Joel Osteen: The Man and His Dangerous Message

                            

                                                         by Dan Syrdal

There is a disturbing trend pandemic in American Christianity today. It is a gospel that really is no gospel at all. Turn on Christian television and look at the covers of books in the Christianity section of your local Barnes and Noble. You will find pastors the country over declaring "God's best" for you and how to receive God's favor. Health, financial prosperity, bolstered self-esteem--it can all be yours.  And God promises to give it to you! Pastors have turned from teaching the Bible to giving self-esteem primers with Bible verses cherry-picked in order to highlight their messages. The feel-good messages are not about dying to self and following Jesus but becoming the very best person you can for the glory of God. The trend sweeping this nation is one that features a gospel where it is not about God but about us and what we can get from God. And as long as it feels good and makes us feel warm about ourselves, we're all for it. 

The de facto high priest of this ear-tickling mumbo-jumbo is a man named Joel Osteen, known as the most powerful force in Christianity today. It is a disturbing trend that reaches heretical proportions and Joel Osteen is one of the prime purveyors of this feel-good, gospel-lite, syrupy-sweet version of the Christian message. The only difference with Osteen is that he peppers his self-improvement message with flowery biblical rhetoric that seductively draws in his listeners.  In this article I will focus on Osteen's message and demonstrate that his brand of the gospel is false, while highlighting his public statements, his faulty Scriptural exegesis, and his overall influence as America's most dangerous preacher. Let me commence with a short introduction on this man.

                                                 The Man Behind The Message

People magazine laud Osteen as the biggest of all prosperity preachers (and all preachers in general)--"twice as big as the nearest competitor". With his wife Victoria he pastors the 40,000+ member Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas. He has also authored a slew of bestselling books, including Your Best Life Now (2004) and Become a Better You: Seven Keys to Improving Your Life Everyday (2007). His net worth has been estimated at $40 million. He also lives in a $10.5 million, 17,000 square foot home with six bedrooms, six bathrooms, three elevators, five fireplaces, a guest house and a pool house. He owns other properties as well. It has been reported that he stopped taking a $200,000 annual salary from Lakewood Church in 2005.  He receives an estimated one billion impressions per month on Facebook and Twitter.  It is clear that he is very successful in what he does and is enormously popular the world over.  During his sermons he flashes a million dollar smile filled with shimmering pearly white teeth and an infectious demeanor. The people in his congregation seem to hang on his every word with glazed-over eyes. To some, he is royalty; to others he is infuriating. But let's be real: the man is reaching people.  He's also making lots and lots of money.  But what is he reaching them with? Let's take a look.

The other night when I was flipping through the channels on my roommate's television, I came across Osteen giving one of his sermons. I took note as he pontificated slews of ultra-positive proclamations.  "Prophesy good things over your future," he exhorted. "Say to yourself, "I'm not getting fat, I'm not getting bald. Keep calling yourself healthy, talented, beautiful, every morning. You're words will become your reality." 

 

After listening to this, I caught myself asking: Does Joel Osteen really believe that speaking the right words will prevent a future bout with male pattern baldness? Osteen went on to instruct his congregation (and the whole world of Christian television viewers) to "prophesy to their checkbooks", just like the prophet Ezekiel prophesied to the dead bones in the book that bears his name. As he always does, he proceeded to deliver anecdotes and examples of people whose stories are relevant to his sermon message. Sprinkled in are verses and examples from the Bible. And yes, I mean sprinkled.  Lightly.                                                                                                                                    

                                                     The Message
 

Osteen's landslide bestseller, "Your Best Life Now", gives a myriad of examples of Osteen's teaching. It's basic message is how to achieve happiness by getting what you want out of life and developing "your full potential." Over and over again he says that the ultimate goal is fulfilling your destiny and he defines happiness and success in terms of temporal, earthly blessings; you know: a better job, a better house, a stronger marriage, better health--and yes, even a better parking spot at the mall (!)  How does one achieve such blessings? Osteen says it is through positive thinking.  

