Acuña went on to explain her background growing up as a Christian. She “grew up seeing miracles,” she said, explaining, “I thought that was normal.” She also had a wild phase and went through a period of time where she had to evaluate her family’s wealth and the criticism they received from others. It was sometime during or after her late teen years while she was on a mission trip to Africa that she felt God was pursuing her personally.
Acuña said she was never angry at God but felt confused because she knew her father, who was CEO of KCM, as a man of integrity, yet people were criticizing her family. However, Acuña said this tension settled once she first began working for her grandfather and experienced his ministry firsthand. “All the resentment, all of the frustration, all of the confusion went out the window,” she said, “because I saw like, ‘Oh my gosh, we help hundreds of thousands of people, and no one knows, and that’s ok.’”
“So prosperity gospel,” said Oyarzo, “the idea that faith and giving guarantee wealth and healing. How do you personally see this teaching, and do you feel it reflects…your family’s true values?”
“The prosperity gospel is not something that we would title ourselves,” Acuña responded. “It’s something that’s kind of been labeled on us.”
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“The word ‘prosperous’ actually means nothing missing, nothing broken,” said Acuña, “and that is a hill I will die on. We believe that God wants you whole in every area of your life…in your body, in your family, in your finances, with your relationships, at your job.”
“We believe that God wants you to live a prosperous life,” she said. “The love of money is the root of all evil, not money.”
“When people have an issue with the prosperity gospel, they’re going to have an issue with heaven,” Acuña stated, arguing that what she was about to say was not her “grandfather’s doctrine” but is in the Bible itself. “It says heaven is paved with streets of gold and there’s a mansion with your name on it. So when people have an issue with prosperity, they’re not going to really enjoy heaven because it looks very different than earth looks.”
“I believe that God sent Jesus, not so that we could just be saved and have eternal life,” said Acuña, “but so that we could experience heaven on earth, and not just experience heaven one day as this far-off thing.”
“I don’t think God made us here to watch us suffer,” Acuña said at another point in her conversation with Oyarzo. “I really don’t believe that.” She reiterated her view that prosperity encompasses all of life, not just money.
“We always say if the Lord is telling you to give, give. My grandfather would tell you, don’t sow a bad seed…we don’t want it,” she said. “Like, don’t give if you don’t want to give.”
“My grandfather’s life is built on a testimony of” the principle of sowing and reaping, said Acuña. “He was $100,000 in debt. He had nothing to his name and he sowed his way out of that environment.”
