Joel Osteen is making the rounds promoting his new book. He appeared on “Larry King Live” on Tuesday night. The video is available here, and the transcript is here. The interview with Larry King only makes me more wary of Osteen. When King asks him if he believes in an afterlife, Osteen says that his mortal body is like a “coat,” and that the “real me” lives on the inside. Osteen makes the same mistake that many people make with respect to the eternal state. He doesn’t realize that we live for eternity in resurrected physical bodies. The whole exchange smacked of the ancient Gnostic heresy which regarded matter as…
-
-
Video of Joel Osteen on “60 Minutes”
The conversation about Joel Osteen is continuing under my previous post, “Joel Osteen’s Christianity without a Cross.” I’m writing this post as a follow-up to alert readers that the entire “60 Minutes” feature on Osteen is available at CBS.com. You can view it at the following link: “Preacher to the Masses.”
-
Joel Osteen’s Christianity without a Cross
The sad thing about Joel Osteen is that he has all the marks of a sincere person. I just finished watching the profile of his ministry on “60 Minutes,” and there is not one thing about him that looks phony. He is one of the most likeable, loveable fellows that you’ll ever see. I really think he believes everything he is saying.
-
Answering Brad Pitt’s Objections to Religion
In a recent interview with Parade magazine, Brad Pitt explains why he no longer embraces Christianity. It turns out that he was raised as a Southern Baptist, but when he got to college he came upon some stumbling blocks that led him to cast aside his faith altogether. He describes his current feelings on “religion” in this way: “Guilt is the thing I find most evil about it. It’s the thing I rail against the most. . . Religion works. I know there’s comfort there, a crash pad. It’s something to explain the world and tell you there is something bigger than you, and it is going to be alright…
-
C. F. D. Moule, R.I.P. (1908-2007)
His was not a household name, but C. F. D. Moule was a luminary in my field. He was a great scholar who also had a reputation for having a warm evangelical spirit. For me by far, his most influential book was his first book, An Idiom Book of New Testament Greek. I have benefitted from this book immensely over the years and can say that some of the ideas in my own publications can be traced backed to nuggets found in this little volume. Would that we all could be as careful and prolific as C. F. D. Moule. R.I.P. “C. F. D. Moule: Last of the Gentlemen-Scholars” –…
-
Are You A Convergent Christian?
Last week, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina hosted a conference addressing the Mark Driscoll wing of the emerging church. The plenary speakers included Mark Driscoll himself, seminary president Danny Akin, and others. I was particularly interested to hear Driscoll’s message. Driscoll is widely known as an emerging church pastor. But because many Southern Baptist leaders tend to treat the emerging church as a monolithic movement, Driscoll has been regarded by many as theologically liberal (like Brian McLaren and Tony Jones). But this characterization is certainly unfair.
-
Religious Right To Bolt If Republicans Choose Rudy
James Dobson, Tony Perkins, and some others within the Council for National Policy are threatening to leave the Republican Party if Rudy Giuliani wins the Republican nomination, according to The New York Times. This is big news. I for one am happy to see these leaders standing on principle, and I intend to stand with them. I don’t care if Giuliani believes in lower taxes and smaller government. If he’s wrong on the greatest human rights crisis of our time (abortion on demand), then he’s not qualified to be President. “Giuliani Inspires Threat of a Third-Party Run” – by David Kirkpatrick (New York Times)
-
Doug Wilson on the Politics of N. T. Wright
This is likely the first and last time you will see the word “turd” in one of my blog posts. But this is the metaphor that the inimitable Doug Wilson chooses to describe the current polarities of the American political landscape. In his commentary “The Fox News Jesus or the CNN Jesus?,” Wilson responds to Joseph Laconte’s critique of N. T. Wright that appeared last week in the web version of The Weekly Standard (see my “More Wrong from Wright“). Wilson’s basic point is that choosing between the “Fox News Jesus” and the “CNN Jesus” is like choosing between cat turds and dog turds. They’re certainly different, but neither one…
-
Amend ETS in the News
In July I wrote about my participation in an effort to amend the doctrinal basis of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS). Just yesterday, the Baptist Press wrote a little story about the proposal, and you can read it here: “Profs seek change in ETS statement.” I was happy to read the endorsement given by Dr. David Dockery, the President of Union University: “I commend . . . efforts to provide a more full-orbed confession for the Evangelical Theological Society. When the society was formed, there was an assumption that a commitment to inerrancy brought with it a commitment to other orthodox and evangelical doctrinal distinctives. But that may not be…
-
New Website for CBMW
The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) launched a new website over the weekend. If you haven’t seen it yet, you need to check it out: www.CBMW.org. There are many resources available for free, including every single back issue of the Journal for Biblical Manhood & Womanhood. There is even a “Gender Blog” to which you can subscribe. Also, don’t miss the sermon audio section.