"To experience this immeasurable favor," he writes, "you must rid yourself of that small-minded thinking and start expecting God's blessings...you must make room for increase in your own thinking, then God will bring those things to pass."  

He coins this method "declaring God's favor," claiming that even the most mundane circumstances of life will reap blessings if one declares that favor. For example, say you are in a crowded restaurant and you are in a hurry.  Osteen suggests speaking to that circumstance: "Father, I thank You that I have favor with this hostess and she's going to seat me soon." 
On the flip side, Osteen also emphasizes the negative, saying, "We're going to get exactly what we're saying. And this can be good or it can be bad." 

 

One illustration of the bad one can get is provided when Osteen quotes one of his favorite Scriptures, Proverbs 6:2: "you have been trapped by what you have said, ensnared by the words of your mouth." In this illustration, he tells a story about a "kind and friendly" worker at the church, who died at an early age. Osteen contends that the man died because he was  "ensnared by the words of his mouth." Using this verse in this context is unbelievably negligent of Osteen, who makes a regular practice of using the Scriptures to communicate whatever he wants. Proverbs 6 has nothing to do with making negative confessions that curse your life, but everything to do with a divine warning against making rash pledges. And yet he callously blames a man for his own death because he wasn't speaking "life-filled" words.  This, my friends, is dangerous ground to tread upon. And yet Osteen gets away with it, time and time again. And the sad fact about Your Best Life Now is that except for a couple short chapters at the end of the book, there is no presentation of the gospel for his lost readers. Osteen acknowledges that the book's title and subtitle are devoid of Christian language, but he says it's for a good reason:  

 

"I don't want to just preach to the church, and I just feel like I have a broader message," he told Beliefnet.com. "I'd like to think I can help everyday people who don't necessarily go to church."

                                                         The Roots of the Message

As should be evident already, Osteen must give the Gospel a low priority because he is a leading proponent of two aberrant doctrines, which, because of how they work, undermine God’s sovereignty and the Gospel itself: The self-esteem gospel and Word of Faith theology. And let me tell you, Word of Faith theology is nothing new. It has been preached for years by a slew of false teachers including Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, and Benny Hinn, who for years have propagated the idea that faith is a force, words are containers of the force, and through the force of faith mankind can speak into existence his health and wealth.  And behind the history of this brand of "theology", there is a darker secret. It is nothing more than a baptized version of what are known as "New Thought Metaphysics". Many, many Christians don't know this. New Thought Metaphysics found its beginnings over a century before the Faith movement took hold within the Christian church. The father of New Thought, Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802-1866), taught that sickness and suffering have their origin in incorrect thinking. His followers held that man could created his own reality through the power of positive affirmation, or "confession". Adherents are taught to visualize health and wealth and confess them with their mouths so that these "intangible images may be transformed into tangible realities". Sound familiar? Thus, much of the theology of Osteen and the Word-Faith movement can also be found in the blatantly pseudo-Christian cults such as Religious Science, Unity School of Christianity, and Christian Science.

Chillingly, on the other side of all of the "positive" confession inherent in New Thought, there is a darker dimension. The idea is that while you can reap positive rewards and blessings through positive self-talk, you can also curse your life and give birth to negativity--yes, even death--through what I have heard some Christians coin "death-talk". This is a thoroughly unbiblical concept popularized by Osteen and his ilk before him. But while Osteen and others propagate a sanitized  version of these constructs, there are other contemporary proponents of them who are not Christians and very well could be considered New-Agers. A case in point is Rhonda Byrne, author of the runaway bestseller The Secret. In her book Byrne says many of the same things Osteen does regarding positive confession, but she is also not shy about demonstrating the darker flip-side of it. In pointing out events in history "where masses of lives were lost", she says, 

“If people believe they can be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they have no control over outside circumstances, those thoughts of fear, separation, and powerlessness, if persistent, can attract them to being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”  She emphatically concludes, “Nothing can come into your experience unless you summon it through persistent thoughts.”  

