[EgonTowst]

I have heard similar stories as well, Sosthenes. I don't like to bring it up because many of my friends are very charismatic and I don't want to unnecessarily offend them. But it is a very serious issue indeed. Some of my friends are fans of a pastor who likes to claim that the majority of my university campus is already saved but just hasn't realized it yet, and so we just need to tell others that Jesus loves them, rather than bother to share the full gospel with them, according to him, because he claims he's seen a vision of our auditorium jammed packed with people praising God. And he says he knows it's going to happen because he's seen it.

I've heard stories of people with AIDS being told by word-of-faith pastors that they are healed - I wonder how many people they've slept with sense then by believing that. I've actually heard of people dieing from sicknesses they could have been cured from or at least treated for, simply because they denied treatment because a pastor laid their hands on them and told them they were healed. And their justification for these beliefs, by the way, I would argue, involve serious twisting of the Scripture.

I don't mean to bash on those personally who believe that the Word of Faith doctrines are correct, but I do strongly believe that they are false teachers and they need to be exposed because this is very dangerous. Faith in God means faith in His Word, not faith in our own ability to believe something regardless of the circumstances. A lot of teachings in the Word of Faith movement can be demonstrated to be heretical because they actually lead to the doctrine of justification by works. What concerns me most about the movement is that many Word of Faith teachers and their fans test the truthfulness of doctrine by experience, rather than the opposite way around as God has warned us (Jer. 17:9). They try to use 1 Cor. 16:22 to silence all doctrinal discussion, which basically implies that we are to simply believe anyone who claims to be of God is being truthful.