anytime.

And he meant it.
If you called, he answered.
If you needed prayer, he didn’t wait—he prayed with you, right then and there.

About five years into his walk with Christ, he started having trouble breathing. At first, it was just shortness of breath and coughing. He considered going to a doctor. But some of his friends—deeply immersed in the prosperity gospel—urged him not to.

“Going to the doctor shows a lack of faith,” they told him.
“God heals according to your faith,” they said, quoting Matthew 9:29.
“If you truly believe, healing will come.”

So, he waited.

Meanwhile, his condition worsened.

He lost weight.

Then they told him the real reason God wasn’t answering: he still had health insurance. “If you really believed,” they said, “you wouldn’t need a safety net.”

So he canceled his insurance.
And his condition got even worse.

What began as occasional shortness of breath soon became chest tightness, constant fatigue, and terrible pain.

Still, he held on to their words and to the hope that if he just had enough faith, God would heal him.

He prayed harder.

He fasted.

He rebuked the sickness in Jesus’ name.

He declared healing Scriptures over himself—again and again—believing his words would carry power if only his faith was pure, strong, unwavering.

He went to every gospel meeting he could. Walked forward at every altar call. Asked for prayer every time.

This time, he thought. This time, God will answer.

But the healing never came.

When he finally saw a doctor, the diagnosis was devastating: lung cancer.

And worse—it had spread to his brain. He had waited too long.

His condition deteriorated rapidly.

He sought treatment.

He lost all his hair.

Lost more weight.

Violent seizures overtook his body, causing every muscle to seize and lock. His eyes rolled back into his head, and froth began to spill from his mouth—a terrifying and helpless sight for a young boy to see. Images that I will never forget.

Finally, he was hospitalized. Not too long after, he drifted into a coma, never to recover.

He died at 35.

I was 4.

What breaks my heart isn’t just that he died so young.
It’s that he died believing it was his fault.

That he didn’t believe hard enough.

That God was silent because God was disappointed.

That if he’d just prayed more, believed deeper, tried harder, he would’ve been healed.

That lie didn’t just steal his health. It stole his peace.

And he wasn’t alone.

Claimed by Faith

Years later, I watched that same theology grab hold of someone in my congregation.

He was deeply depressed—struggling, searching for hope—when he stumbled across Joel Osteen on television. The message was simple and seductive: "Claim the coming year by faith. Speak it into existence."

So he did.

He declared blessing. He claimed breakthrough. He believed, with everything he had.

Same promises. Same pressure.

But the year didn’t unfold the way he had “claimed” it would.

When the circumstances didn’t change—when the depression didn’t lift, when the job didn’t come, when the breakthrough never broke through—he didn’t just feel disappointed.

He felt abandoned.

He believed God had rejected him. That his faith had failed. That he had failed.

And in his despair, he took his own life.

The prosperity gospel didn’t just distort his view of God. It twisted his understanding of suffering, of struggle, of what it means to walk through the valley with a Savior who doesn’t always fix things, but never leaves.

It didn’t just cost him hope.

It cost him his life.

Over the years, I’ve had well-meaning Christians approach me, often with concerned expressions and gentle tones, telling me that I’m misunderstanding things and that the prosperity teachers I speak about aren’t as bad as they’ve been portrayed in the media.

But let me be clear: this has nothing to do with the media.

It’s heresy.

It’s evil.

It’s demonic.

It comes straight from the pit of hell.

Before my father slipped into a coma, he quoted John 10:10, and that verse gives me hope. Maybe, just maybe, he saw through the bankrupt promises of the prosperity gospel in his final moments:

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10)

Most prosperity gospel advocates focus on the second half of the verse—“I came that they may have life and have it more abundantly.” It’s a beautiful and powerful promise. But they often overlook the first part: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.”

That opening line is key. It frames the entire verse. Jesus isn’t promising material wealth or earthly comfort—he’s contrasting his mission with the destructive pursuit of the thief. The abundance he offers isn’t measured in dollars or possessions, but in a richness of life rooted in a relationship with him. It stands in stark contrast to the spiritual ruin caused by false shepherds and hollow promises.

