It was a pleasant afternoon a few years ago in my back yard, writing an article, when Modern Reformation executive editor Eric Landry informed me that he had scheduled me for an interview on Joel Osteen for "Dateline NBC." Knowing nothing about Mr. Osteen or his message at that time, I declined - with no effect whatsoever on Landry's force of will. "Here's the book: Your Best Life Now. So you'd better get reading!"
Little did I know then that Osteen already was a phenomenon and would only become a greater one as months wore on. In retrospect, I am glad to have had the opportunity to talk to so many people who are confused about the message that Osteen preaches and that seems to pervade so much of ordinary American preaching and spirituality in our day.
A CBS "60 Minutes" interview sparked more recent requests for comment concerning Osteen's new book, Becoming a Better You: 7 Keys to Improving Your Life Every Day. I took it with me on a recent flight and I offer the following reflections.
Heavier Emphasis on the Prosperity Gospel
Under the Library of Congress identification, this book is classified as "1. Self-actualization (Psychology)-Religious Aspects-Christianity." Even the Library of Congress seems to know what sort of message this represents. "You can be better," Osteen invites. "The question is: 'How? What must I do to become a better me?' In my first book, Your Best Life Now, I presented seven steps to living at your full potential." But with Becoming a Better You, he wants to go a little deeper. "I'm hoping to help you look inside yourself and discover the priceless seeds of greatness that God has placed within you. In this book, I will reveal to you seven keys that you can use to unlock those seeds of greatness, allowing them to burst forth in an abundantly blessed life."
Remember, God has put in you everything you need to live a victorious life. Now, it's up to you to draw it out...What does it mean to become a better you? First, you understand that God wants you to become all that He created you to be. Second, it is imperative that you realize that God will do His part, but you must do your part as well. To become a better you, you must:
- Keep pressing forward.
- Be positive toward yourself.
- Develop better relationships.
- Form better habits.
- Embrace the place where you are.
- Develop your inner life.
- Stay passionate about life.
The theme is "coming up higher." From beginning to end, Osteen addresses his vast readership as though each person is "a child of the Most High God."
God has breathed His life into you. He planned seeds of greatness in you. You have everything you need to fulfill your God-given destiny...It's all in you. You are full of potential. But you have to do your part and start tapping into it...You have the seed of Almighty God on the inside of you...We have to believe that we have what it takes.
It is indeed true that there are appeals to the Bible scattered throughout this book. However, in nearly every case a verse is either torn from its context and turned into a "fortune-cookie" kind of promise that one can name-and-claim for oneself or it is actually misquoted to serve Osteen's point.
For example, we read that when God confronted Adam and Eve after their sin, "He said, 'Adam, who told you that you were naked?' In other words, 'Who told you that something was wrong with you?' God immediately knew the enemy had been talking to them. God is saying to you today, 'Who told you that you don't have what it takes to succeed?'"
Where, in the passage he refers to (Genesis 3:11), God asks Adam this question in order to convict him of his sin, Osteen makes it sound as if it were Satan who told Adam that he had failed the test.
As in his earlier book, Osteen here never speaks of sin as falling short of God's glory, but of falling short of God's best for your life. In fact, Osteen's attachment to the prosperity gospel is even more explicit in Become a Better You. Just as Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, and other "faith teachers" speak of believers as "little gods" who share God's nature, Osteen has an entire chapter devoted to "The Power of Your Bloodline." "You have the DNA of Almighty God." It's "what's in you" that is divine seed, he says.
It is not that God has imputed Christ's righteousness to us and adopted us as his children. We are not saved by an external and alien righteousness, but by an internal and essential righteousness that belongs to us simply by virtue of our being created in his image. Therefore, throughout the book Osteen can address all of his readers as semi-divine without any reference to faith in Christ.
As if the fall never happened, Osteen writes, "He has programmed you with everything you need for victory. That's why every day you can say things like, 'I have what it takes. I am more than a conqueror. I am intelligent; I am talented. I am successful; I am attractive; I am an overcomer."
Where Paul, in Galatians 3:29 argues that the inheritance of eternal life comes through the promise (i.e., Christ) rather than by the law, Osteen again lifts a single verse out of its context as a promise of temporal prosperity:
I love the Scripture that says, 'If we belong to Christ, we are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.' That means that we can all experience the blessings of Abraham. If you study Abraham's record, you'll discover that he was prosperous, healthy, and lived a long, productive life. Even though he didn't always make the best choices, he enjoyed God's blessings and favor.
