Memo to Joel Osteen – we know Rolling Stone is a must-read for you, but it’s probably better if you give it a skip this month.
RS’s Matt Taibbi, who’s a very, let’s say, enthusiastic writer, has a profile of John McCain. At one point he goes after McCain’s blithe willingness to betray everything he stood up for a couple of years ago.
Taibbi writes:
McCain's transformation is so complete that at a recent town-hall meeting in Nashville, when asked to name an author who inspired him, the candidate — who once described televangelists of the Jerry Falwell genus as "agents of intolerance" — put none other than Joel Osteen at the top of his list. "He's inspirational," McCain said.Standing at the meeting, I didn't write Osteen's name down in my notebook — apparently because my brain refused on some level to accept that McCain had actually said it. Of all the vile, fake, lying-ass, money-grubbing shyster scumbags on the face of this planet, there is perhaps none more loathsome than Osteen, a human haircut with plastic baseball-size teeth who has made a fortune selling the appalling only-in-America idea that terrestrial greed is actually a form of Christian devotion. "God wants us to prosper financially, to have plenty of money, to fulfill the destiny He has laid out for us," Osteen once wrote. This is the revolting, snake-oil-selling dickhead that John McCain actually chose to pimp as number one on his list of inspirational authors. So much for "go, sell everything you have and give to the poor," and all that other hippie crap from the New Testament.
Come on, Tabbi. Writing stuff like that is no way to Become a Better You. – Richard Connelly
Although I am a nonbeliever, I actually would rather see Christians embracing Joel Osteen's branch of Christianity than the 'fire and brimstone' types.
He hearkens back to the ancient Judaic religion, whereby people sacrificed animals to please Yahweh. Indeed, it appears that the Judaic God liked nothing better than the smell of burning flesh.
What Joel proposes is along similar lines, that people give themselves totally over to a commitment to loving God and by this action, to be rewarded for their total commitment.
I have read Osteen's books and I actually like the fact that he is trying to get people to take some responsibility for their mistakes, faults, etc. and to correct them by living positively and not dwelling on the past.
One can take Osteen's books and just substitute their word of choice whenever he mentions God. For example, just substitute "secular humanism" for God in them. Or "DNA"
Posted at: July 1, 2008 11:37 AM