Peter SmytheA Different Kind of Word Preacher

his past week, in Confessions of a Tithing Party Crasher, I introduced a “new” teaching about how tithing, as it is preached and practiced today, is antithetical to the Pauline Revelation, i.e., Christ in you, the hope of glory. My second tithing podcast, Tithing and the Gospel of Christ 2, followed up with the flawed preaching (exegesis or whatever you want to call it) about Abraham’s tithe to Melchizedek as scriptural support for New Testament tithing.

A reader asked this question (quite a good one):

Question, Why has this type of teaching not been more widely accepted or taught among the body of Christ? It would seem to me that others would have picked up on this view of tithing, especially in the “Word of Faith” circles.

I originally responded by saying, “I’m not sure why it hasn’t been more widely taught though the WOF preachers really should be its standard-bearers.” After thinking more about it, while I can’t speak to any particular preacher or ministry, I thought I’d flesh out some of my personal thoughts as to why certain teachings continue to flourish despite the lack of scriptural support.

Instead of thinking of these as discrete reasons, think of them as synergizing each other.

Shallow Minds and Shallow Pulpits

First off, the current slew of Word of Faith preachers preach shallow sermons from shallow pulpits. As Phil Cook has written in his own blog and from my own personal experience, many of today’s minister’s bookshelves are filled (if you can call it that) with motivational and self-help books. These books are usually structured in a topical format, meaning that the author (usually an author of the same ilk) dreams up a topic and then finds support through a smattering of different, unconnected scriptures. And while the books have different titles, they deliver the same, superficial message along with identical scriptural texts. These scant libraries create the vicious cycle of shallow preaching endlessly repeating itself, sort of like those high school pep rallies of yesteryear.

This approach is far different from the Faith Movement’s pioneers. If you read through Joe McIntyre’s biography of E.W. Kenyon, you see a picture of a preacher who constantly and deliberately sought out the meaning of the scriptural text in spite of the popular theology of the day. Kenneth Hagin said that it took him close to thirty years to finally come to the light on the distinguishing characteristics between the spirit, soul, and body (all other preachers thought spirit and soul were the same thing). John Lake wrote that he spent hours upon hours in prayer and the Word to understand God’s purpose in man (he’s the best when it comes to “Christ in you”). While some of their teachings diverged a little (Hagin taught a little on tithing - not as the Word preachers today do - while Kenyon and Lake never mention it), the thrust of their ministries paralleled each other in spirit. And while these men’s libraries might have been scant with regard to the latest and greatest theological treatises (which would have been to their detriment), they sought to couch their revelations solidly in the scriptural text rather than somebody else’s hip-hop motivational ditties.

Pretty Woman’s Risky Business

In the movie industry, there is a little-known secret about “star” power: what we consider “talent” generally comes from movie success rather than vice-versa. Another way of putting it is that the movie makes the actor and a large dose of what makes the movie is dumb luck. For instance:

Did Julia Roberts make Pretty Woman or did Pretty Woman make Julia Roberts?

Did Tom Cruise make Risky Business or did Risky Business make Tom Cruise?

In the Word of Faith camp (I’m using the term very loosely), many of the current crop preachers appear more of a product of success than talent (talent as meaning skillful in the word of righteousness). Consequently, much of what we, as the body of Christ, ascribe as skills (or talent) is all after-the-fact, i.e., “he’s a great preacher of the Word because … well … just look at his ministry.” Personally, I cannot count the number of times that I’ve gone to a service or meeting to hear some supposedly “great” preacher with some “great” ministry preach the “uncompromised Word” (I don’t know of anyone touting that he preaches the “compromised Word”) only to find that the guy was way oversold and was nothing but a Word hack (with some, there is no other way to say it). The man only had “talent” because some other untalented preacher said that he did.

Pretty Woman and the March of the Penguins

One off-shoot of Pretty Woman success is the phenomena of Penguin Island. Is the two-bit swashbuckler ever going to get to buddy up with Zorro? Is the shallow pulpiteer ever going to hang out with the man who has set his face like flint to understand the text? Maybe, but doubtful. Penguins tend to hang out only with other penguins.

The early earmark of the Word movement was its few who followed the drum of the text instead of the all-too-famous pied pipers of denominational theologies (just another form of Penguin Island). While these men could have found comfort in looking just like everybody else, sounding like everybody else, and huddling together, they dared to make a swim for it. Every Word bird that said, “I’ve had enough. I’m a-gettin’ off this island,” was branded an anarchist (read: heretic), idiot (read: he’s not a learned man or he’s deceived), or both. The Body of Christ has been much better off with those daredevils who decided to sink or swim.

As the Word movement has grown in age, it has developed its own Penguin Island. No questions, squawking, or flipper flappin’ allowed. With the advent of national marketing campaigns, personal form letters, and multi-million dollar ministry budgets, the island is quite heavily developed so crazy birds, those who say, “Hey, the original building code says this,” are told to take a swim - “We’re all just fine here. Look at all our stuff. Why in the world would we want to change anything?”

It’s Not Just Word of Faith

These kinds of things are not endemic only to Word of Faith preachers. In doing the research for these blog essays, I invariably read the materials of all different kinds of preachers: Word of Faith, Baptist, Calvinists, yada, yada, yada. In all of the materials, you see the same thing all over again: famous (usually dead) preacher preaches on subject, famous preacher says Y (according to the text it should be X), but famous preacher is indeed famous so we will preach like famous preacher and phooey on anyone who doesn’t like our famous dead preacher preachin’. Very often, at least on the blogs anyway, you see comments like, “In Galatians it says ____, so how can you say _____?” And the usual response is, “Our famous dead theologian preached it that way and you are not a famously dead preacher so you too can leave the island.” Another variation: “Our Pretty Woman preacher is so successful and he preaches it that way, so why don’t you take a dip?”

The Tithing Posts and Podcasts

There’s no doubt that the Tithing and the Gospel of Christ podcasts break the Word of Faith tithing mold as it’s been hammered for the past twenty or so years. As our reader put it, no one seems to be teaching it this way. Does that make this penguin AWOL or one of those righteous daredevils? I encourage you to work your way through the scriptures as you listen to the podcasts. At the end of the day (series), I believe you’ll be taking a dunk too.