Dad Ain't So Bad

For the past two years, I have heard one reoccurring theme regarding the "Father" of the Word of Faith movement, Bro. H. It is, "Dad H. never would have let anything happen in his family, ministry, or school that wasn't right." Or, "If Bro. H. were here, none of this[scandals in the Word of Faith] would have happened."

I cannot assert that I have personal knowledge of all the affairs of any one's life or ministry. But I will not apologize for observing the fruit from one's personal and/or public life. As for "Dad H.", he has affected my life. There were two churches affiliated with his school, both within 35 minutes of my home. Both had money and sex scandals.

I can look at his children and grandchildren and get some idea of what his family values really are. I can evaluate the ministries that have emerged from Bro. H.'s school. It is my hope that all those who call him "Dad" would also take an honest, unreserved look at what has followed this man.

A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. -Jesus(Matthew 7:18-20)

-Martha

Spiritual Fathers

A doctrine that we heard regularly in our controlling Word of Faith church was regarding "Spiritual Fathers." This is based on Second Corinthians 4:15. What appears to be an admonishment to follow sound doctrine from the Apostle Paul is a pyramid scheme in the Word of Faith that encourages preacher worship.

For laypeople, the pastor is their spiritual father. This means that you, the laypeople, need to be at every church service to hear from the one God placed in spiritual authority in your life. Is it just me or does this sound like a way to develop the people's dependency on the leader? Don't we have the Bible? Doesn't God communicate with the rest us too? With this in mind, I often heard ministers complain about people who missed a service or were "Sunday morning only" attendees. You need to be there as often as possible and tithe (if you didn't tithe, you were in terrible danger). You could miss church a lot of you were gone earning large tithes, by the way.

If you were a full-time minister, you were encouraged to mimic your spiritual father. I heard story after story from the pulpit about how a preacher stuck with their spiritual father despite being rejected, ignored and pushed aside. Then at last, as the story went along, they were finally recognized as a loyal and awesome Timothy-like figure to their leader. Incidentally, this was a large component of what kept us in our church: spiritual people hang in there and don't give up under pressure or misunderstandings. It later dawned on me that we were being told (in not so many words) was that we could expect the same treatment as the protagonists in those stories.

It was said that spiritual fathers retrieve "lost ax heads" (like Elisha), recover lost anointings and help you get your edge back. That sounds very lofty but what was in reality what took place were preachers carnally competing with each other to achieve some sort of status in their cliques. When someone advocates that a fellow Christian is your "supply of the Spirit," it provokes a lot of serious questions? Why put so much weight on the role of a minister? What is the motive for doing so? All this teaching is good for is to build up the public profile of the "Spiritual Father." It makes possible the collection of tithes from entire churches whose pastors are following the "Father" figure. There was NEVER any explanation of what you did if your spiritual father became corrupt in some way. If your spiritual father is insulted at the very suggestion of financial transparency and practices nepotism, are you just supposed to shrug your shoulders? What if he gets into immorality? Go find yourself another “dad” who expects your worship and veneration? Sure, give them free reign to what they want because they will never do anything wrong.

If you are in a church where you hear this or similar teachings, realize that you don’t have to sit there and accept unscriptural doctrines. Take responsibility for your Christian life rather than have it dictated to you. You will be glad you did!

Lesser-known sayings of Jesus

It used to gripe me that the Word of Faith was referred to as a "different gospel" in the book of the same name. However if you deviate a little bit from Jesus' words, the result becomes a very weird Jesus. To legitimize some of the things we did in the WOF, Jesus would have to say some strange things.

For example: "To be my follower, you need to get a lot of cash. That way people will know you have faith."

"Verily I say unto you, the servant is not greater than his lord. So lord over people as much as possible if you are in the 5-fold ministry."

"Call no man father, unless he's the preacher you copy for ministry purposes. In that case, call him Dad and send him a father's day card with a check in it. He's the only way you can get to me or know my will for your life."

"Have faith in God and your man of God. For verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall write on an index card things that he wants and says it over and over and over, regardless of that person's ethics or moral conduct, will have whatsoever.....because he says so."

"Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and give and give and give without question into the pockets of a minister who says he is good ground."

"Go ye into all the world and build churches larger than the next guy and take up large offerings."

"Peter, when I said 'Feed my sheep' I meant from the pulpit. I wasn't expecting you to spend a lot of time on people or do counseling. Just spend time with your key people and your large contributors."

"Arise and go thy way. Thy faith has made thee whole. Now be careful where you go church from here on. It can be life or death where you go to church."

"The Good Shepard stayed with the 99 and shunned the one who left because the shepard did not want its offence, doubt and unbelief to rub off on the others. And if any of the 99 sheep ran into the one sheep or his family in the grocery store, they acted like they didn't see him."

"Simon, make sure that in the ages to come they preach tithing hard and strong. It's the most important message. If they don't tithe they are under a curse."