Do some or a lot of Catholics like Joel Osteen???

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I kind of/sort of like what he preaches… he has some good advice I think…

But maybe his church there in Houston Texas is just for seekers-people who are just beginning to seek for God…

You know what I mean?

What do you think??
 
jason3477 said:
I kind of/sort of like what he preaches… he has some good advice I think…

But maybe his church there in Houston Texas is just for seekers-people who are just beginning to seek for God…

You know what I mean?

What do you think??
Click to expand...
Joel as I understand it has no training. I like his father better. I like Charles Stanley. He is dead and is seen now on recorded broadcast. This gives a new meaning to Protestant oral tradition, since he is dead, and we are hearing his words from the past.

I used to like Reverend Ike, he is on the Interenet. He is similar to all the wealth and richness guys like creflo dollar and the like however they are not as arrogant as Reverend Ike. He was good.

I had difficulty with Kathryn Kuhlman on TV, I wasn’t sure if she was a corpse or not.

Joel has been criticized by many. He never really says anything of substance
 
I view him as more of a motivational speaker than a preacher. He very rarely actually teaches from the Bible. He paraphrases a lot, but it’s his own agenda, not the truth.

Personally? I can’t stand him.
Steph
 
Personally, I don’t care for his preaching, but that aside, I have watched his program on rare occasion and found some “gem” here or there that I liked. I think that even though we may not agree 100% with a person’s views doesn’t mean we can’t find something useful or worthwhile in what they have to say. I do know several that do like his preaching, including members of the clergy - some have even worked some of those “gems” into their homilies at Mass.
 
I read a new articile a while back that called Joel Osteen a new age preacher lol…

he dosen’t seem to talk about Jesus too much at all or the Gospel…
 
My son likes him – and why not? He’s a health and wealth guy. God wants you to be rich like I am! Of course, I make all my money off of people like you! Not much religion in what he says. But he sounds good.

No sale.
 
jason3477 said:
I kind of/sort of like what he preaches… he has some good advice I think…

But maybe his church there in Houston Texas is just for seekers-people who are just beginning to seek for God…

You know what I mean?

What do you think??
Click to expand...
Sometimes he cheers me up. He seems kind and forthright and I enjoy listening to him now and then.
 
Vapid is the word that comes to mind regarding the preaching of Joel Osteen.
 
jason3477 said:
I kind of/sort of like what he preaches… he has some good advice I think…

But maybe his church there in Houston Texas is just for seekers-people who are just beginning to seek for God…

You know what I mean?

What do you think??
Click to expand...
I live just outside of Houston and know many people who have attended his church. If you have only seen him on TV, you need to understand that a service at Lakewood Church has two main parts. The part you see on TV is the motivational part. He uses the Bible but the teaching is very “generic Christian”. The part that is not televised is the more theological part. The theology at Lakewood is a mix of Baptist and Prosperity Gospel. Joel’s father, John, who founded Lakewood started off as a Baptist minister.

There is nothing particularly harmful or problematic for a Catholic with the motivational parts but the Baptist/Prosperity part is not very compatible with Catholicism.

That being said, Joel and his wife do a lot of good in the community. They are able to mobilize a veritable army whenever there’s a crisis such as Katrina or Ike (hurricanes).
 
jason3477 said:
I kind of/sort of like what he preaches… he has some good advice I think…

But maybe his church there in Houston Texas is just for seekers-people who are just beginning to seek for God…

You know what I mean?

What do you think??
Click to expand...
Lapsed Catholics seem to like him alot. Practicing ones, not so much. Devout ones, not at all. Understandable. He teaches the false “prosperity gospel” a.k.a. “health and wealth gospel”, using the Bible as some sort of psychology self-help book.

He’s appealing primarily because of his stage presence, speaking and story-telling savvy and ability to attract based on a pseudo-sympathy for the plight of millions who struggle with finances and/or health problems, which most of middle and low-income folks face each day.

I shudder to think of priests emulating his style from the pulpit, frankly.

Away from Lakewood “preaching”, I agree he does some really good work for the community, and I do think he has a genuine caring nature for those who seek spiritual growth.
 
He teaches many things which are contrary to Catholic doctrine and dogma and his personal intepretations of the Bible are extremely questionable. As Evangelical Protestantism and the prosperity gospel goes, this is hardly surprising. But what I find most distastefull is his use of scripture to justify all kinds of behavior which scripture was never intended to address in the first place.

As an example, regarding the raising of Jarius’s daughter from the dead, Jesus entered the house only with those closest to him.

