Joel Osteen: Christless "Christianity" | Full Version (White Horse Inn)

(This is the full version of the previous four videos posted here for your convenience.)

White Horse Inn
January 20, 2008 Commentary:
Joel Osteen: A Case Study in American Religion

Hello and welcome to another broadcast of the White Horse Inn where we are launching our new year-long series, "Christless Christianity: The American Captivity of the Church." In the last two programs we looked at Christless Christianity in general and Crossless Christianity which is really the heart of the problem as we are assessing it here. And then in this program we want to take a look at a specific example of what we are talking about. We realize an extreme example, but it does reflect a wider tendency and drift towards Christless Christianity that probably evangelicals would not have been attracted to in the 30s and 40s and 50s but today Joel Osteen is now considered an Evangelical leader.

If Charles Finney's legacy helps us to understand how we arrived at the current crisis, Joel Osteen the Pastor of Lakewood church in Houston, Texas may be the clearest example in contemporary American religion. Name it/claim it, heath and wealth, or prosperity gospel, these are nicknames for a heresy that in many respects is an extreme version of perhaps the most typical focus of American Christianity today more generally. Basically God's there for you and your happiness. He has some rules, and principles for getting what you want out of life and if you follow them you can have what you want. Just declare it and prosperity will come to you. Although explicit proponents of the so-called "prosperity gospel" may be fewer than their influence suggests, its big names and best-selling authors, T.D. Jakes, Benny Hinn, Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyer are purveyors of a pagan world-view with a peculiarly American flavor. Its basically what Martin Luther called the "theology of glory." How can I climb the ladder and attain the glory here and now that God has actually promised for us after a life of suffering. The contrast is the "theology of the cross." The story of God's merciful descent to us at great personal cost, the message the Apostle Paul acknowledged was offensive and foolishness to Greeks.

Every few years a religions best-seller sweeps the nation with the message of self-help. Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive-Thinking, Robert Schuller's TV ministry and series of best-sellers, Bruce Wilkinson's The Prayer of Jabez, and other sensations have come and gone. Each time the media treats the appearance of a work in this vein as though it were a new phenomenon, but the success of this genre has long been established. The attractions of Americans to this version of the glory story is evident in the astonishing success of Joel Osteen's runaway best-seller Your Best Life Now: Seven Steps to Living at Your Full Potential and the sequel, the recently released Become a Better You. Beyond his charming personality and folksy style, Osteen's phenomenal attraction is no doubt related to his simple and soothing sampler of the American gospel--a blend of Christian and cultural elements that he picked up not through any formal training but as the son of Baptist, turned prosperity evangelist, who was a favorite on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. However, gone are the eccentric caricatures of prosperity tele-evangelism with it flamboyant style and over the top rhetoric, and bad hair. At least in the televised broadcasts of his services there are no healing lines with people falling or fainting when the preacher blows on them. He doesn't send blessed prayer cloths or speak endlessly of sowing seed in his ministry in order to reap their desired miracle.

The pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, which now owns the Compaq Center, and is now the largest church in America does not come across as a flashing evangelist with jets and yachts , but as a charming next door neighbor who always has something nice to say. However Joel Osteen is definitely a leader of a new generation of prosperity evangelists. His explicit drumbeat of health and wealth, or word-faith teaching is communicated in the terms and the ambiance that might be difficult to distinguish from most mega-churches and other seeker driven ministries. In this broadcast we are going to take a look at Joel Osteen as an example of that increasing creeping fog that we are calling Christless Christianity.


You can read Michael Horton's review of Osteen's Become a Better You here:
http://tinyurl.com/2mm5vp

This is posted with permission of the White Horse Inn. For more information about this program or other programs, visit: http://www.whitehorseinn.org

Category:

Education

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• Joel
• Osteen
• Christless
• Christianity
• Michael
• Horton
• White
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[AdriAkaAdrika]

how dare you take Jesus out??????

[lilmoepal]

he dose not preach the gospel that that Jesus or the apostles preached, Paul said if anyone comes to you preaching a different gospel dont listen to it. He preaches prosperity which Jesus did not

[justin6686]

@Yaweh247 well after reading what you wrote i feel like im inclined to say you sound like a crazy person to me. im not sorry thats what i feel. PRAY EVERYBODY "true"...I have nothing against Joel and he marketed himself very well to accomplish what he has done to spread the word of "your" lord and savior and all that stuff. so if he has money he is evil. if he wants people to better themselves he is evil. if he wants you to be happy he is evil. nothing about that makes any sense.

[24kobe4ever]

its also funny how he preaches and gives advice to other people on how to live their lives, when he was a college drop out and received no higher education regarding religion....so then he goes on to become a lecturer on this matter of living a prosperous life... sound contradictory?

[24kobe4ever]

If u r a true christian u will have enough faith to block out your wants and desires on this planet because u r reassured that their is a heaven... but I think too many people are not 100% on board that their is a place called Heaven so therefore they tend to focus all their energy for being secure in this world

[24kobe4ever]

Also he portraying a false sense of what God wants in his books... he focuses on material objects and about prospering on this planet and having your desires met....thats devilish... this world is meant as a test to see how faithful u r to God....so in reality nothing else matters except loving other human beings, respecting nature, and living with your necessities not ur wants....Heaven is the place where u will live an abundant life... why focus on that here... its not meant to be

[24kobe4ever]

he doesn't have to force anyone to buy his books.... because people will buy it .... the desperate people who just wanna to hear something upbeat which I don't have a problem with but to use that as a money making scheme with God as the foundation of that is wrong... if he really was sincere he wouldn't charge anything for the book... yea some of that money would have to come out of his pocket and he knows that so its not beneficial for him... hes just greedy...

[danimel2]

@CosmicInglewood who gives a fuck!

[CosmicInglewood]

@danimel2 did God appoint you to be the Judge of others? Do you know Joel and what Joel does with the money he makes? Do you know his story? Do you know enough about him to cast a balanced judgment? Who appointed you the director of who goes to heaven or hell? Try seeing other people through eye of love, not eye of hatred - judgement and condemnation. Other people will reflect what you emit; if you are kind & nice, others will reflect this; if you spew hatred you push other people away from God

[CosmicInglewood]

@skudaarkaat1 no one is forced to buy his books or other for profit media productions: he encourages his followers to read their bibles and the word of God. Sure income inequity is an injustice that he will have to answer for. No one is perfect. He is not the only person that lives in a home like that and not all really wealthy people are greedy or evil: some of them inherited it/ others marry the wealth, some win in the lottery. God tells us to look at other people through eyes of love not hate