Frederick K.C. Price

Frederick K. C. Price was the pastor and founder of Crenshaw Christian Center (CCC) in Los Angeles, California. A second church, CCC East, is located in New York. The author of more than 50 books on faith, healing, prosperity, and the Holy Spirit, he is best known from “Ever Increasing Faith,” the radio and television outreach arm of CCC.

The prosperity preacher died on February 13, 2021, following hospitalization for COVID-19.

According to his online biography,

Dr. Price received an honorary diploma from the Rhema Bible Training Center in 1976 and an honorary Doctorate of Divinity Degree from Oral Roberts University in 1982; both institutions are based in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
– Source: Dr. Price — Biography Ever Increasing Faith Ministry, last accessed, July 26, 2007

Within the Christian church, Price was controversial because he is a prominent teacher of so-called Word-Faith theology, with a particular emphasis on the ‘prosperity gospel.’

He fully realized that his theology is considered heretical at best:

“God can’t do anything in this earth realm except what we, the body of Christ, allow Him to do. Now that statement is so–that’s so–that’s so foreign and so contrary to tradition that, like I said, if they could get their hands on me right now most evangelicals would burn me at the stake and dismember me and feed me to the crocodiles, because they’ll consider that statement to be just heresy.”
– Source: “Ever Increasing Faith,” May 1, 1992, audiotape #PR11

Price, Frederick K. C. (1932-) One of the more brazen proponents of *PROSPERITY THEOLOGY, the notion that God will bless believers with affluence, Frederick K. C. Price was born in Santa Monica, California, and reared as a Jehovah’s Witness. He was converted to evangelical Christianity in 1953 and entered the ministry two years later, affiliating with a succession of denominations: Baptist, African Methodist Episcopal, Presbyterian, and *CHRISTIAN AND MISSIONARY ALLIANCE. Price’s Spirit *BAPTISM in 1970, however, set him on a denominationally independent course. He founded Crenshaw Christian Center in 1973, which now occupies the former campus of Pepperdine University in Los Angeles. The congregation is multiracial and numbers well above ten thousand. Price, an African-American, broadcasts his *PROSPERITY THEOLOGY nationwide with a television program called Ever Increasing Faith, begun in 1978. He is unabashed about the pursuit of wealth as a sign of God’s blessing and does not shy away from ostentatious displays himself.
– Source: Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism, Randall Balmer, Baylor University Press, Waco, TX. 2004. Page 557

Fred Price is the most notable of a growing number of black prosperity preachers. His church in Los Angeles now claims some 16,000 members. He is seen nationally on television and has referred to himself as the “chief exponent of Name It and Claim It.”33 Price has added his own unique twists to Faith theology by asserting that Jesus took on the nature of Satan prior to the crucifixion34 and by claiming that the Lord’s Prayer is not for Christians today.35 Despite telling his followers that he doesn’t allow sickness in his home, Price’s wife has been treated for cancer in her pelvic area.36 Referring to his wealth, Price says the reason he drives a Rolls Royce is that he is following in Jesus’ steps.37
– Source: What’s wrong with the faith movement, Hank Hanegraaff, Christian Research Journal, volume 15, number 3 (1993)
Footnotes:
33) Frederick K. C. Price, “Name It and Claim It! What Saith the WORD? . . ,” Ever Increasing Faith Messenger, Summer 1989, 2.
34) Frederick K. C. Price, “Identification #3” (Inglewood, CA: Ever Increasing Faith Ministries, 1980), audio tape #FP545, side 1.
35) Frederick K. C. Price, personal correspondence, 14 October 1992.
36) Pat Hays, “Betty Price Speaks at 1991 ‘Wisdom from Above’ Luncheon,” Ever Increasing Faith Messenger, Winter 1992,12-13.
37) Frederick K. C. Price, Ever Increasing Faith (television program), TBN, 9 December 1990, available from Crenshaw Christian Center, Inglewood, CA (audio tape #CR-A2).

