An article posted at the MinistryWatch.Com raises some important questions about the ministry and message of Joel Osteen of Lakewood Church, America's largest congregation.
Here are a few highlights from the article:
Michael Horton, a professor at Westminster Theological Seminary writes. “God is not
the center of his theology,” says Horton. “The center is me and my happiness.”
Horton says Osteen “trivializes the Christian faith” on a number of levels. “First he
trivializes God by making Him out to be some sort of cosmic bellhop, as if God exists for
us instead of us existing for Him,” says Horton. “Secondly, he trivializes the Bible by
turning it into a collection of fortune cookies to be opened and used for whatever we
want. And thirdly, he trivializes human beings and their real problems by trivializing
sin.”
“The biggest danger for believers who listen to Osteen is that they will not grow in their spiritual life with the Lord Jesus Christ,” says Robert Liichow of Discernment Minstry International. “It’s like eating spiritual Twinkies. They’re sweet, light and taste good, but a steady diet of them will stunt your growth and rot you from the inside out.”
Read the full article here.
I have listened to Osteen a few times and have come away with some of the same criticisms as Horton and Liichow. As a pastor in the Reformed Church in America, I have sadly too much experience with our own Robert Schuller of the Crystal Catherdral and his "Positive Thinking" message. And as Dr. Schuller nears retirement, it appears that the mantle has been passed to Joel Osteen. That is not a good thing...
FYI - A great review of Osteen's book can be found here.
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