
Joyce Meyer has posted a surprising video on Instagram where she seems to walk back some prosperity gospel and “word of faith” theology.
In the clip, she flatly says, “I’m glad for what I learned about prosperity, but it got out of balance. I’m glad for what I learned about faith, but it got out of balance,” explaining, “every time someone had problems it was ‘cause they didn’t have enough faith. If you got sick, you didn’t have enough faith. If your child died, you didn’t have enough faith … Well, that’s not right.”
Meyer is an extremely popular TV preacher, pastor and writer, but her critics have associated her with controversial teachings that seem to equate financial prosperity with the gospel and teaching that life problems are the result of a lack of faith.
But, in the video, she says, “There’s nowhere in the Bible where we’re promised that we’ll never have any trouble. I don’t care how much faith you’ve got, you’re not gonna avoid ever having trouble in your life.”
You can see the clip below:
Meyers doesn’t completely walk back the notion of prosperity, so her critics probably won’t be fully content. But still, hearing any spiritual leader admit to having gotten something wrong is pretty rare and certainly notable. As of this writing, the video had been viewed over 98,000 times.