The Smiley Face Preacher (Otherwise Known as Joel Osteen)

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Last evening (Sunday, October 14th) I watched some of 60 Minutes, a show I rarely view anymore.  The reason I did this was because I saw it would have a piece on Joel Osteen, Senior Pastor of America’s largest “church,” otherwise know as Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas.  If you didn’t see the feature, I suggest you go here to watch it on the official CBS 60 Minutes site so you can see firsthand what I am referring to in this post.  You might also want to check out my previous post on Mr. Osteen here, which refers to his new book Become a Better You being featured on a recent catalogue from Christian Book Distributors.

Back to the TV program . . . the interviewer, Byron Pitts, certainly knew more about religion and faith than many other reporters I have seen on network programs, and I think he did a pretty good job challenging Osteen on several fronts.  But before I get into the negatives (you just knew I would go there even after my last post), let me say that it is a good thing that Osteen doesn’t solicit money on his TV broadcasts.  This is to be commended.  There are too many hucksters out there who give Christianity a bad name by their constant calls for cash.

Of course, just because he doesn’t ask for money, doesn’t make Osteen any less of a huckster.  Maybe he has figured out that you can get more money by not asking for it directly - a fact attested to in the 60 Minutes piece when it was reported that the broadcast brought in $30 million out of a total of $73 million raised last year by his ministry.  Osteen has also obviously learned how to milk people out of their money by selling them his repackaged, pop psychology, and basically Christ-less messages in book form, first in his book Your Best Life Now, which sold over 4 million copies, and now in his second book Become a Better You.  Osteen reportedly received a $13 million advance for this piece of self-help garbage, which again, has a few scripture references but is notably lacking in the Christian themes of suffering , dying to self, and carrying the cross.

All of that aside, I was struck by several things Osteen had to say.  First of all he said that he was a preacher who doesn’t feel qualified to explain the scripture to people.  He feels that is best left for others to do.  What?????  The pastor of America’s largest church doesn’t have the skills to explain scripture to his congregation and others who are listening to him week in and week out?  This statement alone should make anyone within the sound of Osteen’s voice to get up and run as far away from the man as possible.  While some may feel this is an example of Osteen’s humility, to me it strikes at the heart of why no Christian in his or her right mind should listen to or read anything Osteen has to say or write.

Another thing that he said was that he works on his sermon from Wednesday morning to Saturday evening.  It is no wonder that he comes off as such a polished and entertaining speaker (please note that I did not say preacher).  Obviously, his “message” is the be all and end all of what he does at Lakewood Church.  Any real pastor spending that much time on sermon preparation and writing would have absolutely no time whatsoever for any of the hundreds of other tasks that he or she must carry out every week, like pastoral care, administration, teaching, and the like.  Sadly, many of Osteen’s listeners wonder why the pastor at their local church can’t preach like Osteen preaches.  I will tell you why:  local pastors cannot and should not spend that much time working on their sermons, not when there are many, many other facets to their work in the church.

Finally, Osteen states that people come to Lakewood Church who have not been in church for over 30 years.  It is my opinion that even after they have come to Lakewood, they have still not been to church, at least not the church that Christ and the Holy Spirit founded and created almost 2000 years ago.

Now don’t get me wrong, Osteen strikes me as a charming, aw shucks kind of guy.  He even appears to be humbled by and amazed at his success.  The trouble is, I can’t tell if he is just really, really naive or if it is all an act; the act of a superb showman doing what he does best . . . sell himself.

Osteen does have his supporters.  Obviously, there are the millions of people who buy his books and watch his TV show, but even a few bloggers are supportive towards him, most notably Greg Horton at the blog the parish, who both strikes a sympathetic tone towards Osteen while also aiming his insights directly at Osteen’s critics:

Joel came off as nice, if a bit wide-eyed. The scene where they are checking out the shifting colors of the ceiling is classic: “Isn’t that neat?” Neat? Who says neat anymore? I can’t decide if that’s really Joel, which is to say he’s a rube that made it big, or if he’s one of the best actors around. . . .  And yes, he’s gotten rich off the ministry. This strikes me as a degree of culpability issue though. I’m not sure how pastors who routinely make 50, 80, or 100 thousand or more a year get to criticize a guy who’s making ten times that. If you’re living off the church and you’re making twice the annual salary of an average parishioner, you might as well put down your stone.

Joel practices the great American religion: entertainment. Sometimes entertainment is transformative, sometimes it’s banal. Christians can criticize him all they want for watering down the Gospel, preaching prosperity, or being a heretic, but the bottom line is he’s doing what most of their churches are doing; he’s just doing it better. Entertainment has become the water in which the church worship machine swims. If Joel does it better, learn from him. Quit crying about it. If you think entertainment is awful, stop playing the game. Churches aren’t going to do that though; it would cost them too many members. Think of it like a sports metaphor: if Joel is the top of the BCS rankings, don’t bitch about him because your church isn’t in the top 25. You’re playing the same game; he’s just better.

You will find a much more negative view of Osteen and his shenanigans at the blog from Michael Spencer at internetmonk, who among other things writes:

As much as I would like to join those who say that Osteen is a simpleton who doesn’t know what he’s doing, a close examination will show that at every point where there is a choice between being part of the church or departing into heresy, Osteen sticks with the church where there is money to be had and departs from the church where there is a faith to be confessed. He’s a heretic, even if he is a believer, and he communicates a purposefully false trivialization of the person and work of Jesus Christ in favor of a man-centered motivational message of self-improvement.

and

Osteen’s tears of gratitude over being part of “changed lives” shouldn’t erase the fact that he is responsible for the spiritual delusion of millions, and his dressed up denial of the Biblical Gospel will be judged for the lie that it is on the day of judgement. I’ve got hundreds of letters from people telling me that IM essays “changed” or “helped” them. Send me 73 million bucks and I’ll be grateful, too.

From my own limited perspective, I tend to agree more with Spencer on the issue.  I don’t see what Osteen is doing as being a game or any sort.  It is deadly serious to deceive people with a false gospel, which is exactly what I think Joel Osteen does.  And I agree wholeheartedly with this assessment of Osteen found here:

Osteen’s critics say he’s soft, a cotton-candy preacher who specializes in Christianity lite.  “He’s a nice guy,” said Ole Anthony, president of Trinity Foundation in Dallas, a nonprofit watchdog group that investigates televangelists. “But his popularity is a testimony of the spiritual infantilism of American culture. … He isn’t challenging people with the cross. He’s qualified to be an excellent spiritual kindergarten teacher.”

Is this the kind of person you want running any church, let alone the nation’s largest?

On a funnier note, I direct you to a piece in The Wittenburg Door about Osteen, which can be found here.

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