And they ridiculed him. Then he put them all out. He took along the child’s father and mother and those who were with him and entered the room where the child was. (Mark 5:40)

Joel Osteen states that if somone stands in your way of success, you have a right to “Put them all out” of your life like Jesus did to those who ridiculed him. Osteen equates this event with firing people who work for you but are hindering the growth of your business and such. I’m not saying that a business owner doesn’t have the right to fire someone who is hindering his business’ success, but is that really what God wants us to know from this passage of scripture? This is the same mindset that used scripture out of context to justify slavery.

It’s Your Time
Become a Better You
Living in Favor, Abundance and Joy
Good, Better, Blessed

Joel Osteen places the focus of his followers on themselves instead of others. A glance at his book titles shows a very focus on self love and personal gratification rather than on self-less sacrifice as tuaght by Christ. Contrast Osteen’s teaching with Mother Theresa and you see the huge chasm between the gospel his Church preaches and the Gospel as preached by the Catholic Church.

To Joel Osteen I reply, "The eye is not satisfied by seeing, nor has the ear enough of hearing (Ecclesiastes 1:8) and the whole rest of the Book of Ecclesiastes.

-Tim-
 
I cannot speak for other Catholics but I don’t much care for him.
 
I can’t speak for other Catholic but i don’t much care for him,
 
The main problem with Joel Osteen is that he preaches a very lovely suger-coated version of what following Christ meants. It is a combination “word of faith”/“prosperity gospel” philosophy. The basic belief seems to be that if you have faith, anything you want will be yours (based on an interpretation of Matt 11:22-23). Oh, and God wants you to have a nice house, send your kids to college, get that big screen TV.

Unfortunately, he leaves out where Jesus says you must take up your cross, where Jesus says you will be persecuted, that what God wants for you may not be what you want for you.

He also doesn’t seem to believe that we will be given new bodies (resurrection of the body), but has said that we will live on as spirits.

It’s hard to know what else he does or does not believe as he doesn’t talk about things like sin since those are too depressing.

I’d be very careful. You may pick up a gold nugget or two, but you will also get a lot of fool’s gold. You have to be very discerning to tell the difference & I’m not sure it is worth the effort, especially if you make a mistake.
 
Corki said:
That being said, Joel and his wife do a lot of good in the community. They are able to mobilize a veritable army whenever there’s a crisis such as Katrina or Ike (hurricanes).
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It’s very impressive and I’ll take nothing away from that. I have gone out to clean up flood damaged homes with Samaritan’s Purse disaster repsonse teams.

But before we let the headlines dazzle us, let’s remember that the Cathollic Church worldwide runs tens of thousands of orphanages, marriage counseling centers, day care centers, clinics, adoption agencies, hospitals, hospices and schools and has done so for centuries. Many of these are run by prople who have given everything - sworn poverty - to do so.

-Tim-
 
jason3477 said:
I kind of/sort of like what he preaches… he has some good advice I think…

But maybe his church there in Houston Texas is just for seekers-people who are just beginning to seek for God…

You know what I mean?

What do you think??
Click to expand...
This is what he is to me:

a heretic. And of the most dangerous kind, because he tries to appear all nice and warm and friendly. But his ideas are very dangerous.
 
And some Catholics are morbidly fascinated with suffering and misery to the exclusion of all else. I guess it all balances out.

I like Mr. Osteen and think he does a lot of good in the world.
 
sallybutler said:
The main problem with Joel Osteen is that he preaches a very lovely suger-coated version of what following Christ meants. It is a combination “word of faith”/“prosperity gospel” philosophy. The basic belief seems to be that if you have faith, anything you want will be yours (based on an interpretation of Matt 11:22-23). Oh, and God wants you to have a nice house, send your kids to college, get that big screen TV.

Unfortunately, he leaves out where Jesus says you must take up your cross, where Jesus says you will be persecuted, that what God wants for you may not be what you want for you.

He also doesn’t seem to believe that we will be given new bodies (resurrection of the body), but has said that we will live on as spirits.

It’s hard to know what else he does or does not believe as he doesn’t talk about things like sin since those are too depressing.
Click to expand...
Exactly. I am a non-Catholic Christian and I do not like him. It seems to me that he cares more about fitting as many people as he can into his church than anything else. That’s why he is too scared to talk about things such as sin because he is too scared to offend anyone because that will mean losing members.

He seems more like a motivational speaker than anything, and technically that is what he really is since he has had no formal training. He’s just using Christianity to get a bigger audience.
 
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