Price claims he was brought up in a Jehovah’s Witness family. After he converted to Christianity he experienced many different denominations. This all was left behind him after he read K. Hagin’s booklet “the authority of the believer.” Price claims that it was Hagin who had the greatest influence on his life. Frederick K.C. Price says: “Kenneth Hagin has had the greatest influence upon my life of any living man … his books … revolutionized and changed my life.”( Taped interviews on file at the Holy Spirit Research Center, Oral Roberts University cited in D. R. McConnell, The Kenyon Connection: A Theological and Historical Analysis of the Cultic Origins of the Faith Movement, a thesis submitted to the Theological Faculty, Oral Roberts University, Tulsa, OK, May 1982, p. 11).

This developed him into being the chief exponent of naming it and claiming it. Say it and frame it, speak it and keep it. Price who has become famous for his anti biblical stance of If you have to say, “if it be thy will or thy will be done- if you have to say that, then your calling God a fool.” He explains “What they told me to do was that whenever I prayed I should always say, ‘The will of the Lord be done.,’ Now, doesn’t that sound humble? It does. Sounds like humility, it’s really stupidity. I mean, you know, really, we insult God. I mean, we really do insult our Heavenly Father. We do; we really insult Him without even realizing it. If you have to say, ‘If it be thy will or’ Thy will be done’-if you have to say that, then you’re calling God a fool because he’s the One that told us to ask…. (“Ever Increasing Faith” program on TBN Nov.16,1990).
[…]

He also promotes the myth that Jesus was very rich and incorporates this into his theology of why every believer should be rich. “The whole point is I’m trying to get you to see-to get you out of this malaise of thinking that Jesus and the disciples were poor and then relating that to you thinking that you, as a child of God, have to follow Jesus. The Bible says that He has left us an example that we should follow His steps. That’s the reason why I drive a Rolls Royce. I’m following Jesus’ steps.” (“Ever Increasing Faith” program on TBN December19 1990].)
– Source: Is “The Price is right?” Or is the Price wrong?, Mike Oppenheimer, Let Us Reason

After finishing the graveyard shift at 7 a.m., Judith Synclair drove from Westchester to Crenshaw Christian Center East on a Sunday in November to see her idol in the flesh.

The nursing assistant, who lives in the Bronx, had been watching the Rev. Frederick K.C. Price for 10 years on television. She rejoiced when she learned that Price comes to New York once a month to hold Bible study on Thursdays and services on Sundays.

“He’s not so much a preacher, he’s a teacher,” said Synclair, 51, who stood in line for 20 minutes to get Price to autograph copies of the several books he has authored. “He’s made me a more positive person. I understand the Bible better.”

The 73-year-old pastor, who has had a TV ministry since 1978, called his sermon “The Power of Positive Confession.” In a dark pinstriped suit and a fuchsia-and-black silk tie, he talked about how the depth of a Christian’s faith can determine certain outcomes in his or her life.

“If you don’t like your circumstances, then change your confessions,” said Price, whose ministry has 27,000 members nationwide. “When you pray, you believe that you receive.”

Stanley Johnson, of Mastic, L.I., the head usher at Crenshaw Christian Center East, cannot get enough of Price. He’s been a follower since the 1980s.

“You were taught as a youngster that you need to go to church, you need to be good in order to go to heaven,” said Johnson, who owns his own construction company on Long Island. “Nowhere did they tell you that God’s promises were for now, that we should live a prosperous life right here on Earth. He’s made the Scriptures come alive for me.”
– Source: Traveling reverends sell faith to N.Y.ers, New York Daily News, USA, Dec. 4, 2005

You can talk about me all you want while I’m driving by in my Rolls Royce that’s paid for, and I got the pink slip on it. Talk all you want. Bad mouth all you want. Don’t hurt me in the least. Doesn’t bother me. It’s a whole lot easier to be persecuted when I’m riding in my car and I got the pink slip than it is when I’m riding in a car and owe my soul to the company store.
– Source: Frederick K.C. Price, Ever Increasing Faith program, March 29, 1992, broadcasted on TBN