Book Reviews

The Word-Faith Controversy:
Understanding the Health and Wealth Gospel

By Robert M. Bowman Jr.
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 2001, 254 pp. $15.99)

Reviewed by Craig M. Kibler
December 2001
book
“What most people do not know,” writes Robert M. Bowman Jr., “is that the ‘health and wealth’ promise is merely the tip of the theological iceberg. It is the teachings about faith, words, and confession – and what these teachings in turn imply about God, human beings, Jesus Christ, and the nature of the Christian life – that have turned out to be the most controversial aspects of the Word-Faith movement.”

In a scrupulously fair assessment, Bowman – who is president of the Institute for the Development of Evangelical Apologetics – questions this distortion of the Christian faith and those who propound a philosophy of physical well-being and financial reward through faith. In so doing, he exposes this “gospel” as not being the gospel of the New Testament.

This movement, Bowman insists, is “neither soundly orthodox nor thoroughly heretical” but, instead, is a syrupy mush that borrows from mysticism, dualism and gnosticism.

Using the Bible as his guide, he leads readers through the origins of this movement, discusses some of its proponents and analyzes those aspects that sharply veer away from Biblical teachings. In the process, he illuminates the role that faith has in physical well-being and financial rewards.
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