Prosperity gospel and investing fraud in church

I've previously mentioned the prosperity gospel, which is a semi-pejorative term applied to the Word of Faith movement within charismatic and pentecostal churches. Word of Faith's roots can be traced to EW Kenyon, a New Zealand preacher who taught that good health and finances were the right of every believer who would claim the promises of scripture. Kenyon claimed God's promises were realized by our believing and verbally confessing the relevant scriptures, and thus he coined the phrase, "What I confess, I possess." (This is taken from the wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_gospel) Physical healing is said to be available to all who believe, frequently justified by Isaiah 53:5: "By his stripes we are healed." Teachings on prosperity are taken from 2 Corinthians 8:9 "Yet for your sakes he became poor, that you by his poverty might become rich" (2 Corinthians 8:9).

I believe that the Word of Faith movement lifts random passages out of the Bible and inflates them out of context. They teach that if you love God enough, God can heal you. Just to give one example, there are probably millions of devout Christians who are gay, and who have prayed to God to change their sexual orientation. Rates of success in conversion therapy are either zero or very low, so we can assume that in the majority of cases God did not change their sexual orientation. Did they not love God enough? Did God not love them enough?

I recently came across a story in which charlatans wormed their way into churches, and asked the congregation to invest in ventures that were "blessed by God." Believers were promised that their money would double, and that some of the proceeds were to be donated to the church. The con artists went to the pastors first, made large donations, and gained their confidence. The North American Securities Administrators Association estimates that from 1998 to 2001, $2 billion was swindled from churches.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/religion/stories/081406dnbizfleecing.4e7649b.html

Those who teach a gospel of superstition, that God will reward you just because you're a Christian, will be especially vulnerable to fraud that plays on religion. Of course, everyone is vulnerable to fraud; an ex-treasurer of the Episcopal Church embezzled a million dollars or so, and I hear that at trial she attempted to blame her actions on sexism. It's a sad commentary on human nature...