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Shall We Write Off Kenneth E Hagin? Dave Hunt? How About E W Kenyon?, Part 3
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We continue here in Part 3 where we stopped in Part 2, in the middle of a long paragraph that started with a quotation from Dave Hunt's "Occult Invasion."
See D. R. McConnell, "A Different Gospel" on Kenyon's interaction with metaphysical religion. McConnell "did his graduate work at Oral Roberts University in theological and historical studies." You can learn from McConnell's book, but I don't agree with all of his conclusions regarding Kenneth Hagin or E. W. Kenyon. I believe the three books by Joe McIntyre, Dale Simmons, and Robert Bowman, which are all discussed in this paper, suffice to show that McConnell has overstated the extent to which Kenyon was influenced by the metaphysical religions.]] Kenyon's teaching about 'the power of words' and his warnings never to make a 'negative confession' [[Hunt has an endnote: "Kenyon and Gossett, 'Confession,' pages 120-36, 152-55, 182-85, etc." I don't agree with everything that Gossett and Kenyon said on these pages, but essentially everything they said on these pages is centered in God and on thinking and speaking in agreement with His Word.]] deeply influenced Hagin and many others who are recognized as leaders of this movement. Kenyon also taught that man is a little god 'in God's class' [[We will discuss these words later in this paper; Kenyon greatly overstated the status of born-again Christians in some of his writings, even as he greatly overstated the status of Adam before the fall.]] and therefore can use the same faith-force that God does. [[Hunt has an endnote: "E. W. Kenyon, "What Happened from the Cross to the Throne?" (Kenyon, 1945, 5th ed.), pp. 62, 173-75. We will discuss this last sentence from Hunt and the cross-reference to Kenyon later in this paper. Kenyon made a serious mistake with his teaching that born-again Christians can use the same faith-force that God does. For one thing, the Bible doesn't speak of God having a "faith-force," or creative-faith, or faith.]] We allegedly create our own reality with the words of our mouths: 'What I confess; I possess' [Hunt has an endnote: "E. W. Kenyon, 'The Hidden Man: An Unveiling of the Subconscious Mind' (Kenyon, 1970), p. 98."]." If these words ("What I confess; I possess") are disconnected from a God-centered, Bible-centered faith, where we are making it a top priority to live for God and give Him all the glory, they could easily be understood in an occult sense. As I have mentioned, I am afraid that some people in, or on the edges of, the faith movement are using an occult faith. As I have also mentioned, I am confident that Hagin was solidly grounded in a God-centered, Bible-centered faith, not an occult faith.
Hagin learned about faith for healing, and the faith of Christians in general, from the Lord Jesus (mostly by the Holy Spirit) teaching him what the Bible says on the topic. After he was healed by God through faith (he knew that he was healed by the Lord Jesus, and God the Father who sent Him, not by some universal "law of faith") and had learned more about faith through the Word and other experiences, he says (and I believe it) that God commissioned him to teach faith. Essentially none, if any, of that early teaching had any input from Kenyon, or anybody else, with any ideas that were not Biblical.
It is clear that Hagin's later teaching was influenced by the teaching of others (especially the teaching of Kenyon; it is clear that Hagin respected Kenyon's teaching on faith, healing, etc.) in many of the details. I suppose the primary factor that led to the similarity of the details of Hagin's teaching with others was the fact that Hagin had a photographic memory after he became a born-again Christian. After being healed and going back to high school, he found that he could read a chapter of a history book and then quote the chapter word for word. He could quote large parts of the Bible without having tried to memorize any verses.
This could be a great blessing, but it led to problems for Hagin. It is clear that sometimes Hagin would quote extensively from others in some of his sermons/teachings. (I heard him say on an old audio recording that he often quoted others in his sermons/teachings. His motive was simply to bless the people he was ministering to with the best he could provide.) This probably would not have resulted in any serious problems if it were not for the fact that the editors of many of Hagin's earlier books transcribed the words from the recordings without realizing that much of that material had originally been quoted from others.
I'm confident that this happened to a significant extent, and I am rather confident that some, if not most, of the places where Hagin's writings sound quite different than what he typically taught (and are often wrong), came to be written that way. I'll give some key examples from Hagin's writings as we continue with this paper.
