Kenneth Copeland doesn’t believe coronavirus can kill televangelist friend Frederick KC Price
After a weekslong bout with COVID-19 left famed televangelist Frederick K.C. Price hospitalized with a ravaged heart, lungs and kidneys, sparking a global call for prayers, fellow televangelist Kenneth Copeland said he doesn’t believe the virus will kill his longtime friend.
“For almost 50 years, Fred and Betty Price have been wonderful friends of our family. We have laughed together, cried together, and preached together. We’ve stayed in each other’s homes and have watched each other’s children grow up! We have truly lived life together,” Copeland said in a statement on Facebook urging prayers for Price Wednesday.
“The first time I heard Fred Price in person was in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He ran onto the platform and shouted, ‘I am ready Freddy!’ What a man of God! What a man of faith and power! I don’t believe this disease can kill him. We as a family, and ministry, are standing strong for Apostle Frederick Price!” said Copeland, who leads the Texas-based Kenneth Copeland Ministries.
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Price, 89, founded the 28,000-member Los Angeles-based Crenshaw Christian Center, which is led by his son, Fred Price Jr.
An announcement from Minister Baltimore Scott, the staff administrator for the center's New York operations, shared concerns about Price’s health Sunday, along with a global call for prayer.
“Today, I am calling on all members and friends of Crenshaw Christian Center New York and on everyone everywhere who has been touched by the teaching of Apostle Frederick K.C. Price to join in a worldwide prayer for the Apostle as he faces the health challenges posed by COVID-19. Specifically, we need to pray for the complete restoration of Apostle’s lungs, heart and kidneys and any other parts of his body that are now under attack as he remains in the hospital,” Scott said in a statement on Facebook.
Since the statement released Sunday, Crenshaw Christian Center has not provided any additional updates on Price’s condition and did not immediately respond to requests for further comment from The Christian Post.
Price, who is also well-known from his Ever Increasing Faith ministries broadcast, aired weekly on both television and radio, has been a force in Christian circles for decades. His church, also known as the Faithdome, was founded in 1973. And with a seating capacity of 10,000, the church building is recognized as one of the world’s largest houses of worship.
Price, who is a proponent of the prosperity gospel, was once described as a “darling of white evangelical prosperity preachers” and branded a “religious Uncle Tom.”
All that changed in 1992, after a group of black ministers gave him a recording of a controversial sermon on race preached by Kenneth Hagin Jr., the son of his mentor, Kenneth Hagin, who died in 2003.
On the recording, Hagin Jr. was caught telling his congregation that he did not believe in race-mixing, and had taught his daughter from her kindergarten years that she was not to date blacks.
That led Price to become more involved with development in the black community and he went teach a series on racism and published Race, Religion & Racism, Vol. 1: A Bold Encounter With Division in the Church in 1999.
