KENNETH COPELAND IS ANATHEMA

By Akin Ojumu

God has several names. Each of them is an expression of His unique identity, attribute, and character. Scripture calls us to hallow the Name of the LORD. To dishonor and do violence to God’s Holy Name is an egregious sin. Those who do take the Name of God into vanity.

Exodus 20:7

“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.”

Contrary to what you must have been taught, to take the Name of the LORD God in vain is so much more than swearing in God’s Name. Whenever anyone ascribes to God words that He has not spoken, that person has taken God’s name in vain. To say, “Thus says the LORD,” when the LORD has not spoken, is to be guilty of dishonoring His character, disparaging His attributes, and discrediting His identity.

And this egregious sin is exactly what Kenneth Copeland can be seen committing in this video clip of a speech he gave to his religious establishment on New Year’s Day 2026. 

Seemingly unperturbed by the gravity of his assertions, the nonagenarian head honcho of the Word of Faith movement told the undiscerning crowd listening to his beatific bromide that the Almighty God told him that the reason He took a rest on the Seventh day of Creation was because He was tired. Drained of strength from the tedious and tasking work of Creation, the Omnipotent God had to take a rest when it was all said and done.

If you thought I’m making it all up, watch the video clip yourself and listen to Kenneth Copeland in his own words. For those of you who would not be bothered to watch the video, here’s the transcript.

“In the beginning, Elohim created the heaven and the earth. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the deep. Same spirit that’s in…us. God said, “Light be, light was.” I got that out of a Rabbi study. And he said he rested. Well, I always said, well, you know, he did…he wasn’t tired. He just…you know…he…he just finished. But I forgot to inquire the Lord about it. And I said, “Lord, were you tired?” He said, “Kenneth, that took a lot of faith. Yes, I was tired. and I rested.”

Kenneth Copeland is so full of himself, he is on a first name basis with God. But narcissism and hubris are the least of his sins. The problem with what you just heard, or read, is the fact that you won’t find it taught anywhere in Scripture. All that the Bible tells us is that God rested on the seventh day, and not that He rested because it took Him a lot of faith to create the Universe.

Genesis 2:1-3

“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.”

Not only is Kenneth Copeland’s claim that God rested because He got tired not taught in Scripture, what he asserts directly contradicts Scripture. Whereas the Bible states that God never grows weak or weary, Kenneth Copeland tells his followers that the Almighty God was overcome with tiredness and exhaustion after expending a lot faith in creating the Universe and everything in it. 

Isaiah 40:28

“Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.”

God certainly did not rest due to weariness; rather, establishing the pattern for man’s work cycle, He only modeled man’s need for rest. The entire work of creation was complete. With the dawn of the seventh day, God ceased from creating. When God works there is no dissipation of His energy. He cannot be fatigued, and He doesn’t need rejuvenation. The Hebrew word translated “rested” simply means that He abstained from creative work. He had completed all of creation, so there was nothing more for Him to create. Later, the Sabbath ordinance of Moses found its basis in the creation week (cf. Exodus 20:8–11). The Sabbath was God’s sacred, ordained day in the weekly cycle. Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man” (Mark 2:27) and verse 3 stated that God “sanctified” or set apart the Sabbath day because He rested in it (Source: The MacArthur Bible Commentary).

Beyond the blatant falsehood in Copeland’s wackadoodle assertion that God rested because He was exhausted from the work of creation is the nonsensical notion that God created the universe by faith. This doctrine is the rotten and rickety plank on which the Word of Faith movement stands. An entire religious movement, boasting of millions of adherents worldwide, was built on the foundation of grossly distorted Scripture.

One of the several Bible passages that the heretics of the Word of Faith movement hijack and co-opt to push their hideous ideology on the undiscerning world is Hebrews 11.

Hebrews 11:3

“By faith we understand that the universe was created by the Word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.”

Word of Faith preachers interpret Hebrews 11:3 to mean that God created the Universe by speaking it forth by faith. Heretics of this movement, like Kenneth Copeland, teach that God created the universe by releasing His faith through spoken words. By speaking out the words, God released a “faith force” which created something out of nothing. These folks promote the idea that God first believed, then He spoke, and it came to pass. Therefore, they claim, Believers can exercise the exact same creative power to determine their circumstances in life. By virtue of the spoken word, man can create their own reality, is their common refrain.

Let me be crystal clear. This is a satanic idea whose origin goes as far back as the Tower of Babel. The idea that God created the universe by releasing the “faith force” is unbiblical. Speaking things into existence is a practice that originated in the occult. It is what they do in the mystery religions such as the New Age and New Thoughts metaphysical cults. The idea found its way into Christianity through the teachings of Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (a man whose teachings greatly influenced some of the heavyweights of the Word of Faith Movement such as E.W. Kenyon, Kenneth Hagin, Oral Roberts, and Kenneth Copeland) and Napoleon Hill, the sorcerer whose book, Think and Grow Rich, is a manual for the Jegede Sokoyas of the Church who gladly hand out the rusty wrist-chafing handcuffs of secular success, personal empowerment, self-esteem, and worldly achievements lightly dusted with a Christianized powdered sugar coating.

To teach that mere humans have the creative power of God to speak their own reality into existence is to deify man and humanize God. This is elevating humanity to the status of divinity, while demoting God’s divinity into humanity. It is humanity upgraded to divinity, and divinity downgraded to humanity. What this demonic doctrine is really about is man exalting themselves above the throne of God. This is the Garden of Eden all over again. It is an offshoot of the seed of the rebellion of wanting to be like God, just like Adam and Eve.

The Word of Faith gospel is a different gospel. Those who hold to the doctrines of Kenneth Copeland must understand that they are equally as guilty of blasphemy as their hero. You cannot subscribe to the aberrant teachings of the Word of Faith movement and call yourself a follower in Christ. Those who consume the false gospel of Kenneth Copeland should know that they are damned.

Galatians 1:8-9

“But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!”

Don’t say you weren’t warned.