 Like Byrne, Osteen describes the horrific genocide of nearly one million Rwandans as being due to the wrong thoughts and words. Wherever tragedy strikes, it is thoughts and words that are to blame.
In Your Best Life Now, Osteen explains his theology in unbelievably similar terms as Byrne:  

 

"You have to begin speaking words of faith over your life. Your words have enormous creative power. The moment you speak something out you give birth to it. This is a spiritual principle, and it works whether what you are saying is good or bad, positive or negative." 

 

 Osteen and Word-Faith preachers like him have attempted to sanitize the metaphysical concept of the "power of the mind" by substituting it with the "force of faith".  This is so incredibly evident when we consider what H. Emilie Cady of the Unity School of Christianity claims: "our affirming, backed by faith, is the link that connects our conscious human need with His power and supply." She then adds that "there is power in our word of faith to bring all good things right into our everyday life." If one cannot perceive the utter carbon-copy similarity between this cultic, metaphysical woo-woo and Joel Osteen's declaration of the force of faith that "creates one's destiny", I can find no hope for that person.


                                                Scripture Prostitution  
As we now look at how Osteen uses and misuses Scripture, let me outline a classic example of his ineptitude (or just dishonesty) as he interprets the fall of Adam in the Garden of Eden. In his view, Adam's offense was not rebellion against God but rather believing Satan's suggestion that there might be something wrong with him. Huh? Writes Osteen,  

"Back in the Garden of Eden, after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they hid. In the cool of the day, God came to them and said, "Adam, Eve, where are you?" They said, "God, we're hiding because we are naked." I love the way God answered them. He said, "Adam, who told you that you were naked?" In other words, "Who told you that something was wrong with you?" 

From Osteen's angle, he perverts the Scripture to suit his Word-Faith theology. He says that God is saying to us, "Who told you that you don't have what it takes to succeed?" To get good grades, to flourish in your career, to have a good marriage, to get a promotion, and so on." This "interpretation" is just embarrassing at best and shameful at worst.
At the risk of sounding overtly polemical, I must emphasize that in this instance, Osteen is as subtle as Satan. As Satan twists and has twisted God's words for many a millennia, so does Osteen. In this subtlety, he omits the key part of the text that gives it it's ultimate meaning. "And God said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?" (Gen. 3:11) Says Hank Hanegraff, author of The Osteenification of American Christianity,  

"Osteen has turned the quintessential voice of judgment in the whole of Scripture into a primer on self-esteem. This is not about success through positive affirmations but the sin that results in all of the evil the world experiences to this very day--the sin that would ultimately lead to the crucifixion of Christ. Osteen acts as though God were trying to encourage Adam, when in reality the text conveys the thunder of His judgment."  

This is very, very serious, folks, when a pastor of Osteen's magnitude and influence misleads those he teaches with such satanic Scripture prostitution. The Apostle Paul, in several of his letters warns against teachers like Osteen who do this. Warns Paul, 

"Even from your own number, men will rise up and distort the truth to draw away disciples after them. Therefore be alert and remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears." (Acts 20:30-31)

Let me provide one more quick example of Osteen's Scripture twisting. This one is just tragic. The scene is in John 5:1-15. Jesus finds a hapless paralytic by the pool of Bethesda, and asks him if he wants to be made well. As the story goes, Jesus tells him to rise, take his bed, and walk. The man is healed from that very moment. Enter Osteen's interpretation: the man at the pool was just "lying around feeling sorry " for himself. In response to Jesus' simple, straightforward question," the paralytic begins "listing all of his excuses. "I'm all alone. I don't have anyone to help me. Other people have let me down. Other people always seem to get ahead of me. I don't have a chance in life." Heartlessly, Osteen moves on to impugn this poor man: "Is it any wonder that he remained in that conditon for thirty-eight years?"  

