have a divine right to prosper in all areas of life, including finances, health, marriage, and relationships. Word of Faith preachers such as Creflo Dollar and Kenneth Copeland claim that Jesus was rich, and teach that modern believers are entitled to financial wealth. Faith and confession In Word of Faith teaching, a central element of receiving from God is "confession", often called "positive confession" or "faith confession" by practitioners. Practitioners will claim and affirm they have healing, well being, prosperity, or other promises from God, before actually experiencing such results. They do so in demonstration of their faith, which they believe will ultimately result in the fulfillment of their words. While similar, it should not be confused with Norman Vincent Peale's positive thinking theology focusing on the individual, as evidenced by the motto, "Faith in God and believe in oneself". Noted Word of Faith teachers, such as Kenneth E. Hagin and Charles Capps, have argued that God created the universe by speaking it into existence (), and that God has endowed believers with this power. Thus, making a "positive confession" of God's promise and believing God's word stirs the power of resurrection which raised Christ from the dead ( ), and brings that promise to fulfilment. This teaching is interpreted from . A more recent variant of positive confession is "decree and declare". Word of Faith preachers have called faith a "force". Conversely, "negative confession" can harm, so believers should be conscious of their words. This is argued on the interpretation of , "Life and death are in the power of the tongue, and they that love them will eat the fruit thereof", also , "...saith the Lord, as you have spoken in my ears, so will I do", among other scriptures. Criticism Many of the movement's essential beliefs are criticised by other Christians. Christian author Robert M. Bowman, Jr. states that the word of faith movement is "neither soundly orthodox nor thoroughly heretical". One of the earliest critics of Word of Faith teaching was Oral Roberts University professor Charles Farah, who published From the Pinnacle of the Temple in 1979. In the book, Farah expressed his disillusionment with the teachings, which he argued were more about presumption than faith. In 1982, one of Farah's students, Daniel Ray McConnell, submitted a thesis, Kenyon Connection, to the faculty at Oral Roberts University, tracing the teaching back through Hagin to Kenyon and