The Great Cloud of Witnesses · The Church Under Fire & Into All the World
Kenneth Hagin
1917–2003 · American
Kenneth Erwin Hagin (August 20, 1917 – September 19, 2003) was an American Pentecostal-Charismatic preacher, healing-revival evangelist, and the recognized "father" of the Word-of-Faith movement.
The life
Kenneth Erwin Hagin (August 20, 1917 – September 19, 2003) was an American Pentecostal-Charismatic preacher, healing-revival evangelist, and the recognized "father" of the Word-of-Faith movement. Born in McKinney, Texas, with a congenital heart defect, he reported being raised from his deathbed in 1934 (age 16) after meditating on Mark 11:23–24. He was ordained in the Assemblies of God in the late 1930s and pastored AOG churches through the 1940s, leaving the AOG in 1949 to begin an itinerant healing-and-teaching ministry.
He founded Kenneth Hagin Ministries in 1962 in Garland, Texas, moved it to Tulsa in 1966, launched the Word of Faith magazine in 1968, and founded Rhema Bible Training Center (now College) in 1974 in Broken Arrow, OK. His ministry trained 80,000+ graduates and established a charismatic-faith global network. His son Kenneth W. ("Ken") Hagin Jr. has led the ministry since the elder Hagin's death.
Go further
Read them yourself — the works below are the next step, and the public-domain ones are free to read in full.
- The Believer's Authority1967
Hagin's foundational articulation of the believer's spiritual authority — co-seated with Christ, exercising dominion in His name. The most-cited Hagin text.
- How to Write Your Own Ticket With God1971
The four-step "say it, do it, receive it, tell it" formula presented as the operative pattern — perhaps the most controversial single Hagin text and the most-quoted by critics.
- The Name of Jesus1979
Hagin's articulation of authority-in-the-Name, including the doctrinally contested "Jesus's spiritual death" passages. Treats the Name of Jesus as legal instrument for the believer.
- Bible Faith Study Course1991
The Rhema-curriculum systematic articulation of Hagin's faith doctrine.
- I Believe in Visions1972
Hagin's accounts of his eight visions of Jesus, including instructions on healing, prophecy, and spiritual warfare. Foundational for understanding his self-perception and authority claims.
Why this voice is honored here
*Founder note pending.* Hagin is the foundational Word-of-Faith voice — the "father of the faith movement" — and his catalog is on Marcus Brown's audiobook library and shelf list. His value for MannaFest is dual: (1) he is the primary articulator of the modern faith-confession-healing-prosperity stream that has shaped vast portions of global Pentecostal-charismatic Christianity since the 1970s; (2) precisely because he is so influential, the registry must represent his positions clearly so MannaFest can route decisions on contested topics (prosperity-posture, healing-in-atonement, faith-as-confession) with both Hagin's voice and counter-voices on the table. Hagin is also the bridge to subsequent contemporary voices: Capps, Copeland, Bonnke (different stream), Hinn — all to varying degrees downstream of Hagin or his contemporary E.W. Kenyon.