 

If you look closely at how Osteen twists these verses, you can see how each verse is perverted in order to fit in with Osteen's self-esteem gospel. Implicit in this instance, Osteen is saying, in effect, that this man shouldn't make excuses and speak negative words over himself; otherwise he would be prospering in life. This is almost blasphemous. In reality, all Jesus did was ask the man if he wanted to be healed, and all the man said in return was that he couldn't get into the pool because others were getting in ahead of him. Nothing more.

                                               

 

                                                  So What's the Problem?

One might rightfully inquire, what's wrong with a pastor who encourages his listeners and teaches them to be positive-thinkers in everyday life? Is Osteen really even hurting anybody? The answer is absolutely and unreservedly, yes!  Osteen wears the mantle of God and influences millions worldwide with his watered-down gospel message. The Lord is often an afterthought in Osteen's sermons, and Jesus' name is rarely mentioned. Prosperity preachers are notoriously hesitant to share the spotlight with Jesus. I really do think sometimes that they hate the true God. The horrifying prospect that comes out of Osteen's aberrant theology is that even the unsaved can come out of his messages just as unsaved as they were to begin with. This is because Osteen won't deliver the hard truth that they are sinners who have offended a holy God--a God who loves them dearly and longs to reconcile them to Himself--but a God who requires them to repent and shed their sinful ways like an epidermis. 

The true gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ's sacrificial death to save a humanity wrecked by sin.  Through the lens of the gospel we see our utter unworthiness in light of Christ's gift of forgiveness and reconciliation. This gospel divides--it is edgy, and it offends the unbeliever.  It calls us to an emptying of ourselves, and a divine infilling of God's Holy Spirit. And yet, as Osteen explains, he believes the idea that he doesn’t teach enough Bible lessons is wrong: 

“I won’t talk about it specifically—‘Hey you’re a sinner,’ but I’ll talk about lack of integrity, about compromise. I turn it around. It’s the same message. I’m just coming at it from a positive point of view. Ninety-nine percent of people will respond to that. And I think that’s why it’s crossed so far out into the world.”  

This statement is false on several fronts. Substituting sin with "lack of integrity" and "compromise" most assuredly does not make them the same message.  And coming at it from a "positive point of view" negates the message of sin and communicates to the unbeliever that they simply lack integrity and can improve in life if they overcome it. And the reason this message has "crossed so far out into the world" is because it offends virtually no one. This kind of stuff demonstrates in spades Osteen's unbelievably abounding popularity.  Michael Horton, a professor at Westminster Theological Seminary agrees. "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. 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." 

These statements by Horton sum up the Osteen dilemma beautifully.
                                                 

                                               His Public Statements

 
As is probably now evident, nothing about sin or repentance can be found in Osteen's showcase. You will not hear even a whiff of them in his presentations. In fact, Osteen has regularly admitted that preaching about sin is "not my main calling." During a special Easter edition of CBS Sunday Morning, he was asked by Tracy Smith if he ever feels like he is "cheating people" by never discussing hell and repentance. Said Osteen:  

"No, I really don't, because it's a different approach.  You know, it's not hellfire and brimstone. But I say most people are beaten down enough by life. They already feel guilty enough. They're not doing what they should, raising their kids -- you know, we can all find reasons. So I want them to come to Lakewood or our meetings and be lifted up, to say, 'You know what? I may not be perfect, but I'm moving forward. I'm doing better.' And I think that motivates you to do better."


In saying he is not going to preach about sin because people are "beaten down enough by life", Osteen is usurping the Holy Spirit's role in convicting the lost of the sins they have inherited. People do not get saved by hearing a positive message based on material wealth and the goodness of mankind. Instead of leading them to salvation, he is telling the lost that they can have success and win at life no matter what. Either Osteen legitimately fears that those under his tutelage will become irredeemably discouraged by life and lose out on prosperity, or he fears losing his audience if he offends them by telling them the truth.  My contention is that the latter is at least just as true as the former. 

