Televangelist Frederick KC Price, founder of Crenshaw Christian Center, dies from COVID-19 at 89
Frederick K.C. Price, the founder of the 28,000-member Crenshaw Christian Center in California, has died weeks after contracting the coronavirus.
“Our Husband, Father & your Apostle has gone to be w/ the Lord this evening,” the Los Angeles-basedtelevangelist’s family announced Friday night.
“We accept his decision to go as he got a glimpse of glory a few weeks ago. We are sad. Please allow us some time to process. He fought the good fight of faith & laid hold of eternal life.”
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Price and his wife, Betty, both tested positive for the coronavirus in early January.
Last week, Crenshaw Christian Center took to social media to state that Price continued to “face health challenges posed by COVID-19.” The ministry urged people to pray for the complete restoration of his “lungs, heart and kidneys and any other parts of his body” that were “under attack” as he spent weeks in the hospital.
“To borrow a phrase from history, Apostle Price ‘slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God,’” Minister Baltimore Scott, the staff administrator for the center’s New York operations, wrote in a statement. “We can all take comfort in knowing that Apostle Price is now in his place in glory that is beyond human description and beyond the peace that passes all understanding.”
Kenneth Copeland, a fellow televangelist who leads the Texas-based Kenneth Copeland Ministries, had said two days earlier that he didn’t believe the virus would 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,” he wrote on Facebook last Wednesday.
“The first time I heard Fred Price in person was in Tulsa, Oklahoma,” Copeland added. “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!”
On Saturday, Copeland explained on Facebook that he was contacted by Price’s daughter and told of his passing.
“The wonderful Apostle of God is looking his precious Savior face to face,” Copeland said. “He’s there with his spiritual fathers, Kenneth and Oretha Hagin, Oral and Evelyn Roberts and list goes on and on.”
“Gloria and I will certainly miss him,” he added. “Our love to Betty, the entire Price family and Crenshaw Christian Center.”
Price is survived by his wife, four children, 10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
The Crenshaw Christian Church, also known as the “FaithDome,” was founded by Price in 1973. In 1989, the church opened its $9 million facility — a geodesic dome in South-Central Los Angeles — with a seating capacity of over 10,000.
Price, a proponent of the prosperity gospel, was also known for his Ever Increasing Faith Ministries television broadcast that started in 1978.
Price authored over 50 books touching on subjects like prosperity, healing and faith. Price founded the Frederick K.C. Price III Christian Schools, the Ministry Training Institute and the Fellowship of Inner-City Word of Faith Ministries.
