How do you Spell Success?

“The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey is so popular that many evangelicals use it as a blueprint for disciples. How many, I wonder, are aware that Covey’s Mormon faith underlies his success-building philosophy? It is called the doctrine of “eternal progression”—an upward-spiraling development of the human soul that spells success and perfection, and leads to one's own deity.

Why has this self-help, you-can-be-a-better person view point found such wide acceptance among evangelicals? Is it because it fits better into what they would like to believe? One thing I have observed is that those who expound on messages of success seldom teach the harder things of discipleship—like brokenness, suffering, humility, or delay. An unbiblical view of success and prosperity has the potential to do more damage to one's faith than almost any other misunderstood doctrine.

Shall we Impeach Joel Osteen?

Last week $600,000 was stolen from Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church. Some of Joel’s antagonists have already begun to turn this into another opportunity to impeach his character. While his teachings may be dangerously vacuous, slandering him is not an option: “Let all wrath and anger and slander be put away from you, along with all malice” (Eph. 4:31).

As troubled as I am by Joel's teachings, I believe he is a brother who is greatly deceived. John says, “How can you say you love God, if you hate your brother?” (1 John 4:20). Even to those who are disobedient to the Word, Paul counsels: “Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother” (2 Thess. 3:15). Any censure of Joel Osteen will have to follow this biblical rule of ‘etiquette.’

So let us pray for Joel as we would a brother, that he will realize the opportunities afforded him, and the consequent responsibility to “accurately handle the Word” (2 Tim. 2:15)—to fulfill the mandate of every teacher, to “present every man and woman complete (mature) in Christ” (Col 1:28).  

“The OSTEENification of American Christianity.”

Hank Hanegraaff of CRI has published a book, “The OSTEENification of American Christianity” in which he calls Joel Osteen the “provocateur of a seductive brand of Christianity that reduces God to a means to our ends… a fast-food Christianity that’s long on looks but dreadfully short on substance.”

“Why give so much attention to Joel Osteen; isn’t he harmless?” you say. Think about this. Joel Osteen is THE public face of evangelical Christianity. Not only the leader of America’s largest church, he is the most listened to preacher on the planet. His influence is almost unparalleled.

Joel's message is not pure Gospel, but a politically correct, inclusive, positive-thinking philosophical mix which non-Christians, even Buddhists and Hindus, find appealing. How unlike the exacting call of Jesus, who thinned out the crowds with His “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me” (Lk 9:23). Jesus' call to self-denial has been Osteenified into believe in yourself.