This is a clear example of how Osteen turns even the most obvious references to Christ (as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy) into timeless examples of what can happen to us if we name and claim our blessings. He does not interpret Scripture; he uses it as a book of quotations to serve his own prosperity message.
The book is shot through with the lingo of the prosperity gospel: we are to "declare" God's blessing, "speak" prosperity, and "prophesy" health, wealth, and happiness into our lives. All of this creates the impression that God has set everything up for our victory, but it is up to us to actually plug into the power-source and create our blessings by following the proper principles and procedures.
So in spite of the supernatural rhetoric, at the end of the day it all sounds deistic: God has set everything up, with the laws of prosperity in place, and now the ball is in our court. Following a well-worn path of "victorious life" teachers, Osteen speaks of "tapping into" the eternal realm. In this way, even religion becomes a species of technology: by knowing the right principles, formulas and steps, prosperity, blessing, and favor can be yours here and now. Once again, the Gnostic brand of spirituality is readily apparent.
He wants us to have a little heaven on earth, right where we are...[Y]ou can accomplish your dreams before you go to heaven! How can you do that? By tapping into God's power inside of you...Please understand that those are all things from which you have already been set free.
But here's the catch: If you don't appreciate and take advantage of your freedom, if you don't get your thoughts, your words, your attitudes going in the right direction, it won't do you any good.
You may be sitting back waiting on God to do something supernatural in your life, but the truth is, God is waiting on you. You must rise up in your authority, have a little backbone and determination, and say, 'I am not going to live my life in mediocrity, bound by addictions, negative and defeated.
I'm all for positive thinking - as long as we don't call it the gospel. I come from a long line of Wild West pioneers and can identify with Osteen's commendation of his parents as a major source of an optimistic outlook. The problem is when we blindly ignore the reality of our condition before God. Whatever good things there may be about me, none of them commend me before God's righteous judgment.
Moving beyond positive thinking, Osteen embraces "positive confession," the prosperity doctrine that says if you not only believe for something but declare that it is already yours, the desired blessing will come true. God may be the source of this blessing in an ultimate sense, since he set things up, but whether we actually receive God's favor and blessings depends entirely on our attitude, action, and obedience.
Osteen devotes a chapter to "Making Your Words Work for You." "Every day, we should make positive declarations over our lives," he writes. "We should say things such as, 'I am blessed. I am prosperous. I am healthy. I am talented. I am creative. I am wise.'" Joe's wife could not carry her pregnancies to full term, so Joe changed his name to the fuller name, "Joseph," meaning "God Will Add."
"Several months after Joseph began believing his name," Osteen tells us, "his wife became pregnant again. And for the first time in ten years, she carried the child full term, and gave birth to a healthy baby boy...With our words, we can prophesy our own future." "Something supernatural happens when we speak it out. That's how we give life to our faith...Declare it by faith and use your words to change that situation."
This means that whatever God has done to make all of this possible, the victory that we are actually able to achieve and the blessings that we are actually able to receive depend on our effort. So in a chapter titled, "Have Confidence in Yourself," Osteen repeats his mantra, again misquoting the Bible:
The Scripture says, 'Our faith is made effectual when we acknowledge everything good in us.' Think about this: Our faith is not effective when we acknowledge all our hurts and pains. It's not effective when we stay focused on our shortcomings or our weaknesses. Our faith is most effective when we acknowledge the good things that are in us.
The closest thing that I have been able to find to the wording cited by Osteen is Paul's statement in 2 Corinthians 12:9: "But he [Jesus] said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.' Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may reside in me."
Of course, if this is the verse that Osteen has in mind, it says exactly the opposite of Osteen's paraphrase. In fact, it is part of a larger explanation of why Paul, in contrast to the "super-apostles" who were leading the Corinthians astray with their "smooth talk and flattery," would "not boast about myself, except of my weaknesses."
In fact, Paul says that God gave him a "thorn in the flesh, so that I would not exalt myself" (2 Corinthians 12:5-10). In times of weakness, distress, and difficulty, Paul says, where we lose our self-confidence to handle our situation before God, we are actually in the best position for God to show his power.
