Joel Osteen: Christless "Christianity" (WHI) [4of4]

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

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

Category:

Education

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[lissa99a]

He IS misquoting the bible often!! God DOES keep a sin record on us, and no amount of good erases it. Joel wouldn't know Jesus if He hit him in the head with the good ol KJV!

[zepsticks]

It's so different to just listen to this transcript of what Joel has preached. He's so nice and charming when I am watching him on TV but to just hear the words with my eyes closed, I can hear the deception in there! Joel is USING Jesus. He's a motivational speaker but he represents that he has a church therefore he is exempt from a lot of taxes!!!! Shameful. Do other motivational speakers get those same tax-breaks? No. But God can open anyones ears, sometimes I just gotta close my eyes!!

[Ramissand]

The truth is Joel is right. He comes the closest to what god wants for the world. You focus on Christ alone, because that's all you know. God is much larger that that. Joel sees that, you don't.

[nowjustthinkaboutit]

7:50 - 7:52 That`s what it is, not that everything is just great, that everything is all wonderful and great from a superficial point of view. Not that we are getting "higher and higher" according to our own abbilities and "discipline". But that we can be happy and faithul in god despite our circumsatnces, like Peter in Prison or Job in his suffering!!

Amen!

Thanks guys for this broadcast

[nowjustthinkaboutit]

4:42 - 4:53 hit me !!!!

[SandorClegane1]

@cecilesweet

Amen!

[SandorClegane1]

@SuperFlairbartender

Agreed!

[transformations1]

Also the word "sin" in hebrew means "miss the mark" - it is more like making mistakes and being able to fix them rather than some permanent fixed state (unless one gives up completely) Thats why we have free will - so we can choose to repeat "missing the mark" and sinning or repent and follow a more godly path.

If everyone was predestined to only sin then its a pretty messed up theology - the bible is clear that we have free will and being human will make mistakes and are responsible for those

[transformations1]

@cecilesweet

Your right cecilesweet

The bible can be interpreted in a Joel Olsteen way and the way these critics of Joel preach.

These critics also misquote or pick and choose biblical verses as does Joel.

For example there are promises of abundance and prosperity AS BLESSINGS OF GOD throughout many parts of the bible - as Joel quotes. Of course wealth can be misused and lead to sin - but it isnt sin in itself - wealth and abundance is used as a sign of the Lords blessing and as a warning

[solomon2c7]

The people who founded the church of Rome were not the first Christians. You even said so yourself when you said the first Christians were Jewish. That is correct. The first Christians were Jews. The Church at Rome distorted the Gospel of Jesus Christ and persecuted Jews and Christians for centuries.