Prosperity Here and Now

"Yo quiero lo mio!" A young Hispanic woman unflinchingly demands. She seems to be looking right at me across the distance between her as a televised image and me as a bleary-eyed, early-Sunday morning-before-church channel surfer. "I want my stuff-

!" a professionally dressed African American man demands, bouncing boxer-style on his toes for extra emphasis. An African American woman signs the phrase with an intensity that mirrors that of the spoken words. So forcefully do they convey a sense of authority and

as they lay their claim to their "stuff" that I find myself caught up in the collective effervescence of the moment. It is all I can do to keep myself from adding mine to their chorus of voices "YEAH, I WANT MY STUFF RIGHT NOW, TOO!"

These are the opening moments of a commercial for the Faith teacher Creflo A. Dollar's videotape series

. The spot continues with two short excerpts from this dynamic, African American minister's message to the believer. With great passion, his arms extended before him, he entreats the viewer: "God knows how to lay hold of the

until it becomes

;

!" In another clip he very animatedly, and with eyes wide, shouts in a rapid-fire cadence: "You already possess everything that you're trying to get ahold of. But we gotta learn how to

it;

!" The voiceover continues: "Learn how to get what's rightfully yours with our monthly product offer

. To order this powerful four-tape series, write to the address or call the number on the screen."

This advertisement for Pastor Dollar's tape series was aired at the end of the weekly broadcast of "Changing Your World," an outreach production of World Changers International Ministries. This is the 20,000-member, African American megachurch in College Park, Georgia, that was founded and is co-pastored by Dr. Creflo Dollar and his wife, Taffi. The ministry was one of several profiled in an

magazine article on megachurches, with congregations of 10,000 to 25,000, in predominately African American communities across the country. On the morning I saw it, that 30-second television spot seemed to crystallize the spirit of the Word of Faith Movement.

Many of today's high-profile teachers of the Faith Message are well-dressed, energetic, and politically and financially savvy African American men, like Pastor Dollar, Pastor Fred Price of Crenshaw Christian Center in South Central Los Angeles, and Pastor Keith Butler of the Word of Faith International Christian Center in Southfield, Michigan. It would be inaccurate, however, to think of the Word of Faith as a

religious movement. The movement has attracted followers from a broad demographic spectrum throughout the United States and in many countries abroad since its emergence in the 1960s and 1970s. This movement and its message have fired the imaginations and inspired the faith of thousands (and perhaps even

) of followers the world over.

Nevertheless, it is worth examining the implications, in the religious history of African Americans, of a movement that teaches that here and now is where God wishes to "prosper" the faithful. Today's movement may appear to be a new development to some observers, but the Word of Faith Movement actually stands in a long line of similar religious movements to emerge in twentieth-century America-movements that have synthesized New Thought metaphysics with evangelical, charismatic Christianity. As in today's Word of Faith Movement, African Americans have played a significant part in these earlier movements.

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