Historian Paul King introduces us to the origins of the controversial Word of Faith movement.

Paul King speaking at the 2014 Society for Pentecostal Studies convention.

A spate of articles and books have appeared over the past two decades debating the controversial teachings of the “Word of Faith” movement. Several blistering critiques such as those of D.R. McConnell (A Different Gospel) and Hank Hanegraaff (Christianity in Crisis) have claimed the movement as heretical or cultic, originating in New Thought metaphysics.¹ Others such as William DeArteaga, Joe McIntyre, Derek Vreeland have mounted defenses or reconstructions of modern faith theology, while still others such as Geir Lie, Dale Simmons, and Robert Bowman have presented more moderate critiques and scholarly studies.²

E. W. Kenyon (1867-1948) is generally recognized as the chief originator of the modern faith movement.³ The core of the controversy is found in the purported origins of Kenyon’s teachings. McConnell’s pivotal and influential book entitled A Different Gospel made a case for extensive influence from New Thought metaphysics upon the thinking of Kenyon, detailing noticeable parallels between Kenyon’s writings and New Thought writers. He thus concluded that Kenyon’s thought, and therefore modern faith teaching, is derived from non-Christian cultic sources and thus suspect. Hanegraaff built on McConnell’s research and conclusions to avow further that the modern faith teaching is heretical and cultic. Both books have made a significant impact on the evangelical Christian community in labeling the word of faith movement as heterodox and even sacrilegious.

Church historian Eddie Hyatt comments, “These critics … display a lack of knowledge concerning the historical development of the twentieth century Pentecostal movement from its nineteenth century antecedents and its influence of the modern movement. It is in the religious mileau [sic] out of the Holiness and Healing movements of the nineteenth century that the modern “Faith Movement” finds its primary emphasis.”⁴ Similarly, Simmons’ doctoral dissertation concludes:

As for Kenyon himself, it would appear that he is best placed within the Keswickean/Higher Christian Life tradition. … This is not to say that there are not aspects of Kenyon’s teaching—specifically those centering on one’s confession—that he stresses to a point that is only comparable to that of New Thought. … It would be going too far to conclude that New Thought was the major contributing factor in the initial development of Kenyon’s thought.⁵

Taking a more scientific approach than McConnell and Hanegraaff, Bowman compared 23 standard New Thought concepts with Christian Science and Kenyon. From this statistical analysis, he concluded that while there is much in common between Christian Science and New Thought, there is “little resemblance” between Kenyon and New Thought. Further, he concluded that Kenyon is “far closer to orthodoxy than is Christian Science.” Kenyon may share some similarity with metaphysical thought, but his views are “fundamentally different.”⁶ He demonstrates that McConnell’s methodology is faulty, and thus his conclusions regarding Kenyon’s connections with metaphysical New Thought are deeply flawed. While there may have been some metaphysical influence, Kenyon’s views are more unlike such concepts than like.

Tony Lane, A Concise History of Christian Thought, Revised Edition (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 336 pages, ISBN 9780801031595.

At least one book on the history of Christian thought belongs in every Christian library. If you have more, this concise history should be the one closest to the desk. Tony Lane, Professor of Historical Theology and Director of Research at London School of Theology, has produced a comprehensive introductory text that also functions well as a reference book. The text is reliable, well-written, and highly organized, although the book lacks an index for quick access to various aspects of Christian history. The reader is rewarded with introductions to more than one hundred major Christian thinkers, church councils, creeds, church confessions, and ecumenical documents. Those looking for a comprehensive text will find in this affordable book a valuable and informative addition to their library.

Lane’s history is divided into five parts: (1) The Church of the Fathers to AD 500, (2) The Eastern Tradition from AD 500, (3) The Medieval West (AD500-1500), (4) Reformation and Reaction (1500-1800), and (5) Christian Thought in the Modern World (1800 onwards). Each part begins with an introductory section, followed by the contribution of major thinkers of the period, and framed by various church councils. The persons are arranged historically rather than by the significance that may be attributed to their contribution (a principle frequently found in other histories of Christian thought). Thus, one finds Augustine near the end of the first part, his significance indicated not by an artificial positioning at the beginning of Church history but rather by the number of pages dedicated to his account. Only when this pattern is disrupted, for example at the location of the Catholic counter-reformation at the end of the Reformation section rather than in the middle, the account suffers in its ecumenical strength.

The strategic placement of church councils and confessional documents throughout the text should be of special interest to Pentecostals, who have often rejected creeds as distortions of the God-intended course of history. Lane highlights the development of each council, its important features and documents, as well as the problems and controversies that led to divisions in the East and the West. The result is a balanced look at the emergence of Christian doctrine from the Church as an enduring community of faith faced with the death of the original eyewitnesses, an unprecedented increase in members, numerous heterodox and even heretical interpretations of the gospel, as well as the expansion of the Christian community toward the ends of the earth.

The final section of the book on the modern period is also the longest section. Lane introduces the reader to the adherents of modern Liberalism, Evangelicalism, the New Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, the Ecumenical Movement, and other developments. The collection is concise, as the title of the book claims, and certainly one of the most relevant to many readers. What Lane misses, however, is a more deliberate account of the movement of Christian thought since the middle of the twentieth century away from the West toward the East and the Southern hemisphere. Minority theologies still occupy a marginal place in this otherwise excellent work. The informed reader should supplement this text with more globally informed and marginally sensitive works written in recent years especially by Pentecostal scholars.

Reviewed by Wolfgang Vondey