Sis P the "Name It and Claim It," or Word Faith message that he preaches is a bit troubling to me. I believe that it over promises and under delivers and is borderline cultish. My cousin used to be a member of his church and I visited a couple of times. It seems that there is less lifting of the name of Jesus and more lifting of Bishop Eddie Long and building of physical structures. If the gospel of Jesus Christ was about material prosperity, he would have left behind physical structures that would still exist today.
Power is a heady thing. The Eddie Long ministries that has sprouted up seems to be more about obtaining material and tangible wealth which contrasts with the gospel. I can't stand it when people equates ones health and financial prosperity to how favored they are in God's site. Let us not forget that God's abundance falls on the wicked and the just too. I went to a Megafest and Bishop Eddie Long introduced his books, talked about his vision of the "new church" and asked for everyone to pass money to the front, they used some big owl plastic garbage cans. Not once did he mention Jesus in his sermon. $300,000 Bentleys? Million dollar homes? God is good indeed. "Bishop" Long seems to be a microcosm of the larger religious landscape in this country where the "have not," end up paying for their material wealth. I am no religious scholar, nor am I even a Baptist, but how did he get to be "Bishop" Eddie Long? I thought that Baptist churches were self governing and didn't have an Episcopal hierarchy. Did he just "appoint" himself Bishop?