I’d like to believe my dad finally understood the verse before he passed. But I can’t know. I won’t know—at least, not this side of eternity.

Family members and his friends have tried to reassure me. I appreciate their compassion, but compassion and zeal do not outweigh truth. God is compassionate and merciful, but zeal and sincerity no more guarantee heaven than confidently boarding the wrong flight gets you to the right destination.

Would he still be alive if he had gone to the doctor sooner? Possibly. Just like with John 10:10, I don’t know. Even if he had caught it early, he still may have died. Some answers just aren’t given to us here.

Believing the Bible is Great, But What Do You Believe About the Bible?

Years ago, I sat in a meeting at our church with a group of Karen¹ Christians from Myanmar who were looking to use our facility for services. They were refugees—humble, faithful, mostly older men and women who didn’t speak much English. They proudly traced their spiritual lineage back to Adoniram Judson, the missionary who brought the gospel to their people.

There were about a dozen of them in the room, along with the youngest member, a 22-year-old woman, soft-spoken, thoughtful, acted as their translator. She had the strongest command of English and was respected by the group.

To partner effectively, we needed to understand their theology before allowing them to hold services in our church. So, I asked a simple question: “What do you believe?”

She translated my question, listened carefully to the elders’ responses, then turned to me and said, simply: “We believe the Bible.”

It was a simple answer. She was confident that she answered it well. Her response made something clear: we were coming from entirely different cultural worlds.

In Myanmar, where Buddhism shaped the spiritual imagination, just believing in the Bible sets you radically apart. It’s enough. But in the Western world, that answer doesn’t go far enough. Because here, almost everyone claims to “believe the Bible.”

Cults believe in the Bible.

Heretics cite the Bible.

False teachers build empires off the Bible.

What matters is what they believe the Bible teaches and what they do with it.

And that’s where the danger lies.

Too many Christians assume that as long as someone quotes a verse, or references Jesus, or sprinkles in some Scripture, it must be okay. But they’ve forgotten something crucial:

• The devil masquerades as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14).

• Even demons have sound theology—they know God exists and shudder (James 2:19).

The enemy knows the Word of God better than we do. And he knows exactly how to twist it.

Just look at the wilderness: Satan quoted the Word to the Author of the Word (Matthew 4:6)—but he used it out of context, for manipulation, not truth.

That’s the strategy.
That’s the deception.
That’s the danger.

That’s what makes the prosperity gospel so destructive—it looks like the gospel, but it is anything but.

It is evil.

Defining It

But what exactly is the prosperity gospel? It’s not as if there is one definition out there that prosperity gospel advocates rally behind.

Allow me to put it plainly:

The prosperity gospel is a distortion of the gospel that equates faith with financial blessing, health, and success.

It sounds simple, but in practice, it’s much harder to spot—because it co-opts biblical language, twists its meaning, and preys on our deep desires for significance, belonging, and status.

It is so intoxicating because it promises power, agency, and control—if we can only capture the right wording, then God promises to be our genie in the bottle who must do, and wants to do, our bidding.

Origin

Where did the prosperity gospel, also known as the ‘positive confession,’ ‘name-it and claim-it,’ and ‘word of faith’ movement, start? It didn’t magically fall from the sky. On the contrary, it was built over time, brick by theological brick, as scholar Allan H. Anderson chronicles,

