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An Open Letter to Joel Osteen

June 01, 2011 by Greg Garrett

Continued from Page 1

But I'm not just upset about the bad theology of a God who works like an ATM, I'm also upset about the way that you and others preaching "your best life now" have defined that life almost exclusively in the terms our secular society suggests for success. Instead of making Christianity a counter-cultural religion pushing back against society's mania for wealth and acquisitions and individualism, you've allowed faith to be co-opted by the powers and principalities.

You want a house? Pray for it.

You want more money? Be faithful and God will give it to you.

This focus on money and temporal things is also bad theology—and perhaps even more pernicious, because it gives religious sanction for people to buy into the most un-Christian aspects of our culture. Jesus didn't preach wealth, possessions, or prestige; his teachings, and his life, suggested the precise opposite. In fact, this person most faithful, most in tune with God's will, lived in poverty and died in pain, so why on earth should we imagine that God will give us what we want when we have only a fraction of Jesus' faith?

No. It doesn't compute. As the late comic Sam Kinison—himself once a charismatic pastor—might say if he were still around (and don't watch this if you're easily offended), if Jesus were to show up at the door of Lakewood Church, I think you'd have reason to be very, very nervous, Mr. Osteen.

I know that your church helps people in the community, and that you have given hope and encouragement to a lot of people, and I respect that.

But I feel a whole lot more comfortable when you're identified as the nation's most prominent inspirational speaker rather than when you're tagged as a preacher, Christian leader, or theological expert. What you preach Sunday after Sunday about how God works may make people feel good, but it doesn't reflect the reality of many faithful people's lives, and it certainly doesn't reflect what I learned in seminary and in the Church about the reality of Jesus' life and message.

So spread your message of hope and optimism as widely as you like. Nothing I could say, write, or do would slow the Osteen juggernaut anyway.

But please, please, don't tell people that your spiritual message of hope and financial reward is God's holy word for their lives. God is in the business of love, joy, and hope, but that actually has very little to do with cars, houses, or bank accounts. As Matthew 6 reminds us, we're called not to invest in treasures of this world, but in those things that are everlasting and eternal, the things of God.

And anyway, as Don Henley sang, You don't see no hearses with luggage racks.

Page: 2 of 2

6/1/2011 4:00:00 AM

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About Greg Garrett

Greg Garrett is (according to BBC Radio) one of America's leading voices on religion and culture. He is the author or co-author of over twenty books of fiction, theology, cultural criticism, and spiritual autobiography. His most recent books are The Prodigal, written with the legendary Brennan Manning, Entertaining Judgment: The Afterlife in Popular Imagination, and My Church Is Not Dying: Episcopalians in the 21st Century. A contributor to Patheos since 2010, Greg also writes for the Huffington Post, Salon.com, OnFaith, The Tablet, Reform, and other web and print publications in the US and UK.

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