A History of Christian Doctrine #3 - Online Christian Library

The Charismatic Movement
leadership, and many are heavily oriented toward the
leader’s personality. Many institutions and ministries are
named after an individual. As a result, huge churches and
ministries can mushroom almost overnight but then
quickly deflate when the founder is discredited or dies, or
when a more exciting leader comes along.
In addition to the doctrines and practices that generally
characterize the entire Charismatic movement, there
have also been some doctrinal innovations and some
recycling of Latter Rain doctrines. While we cannot
attribute them to all Charismatics, they have become
prominent, especially among the independent Charismatics,
and they have also affected classical Pentecostal
churches.
Positive Confession
As we have already mentioned, the Positive
Confession doctrine is quite prominent among Charismatics.
Its teachers proclaim, “What you say is what you
get,” and, “What you confess, you possess.” (Detractors
often call this message, “Name it, claim it.”) Under this
view, since humans are created in the image of God, they
are actually little gods. As such, they have great creative
power in their own right. Just as God created the world
by speaking it into existence and allegedly by having faith
in His words, so humans can speak things into existence
in their own lives. Instead of merely having “faith in God,”
they are to have “the faith of God.”
This view goes beyond the typical Pentecostal understanding
of prayer. Classical Pentecostals believe in the
power of prayer and expect miraculous results from prayer,
but they focus their faith on God, stress the sovereignty of
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