Creflo Augustus Dollar Jr. is an American pastor, televangelist, and the founder of the non-denominational World Changers Church International (WCCI), based in College Park, Georgia. He serves as the senior pastor of WCCI, which has grown from its beginnings in 1986 with eight attendees in a school cafeteria to a congregation of over 20,000 members and multiple satellite churches across the United States and internationally, including locations in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, and Washington, D.C.. The church’s current headquarters, the “World Dome,” opened in 1995 and seats 8,500 people.
Dollar is a prolific author, speaker, and media personality, known for his award-winning television broadcast Changing Your World, which reaches nearly 1 billion homes globally and is available through various platforms, including a dedicated YouTube channel and the 24-hour Changing Your World Network. His ministry includes a mobile app, social media presence, and publishing ventures under Arrow Records and Creflo Dollar Ministries. He has authored numerous books, including The Radical Life of Grace, Why I Hate Religion, The Transformative Power of Grace, and Overcoming Fear.
Initially known for promoting prosperity theology, Dollar shifted his focus in the 2010s toward what he calls the “Gospel of Grace,” emphasizing the finished work of Christ and grace-based living. In a significant reversal, he publicly retracted his long-held teachings on mandatory tithing in a June 2022 sermon, stating that tithing is not required for New Testament believers and advising followers to discard materials promoting past teachings on the subject.
Dollar is married to Taffi Dollar, who co-pastors WCCI and is an accomplished author and speaker in her own right. The couple has five adult children. He was born on January 28, 1962, in College Park, Georgia, and holds a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of West Georgia, along with master’s and doctoral degrees in counseling.
His ministry has faced public scrutiny over financial transparency, personal wealth, and lifestyle, including ownership of luxury properties and vehicles, as well as a 2012 arrest for alleged domestic violence against his daughter, which resulted in dismissed charges after he completed an anger management program. He was also involved in a 2007 Senate Finance Committee investigation into the personal use of church assets and faced criticism for a 2015 fundraising campaign for a $65 million private jet.
False Teaching: Prosperity Gospel
Creflo Dollar is one of the foremost proponents of what has become known as the prosperity gospel. This doctrine teaches that God has promised his people financial and other forms of prosperity in this life, if only God’s people will take the necessary steps to claim it. A uniquely American creation, this false teaching has since been exported across the world where it has especially taken root in the developing world. In one of his Bible studies Dollar lays it out:
As the righteousness of God, your inheritance of wealth and riches is included in the “spiritual blessings” (or spiritual things) the apostle Paul spoke of in Ephesians 1:5. Based on Psalm 112:3, righteousness, wealth and riches go hand—in—hand. You have every right to possess material wealth—clothes, jewelry, houses, cars and money—in abundance. It is that wealth that not only meets your needs, but also spreads the Gospel message and meets the needs of others.
The Bible says that wealth is stored up for the righteous (Proverbs 13:22, New American Standard). However, it will remain stored up until you claim it. Therefore, claim it now! You possess the ability to seize and command wealth and riches to come to you (Deuteronomy 8:18). Exercise that power by speaking faith-filled words daily and taking practical steps to eradicate debt. Like God, you can speak spiritual blessings into existence (Romans 4:17). Remember, doubt keeps silent, but faith speaks!”
The way such prosperity is activated is by the planting of seeds, so that the person who wants financial prosperity must plant a seed of financial prosperity. Needless to say, such seeds are usually through a donation to a ministry like Dollar’s.
You can say, “Oh, God, I need money! The rent is due. The baby needs shoes. And what about my breakthrough?” But if you haven’t sown financial seed, how can you expect a financial harvest?
If you wanted to grow apples, would you plant cucumber seeds or pumpkin seeds? You would not! So why do people expect to receive financial increase when they purposely plant anything and everything but what is needed? They will plant hope seed, shout seed, dance seed, and even “claim it” seed! All of these are good things, but alone and without the appropriate seed, they are unproductive.1
Followers & Adherents
Creflo Dollar is one of the most prominent and most successful teachers of prosperity theology. He preaches live to tens of thousands of people each weekend and his “Changing Your World” broadcast extends to nearly every country on earth. He publishes CHANGE magazine which has 100,000 subscribers, and he has written several bestselling books. His voice extends around the world and every week hundreds of thousands or even millions of people listen to him.
What the Bible Says
The foremost concern with the prosperity gospel is that in all its emphasis on financial prosperity, the deep need for spiritual prosperity is inevitably displaced and eventually lost altogether. In this way a relationship with Jesus Christ becomes little more than the key to unlocking temporal wealth and abundance. In his infamous song Fal$e Teacher$, Shai Linne says, “If you’re living your best life now you’re headed for hell!” David W. Jones and Russell Woodbridge helpfully distill the doctrinal errors of prosperity theology to five key points.
- The Abrahamic covenant is a means to material entitlement. Prosperity teachers look to God’s covenant with Abraham and see its fulfillment as providing material prosperity to Christians today. Dollar’s mentor Kenneth Copeland says, “Since God’s Covenant has been established and prosperity is a provision of this covenant, you need to realize that prosperity belongs to you now!”
- Jesus’ atonement extends to the “sin” of material poverty. They hold that Jesus’ atoning death provided not only for our spiritual needs but also for our financial prosperity. Thus it is only sin that keeps us trapped in poverty or anything less than abundant wealth.
- Christians give in order to gain material compensation from God. Creflo Dollar and others like him teach that giving to the Lord’s work is primarily a means of gaining further compension from God.
- Faith is a self-generated spiritual force that leads to prosperity. Many prosperity gospel preachers, Dollar among them, teach that we, like God, have the ability to speak reality into existence when we speak in faith. Thus faith becomes a force that allows us to speak prosperity into our lives.
- Prayer is a tool to force God to grant prosperity. Dollar writes, “When we pray, believing that we have already received what we are praying, God has no choice but to make our prayers come to pass. … It is a key to getting results as a Christian.” Thus prayer is little more than a means through which we bring about our desires for wealth.
Al Mohler says it well: “Prosperity theology is a False Gospel. Its message is unbiblical and its promises fail. God never assures his people of material abundance or physical health. Instead, Christians are promised the riches of Christ, the gift of eternal life, and the assurance of glory in the eternal presence of the living God. In the end, the biggest problem with prosperity theology is not that it promises too much, but that it promises far too little. The Gospel of Jesus Christ offers salvation from sin, not a platform for earthly prosperity. While we should seek to understand what drives so many into this movement, we must never for a moment fail to see its message for what it is — a false and failed gospel.”
