“Paging Dr. Pepper!”
So Joel Osteen says that Mormons are Christians.
Yeah. They’re Christians just like Dr. Pepper is a doctor! Like Col. Sanders was a colonel.
Read this transcript from a Fox News story:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,318054,00.html
And Osteen is a preacher like Mr. T is an actor!
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About
Derrick L. Williams is the husband of Kathy, the daddy of Max (hence Maxdaddy), the newborn Diana, and a professional saxophone player with a Christian heart who has strong, sometimes humorous, probably controversial opinions on the state of the world. He attends a multi-racial, doctrinally sound church on purpose (!), and lives in a racially divided, troubled city.
There’s a lot of stuff to gripe about, but the desire is to teach as well as to entertain. He has quite a bit to say, and he has a need for someone to listen.
He loves romance novels by crackling fires, thick wool sweaters, and hot cocoa with marshmallows in it, long walks in cool breezes, poems spoken in soft, whispery voices, and brunches by babbling brooks! HE IS JUST KIDDING!!!
Sorry ’bout the third person!
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2007, Derrick L. Williams All rights reserved. Reproduction in any form without the consent of the author is expressly prohibited.
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Recent Comments
This guy is painfully unbelievable to me. I’d write a check to his organization if he would promise to say Jesus once or twice in his recitations each Sunday.
Derrick
Joel Osteen smiles a lot — and that’s one of the reasons why he gets over. People like “nice” people, who smile.
Look for him to be on Oprah — he’d fit right into her view of spirituality and God. He’s non-confrontational. He doesn’t talk about “sin”. He’s not into “religion”. He’s just…nice and smiley. That’s his “calling”.
Eckhart Tolle and Joel Osteen
AMEN.
Derrick
Hi there just passing through. Very nice blog you have here!
BTW - I’ve never liked Mr. Olsteen, he has an aversion to the name of JESUS. He is nothing more than a motivational speaker.
Hello, Regina! Thanks for looking. Come back often.
Derrick
I find this whole issue very intriguing but also disturbing. Due to some baggage in my childhood, I avoid TV preachers like the plague; but I have actually stopped and watched Olsteen a few times (right after the Potter’s House). His sermons make me feel good - and I’m not a feeler. The ones I watched were theologically consistent (though shallow) and I felt encouraged when it was all over.
But having read through the transcript from Larry King, heard on online interview about his book, and then , it’s hard not to see Olsteen as a fake. Okay, maybe not a fake b/c the sad thing is that I’m not sure if he realizes it. Fake infers that a person is deliberately being deceptive or trying to pretend. I think he is convinced that he is doing what is right – he is that sure of himself. Not to butcher a common phrase but the preachers’ role is to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Olsteen wouldn’t even acknowledge Jesus as THE way, THE truth, and THE light.
The reason I find this intriguing is that it’s hard not to see some good out of his ‘ministry’. Lakewood Live (music) is incredible and having read some of the musician bios (Cindy Cruse-Ratliff and Israel Houghton), these are some solid people. He is bringing some folks back into the Church that have drifted away and reached many who said they would never go to church. If the litmus test is “fruit”, his ministry certainly appears to have fruit from an outsiders perspective.
On the other hand, go to the main website: or . After you make your way through all the national PR spots, stuff for sale, donation links, podcasts, and book promos - you can find your way to ABOUT US, next to last link near the bottom (right above EMPLOYMENT but below five other choices) - you get to OUR BELIEFS. It’s the shortest page on the website. I find that troubling for a church website. I’m not trying to be mean here nor try to dictate what a website should look like but as someone who moves around quite a bit and tries to find churches online, the BELIEFS section is the most important section and says a lot about a church.
What is more disturbing to me personal as a philomath, Olsteen dismisses his own ignorance of Mormonism with a smile. The clear danger of knowledge is that “knowledge puffs up” (1 Corinth 8:1b), but deliberate ignorance of the Word and other religions is irresponsible; especially as a pastor of over 30,000 people!
[OSTEEN: I probably don't get hung up in them because I haven't really studied them or thought about them. And you know, I just try to let God be the judge of that. I mean, I don't know. I certainly can't say that I agree with everything that I've heard about it, but from what I've heard from Mitt, when he says that Christ is his savior, to me that's a common bond.]
I’m thinking of a song, it goes something like: No, No, No you don’t, Don’t you preach that way …
… so who is going with me on the 6th to see him at the FEDEX FORUM? Just kidding.
Bones
The website I refer to got cut-off. Here it is:
http://www.biblebelievers.com/watkins_olsteen/osteen.html
Man - the other websites were cut off too. I gotta work on my bloggin’ schkills:
http://www.lakewood.cc or http://www.joelolsteen.com
I just stumbled across your blog, I find it interesting and thought challenging, I don’t necessarily agree with you. About Joel Osteen….I think that believer’s need to hear different messages about the love of God. Not every preacher’s message needs to be the same. We all have different gifts according to God’s purpose.
Thanks, Robin, for reading. My problem with Osteen is not that his message is different, but that it is considered by so many to be the Gospel! He himself has claimed a lack of fundamental knowledge of Scripture, and has been unwilling to take firm stands on basic essential doctrines as we are all as Christians told to do.