Hagin's popular booklet, "The Authority of the Believer" (32 pages; original edition), was taken essentially word for word from audio tapes of Hagin's earlier teaching. (I had copies [two seven-inch reel-to-reel tape recordings] of the recordings that were made during a meeting in 1963 where Hagin was teaching on that topic. Most of the book was essentially word-for-word the same as the recordings.) D. R. McConnell ("A Different Gospel" [Hendrickson Publishers, 1988], page 69) points out that "as much as 75% [of that book] was taken from a series of articles published in 1932 by John A. MacMillan under the same title...." It is clear, I believe, that Hagin quoted extensively from MacMillan in those 1963 teachings. (I later got a copy of McMillan's booklet too.) It is beyond the scope of this paper for me to interact much with McConnell's book. For one thing, I decided during the course of writing this paper that I am not especially interested in discussing where Kenyon got his wrong ideas (the topic is complicated and controversial). However, as I have mentioned, I am quite sure that McConnell overstated Kenyon's involvement with metaphysical religions.
It is clear, I believe, that Hagin quoted extensively from Kenyon after he began to read his writings, and that some (much) of that material ended up in Hagin's books. It is interesting that there is an article on Kenyon's "Gospel Publishing Society" site, titled "Plagiarism of E. W. Kenyon by Kenneth E. Hagin?" I'll quote a small part of this article. "In his book, 'A Different Gospel,' D. R. McConnell goes to some length to show that Kenneth Hagin plagiarized the writings of E. W. Kenyon. Some have contacted the office of Kenyon's Gospel Publishing Society quite irritated about the situation. So what is our response? ...
First of all, it must be noted that Kenneth Hagin, to the best of my knowledge does not actually write his books. What I mean by this is that his books are for the most part transcriptions of his speaking ministry. ... Hagin has noted that he has an almost photographic memory. Reading or hearing something once was all that was necessary for him to recall it verbatim. ... We consider Kenneth E. Hagin to be a great man of God. ... Kenyon is probably delighted that Kenneth E. Hagin has been so successful in getting the message of faith, so dear to Kenyon's heart, out to so many in the world of this generation. ...." (I should point out that McConnell's book was very critical of Hagin AND Kenyon.)
3. I read (with some skimming) several of Hagin's books to see how much of his teaching about faith could fit in the category of occult faith instead of Bible faith. I had read essentially all of these books before, but it had been a long time; I started reading his literature and listening to his recordings in 1966. I followed his teaching extensively until about 1975, when I first read his teaching about Jesus dying spiritually. I don't think I have ever heard him teach on that subject on an audio recording, or on the radio, TV, or at a meeting I attended. He didn't emphasize that teaching, and he was clear on the deity of Christ (and the Trinity), but I considered that teaching to be a serious problem. I continued to follow his ministry, but with some reservation. By 1995, or so, I had backed off further since, for one thing, I learned that the doctrine that Jesus died spiritually was still being taught at Rhema. Since that time I haven't purchased any more of his books or teaching tapes or read his monthly magazine "The Word of Faith," but I still have significant respect for his ministry, and I still listen to his audio recordings, not that I agree with everything he says. (I probably have had something like 200 of his audio recordings.)
The first book I chose to read was Hagin's 126 page book "I Believe in Visions" (1972, 126 pages). I didn't find any evidence for any ideas of faith that were not totally centered in God and His Word; there is nothing about a law of faith that will work for anybody, etc. Later in this lengthy section, I'll comment on a few rather serious problems I have with a few details in Hagin's account of the vision he had when the Lord Jesus appeared to him in December 1952 (in chapter 4 of "I Believe in Visions"). The second book was the "Bible Faith Study Course" (13th printing in 1984, 127 large pages). I'll list the articles in this book: "How Faith Comes #1" and #2; "What Faith Is #1" and #s 2-4; "What It Means to Believe with the Heart #1" and #2; "How To Turn Your Faith Loose #1" and #s 2-4; "Seven Steps to the Highest Kind of Faith #1" and #s 2-4; "Six Big Hindrances to Faith
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