Consider the following interview Osteen gave for Larry King in 2009.  In this interview, King characteristically plied Osteen with some pointed questions about the Christian worldview, particularly in respect to the notion of hell and who will or won't go there. In response, Osteen was wimpy, compromising, and utterly devoid of integrity. When King asked him if he was a fire and brimstone preacher, his response was, 

"No, that is not me....I am an encourager and I don't believe it is my role to condemn anyone." I've always been an encourager at heart. . . . I don't have it in my heart to condemn people. I'm there to encourage them. I see myself more as a coach, as a motivator to help them experience the life God has for us. . . . I'm for everybody. You may not agree with me, but to me it's not my job to try to straighten everybody out. The Gospel [is] called the Good News. My message is a message of hope, that God's for you. You can live a good life no matter what's happened to you. And so I don't know. I know there is condemnation but I don't feel that's my place."  

 My friends, may I say to you, it is every man of God's duty to make known to the lost that they are sinners in need of redemption. That is not "condemning" them, as Osteen puts it; it is simply telling them the truth. The message is useless without emphasizing the need for a Savior. Why should Osteen call himself a pastor if all he wants to do is motivate people to lead better lives?

When King proceeded to ask him whether people of other faiths who don't believe in Jesus would go to heaven, Osteen squirmed like a night crawler:  

"You know, I'm very careful about saying who would and wouldn't go to heaven. I don't know. . . . Well, I don't know if I believe they're wrong. I believe here's what the Bible teaches and from the Christian faith this is what I believe." Later when asked about atheists going to heaven, he added, "I'm going to let God be the judge of who goes to heaven and hell. I just—again, I present the truth, and I say it every week. You know, I believe it's a relationship with Jesus. But you know what? I'm not going to go around telling everybody else if they don't want to believe that that's going to be their choice. God's got to look at your own heart. God's got to look at your heart, and only God knows that."

And that's not all. When King threw him a curve ball and asked him about same-sex marriage and abortion, he whimpered, 

"You know what, Larry? I don't go there."
 

On the use of the word "sinners," he said,  

 

"I don't use it. I never thought about it. But I probably don't. But most people already know what they're doing wrong. When I get them to church I want to tell them that you can change. There can be a difference in your life. So I don't go down the road of condemning." 

 

 Finally, when King asked him if people of other faiths were going to hell if they didn't believe in Jesus, Osteen remarked that he went to India once with his father and met some fine people and that, no, he did not believe they were going to hell if they were sincere in their hearts. Well, King and the show's audience likely came away from this interview persuaded that there is no need to receive Jesus by faith since Osteen could not even answer that simple question. He tippy-toed around every one of King's questions as if they were land mines. Can you imagine the Apostle Paul giving the answer Osteen gave? I surely can't. These examples of Osteen obfuscating and equivocating during interviews demonstrate that he is committed to maintaining his popularity. It is his god. And he knows there is a cost if he stands for the truth of the gospel. He is downright cowardly and his presentation of the gospel is pathetic.

After coming under fire from evangelicals who saw the King interview, Osteen, to his credit, wrote a letter of apology for his wimpy performance. The damage, however, had already been done, as likely a large number of unbelievers who watched the program went away satisfied in their own religion or none. And yet Osteen was back to his usual tricks more recently on Oprah Winfrey, where he made some of the same compromising statements. Winfrey, a New Ager, asked him to explain to her how someone can know God. Osteen stumbled and bumbled and stated that in his belief, God wanted to have a relationship with everyone and was not condemning people. The troubling part of this explanation was what he left out: that repentance of sin and acceptance of Jesus as Lord and Savior is how one can know God.  And as he told Larry King, he told Oprah that he doesn't deal with sin. This is an inexcusable abomination on the part of Osteen, a so-called minister of the Gospel. 

                                               What Does It All Mean?