“The ‘positive confession’ or ‘word of faith’ movement surfaced in United States independent Pentecostal ministries in the second half of the twentieth century and was an indirect development from Pentecostal ‘realized eschatology.’ Baptist pastor E.W. Kenyon taught ‘the positive confession of the Word of God,’ a ‘law of faith’ working by predetermined divine principles, that healing is a completed work of Christ for everybody to be received by faith no matter what the evidence, and that medicine is inconsistent with faith. The development of the movement was stimulated by the teachings of healing evangelists like William Branham and Oral Roberts, contemporary popular televangelists, and the charismatic movement. It is not a prominent teaching of Pentecostal and charismatic churches all over the world. Kenneth Hagin, widely regarded as the ‘father of the faith movement,’ popularized Kenyon’s teaching and said that every Christian believer should be physically healthy and materially prosperous and successful, a teaching support by selected Bible quotations. Hagin said that it was not enough to believe what the Bible said; the Bible must also be confessed, and what a person says (confesses) is what will happen. A person should therefore confess healing even when the ‘symptoms’ are still there. This type of faith teaching, however, although in a less developed form, has been part of Pentecostalism at least since the time of the healing evangelists of the 1950s.

More recently, Kenneth Copeland developed Hagin’s teaching with a greater emphasis on financial prosperity and formulated ‘laws of prosperity’ to be observed by those seeking health and wealth. Poverty is seen as a curse to be overcome through faith. Through ‘faith-force,’ believers regain their rightful divine authority over their circumstances. A part from the fact that this teaching encourages the ‘American dream’ of capitalism and promotes the success ethic, among its even more questionable features is the possibility that human faith is placed above the sovereignty and grace of God. Faith becomes a condition for God’s action, and the strength of faith is measured by results. Material and financial prosperity and health are sometimes seen as evidence of spirituality, and the positive and necessary role of persecution and suffering is often ignored. The Holy Spirit is relegated to a quasi-magical power by which success and prosperity are achieved and the effectiveness of the message is determined by the physical results.”²

My father encountered this heresy in the mid-1970s—he didn’t learn these ideas in a seminary or a theology class. He met them in church basements, through books and cassette tapes sold on the back tables of revival tents, at full-gospel businessmen meetings, and testimonies from well-meaning friends who were just as eager for hope as he was. It looked like faith. It sounded like hope. But it was built on illusion, pressure, fear, and bad theology.

When my dad got sick, the pressure mounted:

“Don’t go to a doctor.”

“Don’t speak doubt.”

“God heals according to your faith.”

So he doubled down on faith.

He confessed.

He prayed.

He fasted.

He believed.

Until it was too late.

He died thinking he hadn’t believed enough.

The prosperity gospel didn’t just steal his health—it stole his peace. It turned his suffering into shame, faith into a performance, and God into a vending machine.

My father was not alone.

There are countless others.

The Lie Continues Destroying

This theology is not just incorrect—it’s cruel. It promises hope and freedom but leads to misery and disillusionment. It promises prosperity, but the only prosperity it delivers is to those who teach it.

It’s not neutral.

It’s not harmless.

And it’s not from God.

The Errors

You would think that with my father being so deceived by the prosperity gospel that I would follow suit or be turned off from faith entirely. But his faith left an undeniable impression on me. I believe in Christ. But if my father’s faith taught me anything, it’s that…

Doctrine matters.

There are false gospels.

And if we get it wrong, it can be deadly.

I understand what Paul meant in Galatians 1:8,

“But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.”

I believe in Jesus. I believe in God’s promises. I believe in the miraculous. I believe that God can and does heal. I believe we are called to honor God with our wealth, trusting that he will honor and bless us in his perfect way and timing, not according to the distortions of the prosperity gospel. I also believe in sound exegesis—something my father knew nothing about.

I have far surpassed my father in age, life experience, and education. I have dedicated my life to the gospel—to help others come to know Christ and to be saved from satanic substitutes.

That’s why it is imperative that we understand exactly what the prosperity gospel does to distort the true biblical gospel. Here are five errors.

1. Misuses Scripture: Prosperity gospel advocates often take verses out of context by isolating phrases like “blessing,” “abundance,” “victory,” “prospering,” and reinterpreting them through the lens of material wealth and personal success. They misapply promises made to Israel under the Old Covenant and turn personal greetings into universal guarantees. Broader biblical themes—like sacrifice, suffering, and taking up one’s cross—are ignored. By selectively focusing on feel-good verses, they twist the message to say what the Holy Spirit never intended: that faithfulness leads to financial gain, physical health, or worldly status. They miss the deeper biblical vision of abundance, one rooted in intimacy with God, perseverance through trials, and eternal hope, not temporary material outcomes.

