Hope you caught the Reverend Joel Osteen on 60 Minutes last night. After the Patriots dismantled Jerry's pretenders, I stayed on CBS because I was interested in three of the four 60 Minutes pieces.
Before I get to Joel, let me recommend that you not take the Blackwater piece all that seriously. "Americans want to hear you say you're sorry." That's journalism? Then Erik Prince is allowed to say he never wants innocent civilians to die. Bring up the music. And...scene. For a more thorough piece of investigative journalism concerning this army of lunatics, go to www.iraqforsale.org. And as far as the Florence federal prison piece goes, could they have found a less sympathetic prison guard? That woman only needed a trailer and wrap-around shades to be the post-tornado interviewee in Gotebo, Oklahoma. "The inmates are needy." Needy? "They ask for extra toilet paper." Oh, heavens. Needy bastards. And we haven't got a square to spare... Again, there is much more to the story than 60 Minutes presented. There is another super max federal prison in Marion, IL. These are not nice places, and the idea that you would keep people from human contact only guarantees the development of additional pathologies. Imagine never being able to touch another person. Never.
Joel. Let me say that for the first time ever I'm an outsider to this conversation. I don't care that Joel is a heretic. And the fact that 60 Minutes trotted out Michael Horton only makes me more sympathetic to Joel. Maybe next week they can get D.A. Carson to talk about Lakewood. I've read some reviews online about the interviewer Byron Pitts. The reviews have all been very positive. Internet Monk called him "superb." How 'bout we go with a cast-off actor from the theater of the absurd? Over the top. Scowling. Contrived. Condescending. Why didn't he just let us know what church he attended? There is no way someone with no dog in the fight could have behaved the way Pitts did. His bias was all over his face. In his defense, I will say that I appreciate him understanding the theological issues better than most journalists.
Joel came off as nice, if a bit wide-eyed. The scene where they are checking out the shifting colors of the ceiling is classic: "Isn't that neat?" Neat? Who says neat anymore? I can't decide if that's really Joel, which is to say he's a rube that made it big, or if he's one of the best actors around. They definitely should not have shown the last few scenes in which Joel was playing football with the family. It was obvious he had no idea what to do; he fared a little better with the basketball. So, he's a family guy, works hard, loves people, cries when he talks about changed lives (it's odd that when Hybels cried during his interview, Christians talked about how passionate he was; I suspect Joel won't get the same courtesy), and seems to genuinely enjoy his life. And yes, he's gotten rich off the ministry. This strikes me as a degree of culpability issue though. I'm not sure how pastors who routinely make 50, 80, or 100 thousand or more a year get to criticize a guy who's making ten times that. If you're living off the church and you're making twice the annual salary of an average parishioner, you might as well put down your stone.
Joel practices the great American religion: entertainment. Sometimes entertainment is transformative, sometimes it's banal. Christians can criticize him all they want for watering down the Gospel, preaching prosperity, or being a heretic, but the bottom line is he's doing what most of their churches are doing; he's just doing it better. Entertainment has become the water in which the church worship machine swims. If Joel does it better, learn from him. Quit crying about it. If you think entertainment is awful, stop playing the game. Churches aren't going to do that though; it would cost them too many members. Think of it like a sports metaphor: if Joel is the top of the BCS rankings, don't bitch about him because your church isn't in the top 25. You're playing the same game; he's just better.