In regards to Osteen's prosperity message, it must be pointed out that the Bible never promises us financial prosperity and enduring well-being. Our prosperity is in Christ Himself.  While God may choose to bless us with riches, those riches are neither here nor there. Our ultimate goal is to store up treasures in heaven, not on earth.  The Bible tells us that we will receive all that we ask of Him, in His name (that is, according to His will). But what if health, wealth and prosperity aren't in His will for you? Those things certainly weren't in God's will for His first disciples. Does that mean they weren't blessed? Hardly. The men and women of the 1st century church underwent severe persecution: burnings at the stake, surrender to the mouths of lions, etc. They looked forward to their reward in heaven and the wonderful goal of attaining Christ Himself. 

 

The Apostle Paul endured beatings, hardships, sleepless nights, floggings, starvation, nakedness, cold weather; the list goes on. Paul considered his hardships so life-threatening that he described his recovery from them as tantamount to being raised from the dead. The Lord even gave him a "thorn in his flesh"  in order to humble him from conceit for the unspeakable visions of heaven he got to experience.  This thorn was likely an illness of some sort; some interpreters think it was an eye condition that resulted in poor eyesight. Paul famously commented that, through his union with Christ, he learned to be content no matter what the circumstances. Listen to what he writes in 2 Cor. 11:23-28:
 

'Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. ²⁴ Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. ²⁵ Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, ²⁶ I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. ²⁷ I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. ²⁸ Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches."

 

Does this sound like a man who is enjoying unlimited wordly and temporal blessing? Any mature Christian understands that hardship and woe are as much God's tools as are joy, mercy and grace. He uses our suffering to discipline us and like a potter mold our character into His. No experience of ours, no matter how pleasant or how agonizing, is wasted.  In fact, the Bible declares that we are in fact blessed when we suffer. God is "treating us as sons, and not as illegitimate children".  He is sovereign over all of our experiences, and a congruent Word of Faith proponent like Osteen cannot, at the end of the day, believe in a sovereign God. Osteen and his train of followers only allow for one side of God to be active in our lives---if it is not a positive experience, it is likely our lack of faith. Sin and pain are not taken into account. 

David in the Psalms says that the Lord "takes delight in the well-being of His servant (Psalm 35) and Jesus tells us that He came to earth and died so that we could enjoy an abundant life in Him. I am in no way saying that God, who tells us to "be transformed by the renewing of our mind", does not want us to live plagued by negative thinking or low self-esteem. Indeed, in His Word, God exhorts believers to trust Him in all things and have faith that He will take care of them. There is most definitely a place for thinking positively and being confident in the Lord. But this is a far cry from actually playing games with words in order to "enable" God to bless you with what you desire to have and to be. 

 

Word-faith preachers typically use God as a means to an end and demote Him to someone who can only act on our behalf if we use the correct verbiage. As with all false teachers, there is some truth in Osteen's teaching. His gifting is in delivering messages about God's confirming value on every person. Over and over again, he composes beautiful images of God standing with open arms of acceptance for each person, regardless of failures, disappointments and problems. As I have already pointed out, the problem is in the fact that this is all he emphasizes about God. Unfortunately, Osteen is loved by the world because he is of the world. Plain and simple. Jesus said no servant is above his master. "If they hated me, they will hate you also." 

 

I am not against prosperity here in this life; God can provide it for us because he loves to bless us. He really does. But it is not guaranteed in this life and should be viewed as a bonus, second to our total immersion in Him and the complete rest of soul and spirit He gives us. He alone is sufficient.

                                                            Conclusion

In closing, Here is a warning from the Apostle Paul that provides a fitting conclusion to this article:  

"For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. ⁴ They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths." 

 By downplaying half of the gospel message, Osteen is putting the world of believers and non-believers in serious danger. Many non-Christians will never hear the true gospel as long as they listen to him. And that is a sobering prospect. We must be painfully aware that just because a message sounds good, feels good, and comes from someone who looks good, does not mean it is from God..  And let us remember Jesus' immortal words: 

"Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets" (Luke 6:26).

 Indeed.