2. Minimizes the Cross: In prosperity teaching, Christ’s death is often reduced to a means of obtaining earthly blessings, rather than the central act of atonement that brings forgiveness, new life, and reconciliation with God. Suffering and self-denial—realities that Jesus calls his followers to embrace (e.g., Galatians 2:20)—are treated as signs of spiritual failure rather than as pathways to transformation and deeper dependence on Christ.

3. Promotes a Transactional View of God: Rather than worshiping God as the holy, sovereign Creator who calls us to humble obedience, prosperity theology treats him as a tool for personal gain. Faith becomes transactional—like a currency used to secure health, wealth, and success—rather than a relational trust grounded in God’s character and purposes.

4. Idolizes Comfort, Wealth, and Control: The prosperity gospel sanctifies the American dream, turning comfort, success, and personal control into ultimate ends. It interprets suffering, loss, or weakness not as part of God’s refining work, but as evidence of a lack of faith or blessing.

5. Rejects the theology of the already/not yet: Biblically, God’s kingdom is both already present in Christ and not yet fully realized until his return. Prosperity theology distorts this tension by exaggerating the “already” and dismissing the “not yet.” As a result, the kingdom becomes a means for acquiring what we desire now, rather than a hope that sustains us as we wait for the fullness of God’s redemptive plan.

Global Harm & Exploitation

It’s been said that “A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth has its boots on.” It is especially true about the prosperity gospel. While originating in the United States, the prosperity gospel has exploded around the world, especially in Africa, Latin America, and parts of Asia,³ exploiting the poorest and vulnerable, preying upon their anxieties and desperate circumstances, making them even poorer. Emily J. Choge Kerama describes the situation in Africa,

“The prosperity gospel. What is being preached in our churches? The health, wealth, and prosperity gospel continues to be taught. The leaders of the church demand that parishioners ‘plant a seed’ and say they will reap abundantly from God. What we see is the contrast of the wealth of the leaders of such churches and the poverty of the members, who give everything they own to support these leaders. The leaders are very wealthy, and they display all the trappings of such wealth: the latest model cars, expensive homes, and all sorts of luxury items. Most recently a renowned evangelist in Kenya came to my town. Traffic came to a standstill because of adherents who came from far and wide to give allegiance to this ‘Mighty Prophet of God.’ The cars that were part of the entourage were the latest and most expensive models, and the display of wealth of this evangelist was absolutely immoral.”⁴

I remember speaking at a conference in India to some of the poorest Christian leaders I’ve ever met. Afterward, I stepped outside the venue and saw vendors selling books by well-known prosperity preachers—Joel Osteen, Benny Hinn, and Joseph Prince. It broke my heart. These faithful leaders, many of whom survive on just a few dollars a day, were spending what little they had on teachings that promised blessing but delivered bondage, lining the pockets of spiritual charlatans who offered no real help, only exploitation.

Kenneth Copeland

These teachers are everywhere. Their books fill the shelves of Walmart and Target. Their shows run daily on Christian television networks. Their messages—slick, appealing, and dangerously distorted—ensnare the minds of our friends and families while promising freedom, favor, and financial breakthrough. They speak in populist vernacular—“telling it like it is.” Their names come up on the best-selling book list every year—T.D. Jakes, Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin, Joyce Meyer, Creflo Dollar, Bill Winston, Juanita Bynum, Paula White-Cain, Mark Chirona, Marilyn Hickey, Rod Parsley, Jesse Duplantis, Andrew Wommack, Todd White, Bill Johnson, Peter Popoff, David Oyedepo, Steve Munsey, Leroy Thompson, Fred Price—the list goes on.

Their influence is massive. And their message? It’s not the gospel. It’s a cheap counterfeit dressed in Christian language.

