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Blogs, Joel Osteen and Apostosy |
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Written by Rey
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Wednesday, 02 February 2005 |
The dreaded death star of the Blogosphere is being re-deployed and it is only a matter of time before its commanders decide what should be the new focus of its powerful superlaser. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the freedoms we have here on the web, expressing our ideas and finding in Scriptures and the fact that bloggers have a voice is to be applauded. The Technological War is a fast-paced one and the guerillas and imperials are always making an effort to take back the web be it through technology or otherwise. The rebels, the bloggers, fought well and hard and are gaining serious momentum in their New Republic, but now they have built their own Imperial death weapon and is constantly on the hunt for a new post-worthy target.
A short time ago, Hugh Hewitt had God-bloggers turn their collective eye on a guest on his show…now folks have tried the same with Dobson and currently Joel Osteen. Charges flew labeling Dobson various things and, after hearing his response, some bloggers have quelled their anger—while others have written the man off. Joel Osteen now is facing the heat by a pubic call from Michael Spencer.
It is obvious that Joel Osteen does preach a lot of that fluff and feel-good stuff. He tacks the gospel to the last few seconds of his messages and is honest about doing this. It is a sad state of affairs when a Christian resorts to the presentation of a convincing argument for the sake of Christian living instead of presenting the gospel—but which one of us hasn’t slipped into this in our everyday life. We find ourselves toe to toe with post-modern philosophers and we’re arguing points on moral living to the level of ignoring the presentation of God’s solution.
I have nothing against setting the groundwork, nor do I have anything against taking a stance against this sort of thinking—what I have a problem with is this public call to condemn. I would tread lightly when accusing another professing Christian of the Galatians 1 charge, labeling persons as presenting another gospel and being anathema. Folks seem to forget that part of Galatians where Paul corrected Peter to his face—and not once accused him of being heretic or apostate.
Joel is over-emphasizing the experiential over the gospel—yet I am positive that there is not one of us who hasn’t done the same…and repeatedly. Instead of calls to label as apostate perhaps there should be a call to prayer for God to work on Joel’s conscience and our own. I have said it in the past often enough, that if we do judge we must realize that the same scale we have used to judge others will be used against ourselves.
-r-
Wesley Blog's take on all this. Razor's Kiss family visits Lakewood Church, home of "The Family".
Ref: Gal 1; 2; Romans 14; Matt 7
post edited to fix Joel Osteen's name which was previously shown as Joel Olsten.
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Apologetics/Discussion 
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