The true biblical gospel is much better news than any gospel that prosperity teachers promote.

The gospel is the good news of God’s redemptive work through Jesus Christ, which encompasses the reconciliation of individuals to God, the renewal of all creation, and the establishment of God's Kingdom on earth.

The gospel is both personal and cosmic in scope, transforming individuals into new creations while calling the church to actively participate in God's mission of cultural and societal restoration.

The gospel is not only about salvation from sin but also about bringing God’s justice, peace, and wholeness to every area of life. It calls for holistic transformation—spiritual, relational, cultural, and even environmental—through the power of the gospel. Followers of Christ are commissioned to live out the Kingdom of God now, embodying its values in their communities and advancing God's redemptive purposes in the world. Ultimately, the gospel emphasizes the intersection of the church’s mission and God's broader plan for the renewal of the world.

Jesus, then, is not a means to an end—He is the gospel—God is the gospel. And this gospel invites us into a cruciform life—one shaped by grace, suffering, and hope, and far greater than the prosperity gospel could ever give.

Discernment and Hope

While John the Baptist was in prison, he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” (Matthew 11:3). This is a surprising question, especially when we consider that John had already identified Jesus as the “Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). So, what could have prompted John to ask if Jesus was truly the one?

John the Baptist was not so different from us. He was in prison for speaking out against a corrupt ruler’s illegitimate marriage (Matthew 14:3). As he sat in that prison, John may have been grappling with the tension of knowing Jesus was the Messiah, yet still facing suffering and injustice. If Jesus was indeed the true ruler of the world, why was John still in prison?

When John’s disciples questioned Jesus, Jesus responded by pointing to the miracles they had witnessed and heard about (Matthew 11:4-5). John’s faith was seeking to understand the unfolding of God's plan, and in this, I can find a common bond.

I, too, believe and want to understand. I do not pretend to understand all that my father believed and why. I don’t know if he had gone to the doctor sooner and would have been healed. I don’t know. I can’t know. I can only live in the reality of what has happened—and it’s this: his brief life and death profoundly shaped mine. He was not a theologian, not even a high school graduate. He didn’t know the nuances of exegesis or have the benefit of a good theological education. But I do believe that he truly knew Jesus, and in that, I find comfort.

The prosperity gospel is not just mistaken—it’s dangerous. It offers the illusion of life and blessing, but too often, it leads to disappointment, disillusionment, despair, and even death. This isn’t simply a difference in theological preference; it’s a distortion of the true gospel and demonic.

As followers of Jesus, we can’t afford to treat it casually or allow it to take root in our hearts or churches—we must do everything in our power to turn away from it, and to the true, biblical gospel.

The real gospel doesn’t promise a painless life, but it does promise something far greater: a risen Savior who walks with us through every valley, every doubt, and every sorrow. He doesn’t offer escape from pain, but his presence in it.

He carries us when we are weak,

weeps with us in our grief,

and never leaves us alone in the dark.

And when this life is over, he leads us—not into oblivion or vague comfort—but into a joy so radiant, so complete, it surpasses anything we could ask or imagine (1 Corinthians 2:9)

That is the hope of the gospel: not ease, but Emmanuel—God with us, now and forever.

Join me next time as I explore the final idea that has redefined the gospel—Christian Nationalism.

1. Karen is the name of an actual ethnic group primarily from Myanmar and Thailand. Unfortunately, the term has become a pejorative in popular culture, and we should be mindful not to let that usage erase the dignity and identity of a real people.

2. Allan H. Anderson, “Pentecostalism,” Global Dictionary of Theology, edited by William Dyrness and Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, 645.

3. Milton Acosta, “From What Do We Need to Be Saved,” in Majority World Theology, ed. Gene L. Green, Stephen T. Pardue, and K.K. Yeo (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2020), 416.

4. Emily J. Choge Kerama, Telling Our Stories, Salvation in the African Context, in Majority World Theology, 383–84.