I bought a book by Joel
Osteen titled It’s Your Time while browsing through some books at a book sale
corner while waiting for a friend. Given my adverse sentiments towards
Health-and-Wealth prosperity gospel, one may wonder why I bought a book by a
preacher who is characteristically a proponent of such teachings. For one, I am
not really sure whether Joel Osteen is the heretic of a run-of-the-mill
prosperity gospelist that I have the impression of, and I would to examine it
for myself. For two, I wonder whether there might be something that Joel Osteen
has to say that might provide insight or encouragement from a Christian
standpoint to where I am in life.
One thing from my perusal
of the book is that Joel Osteen’s prosperity gospel is somewhat different from
the prosperty gospel of other preachers I have heard. For Joel Osteen, periods
of ill-fortune are simply another way in which God may work to the ultimate
good and success for the righteous believer. He gave the account of a person
shipwrecked on an island, and who was miserable at God for not answering his
prayers to be rescued. When the hut he had built caught fire and burnt down, he
was furthermore upset at God. Just then, a ship arrived to his location. When
he asked the shipmen how they found him, they replied that they saw the fire
and thought someone was sending a distress signal. I say that this view of
prosperity gospel is different from that of another prosperity gospelist I have
heard. That other prosperity gospelist was of the view that a righteous
believer will never suffer, and things like ill-health are simply not the will
of God.
Still, there are things written in the
book which causes to curl some of the ingrained traditionalist Christian worldview
that I hold. For one, Joel Osteen makes statements characteristic of what I
would call trust theology. That is, belief, or trust in God, is the paramount
factor in receiving God’s blessings. He would quite encouragingly talk about
how God is not limited by things such as one’s financial status, intelligence,
talents, social skills etc, but then follow at the end of the passage with a
rather ironic and dubious sounding statement that God is however limited by one’s
beliefs. It is very much like how some popular self-help authors would quip
that an individual is the measure of his beliefs, except that this self-help
dogma is packaged in Christian evangelistic terms.
Still, I do take away some encouraging
bits for my Christian faith from having read the first few chapters of the
book. I am reminded that God is able to work ultimate good through bad. Indeed,
I have the predilection of thinking along lines doubting the existence of God
when things are not going my way, and my prayers are not getting answered, or
that God doesn’t care. I still do have such doubts, but I am open-minded to the
possibility that God is real and has a plan for ultimate good for my life, and
that things would turn out well for me. As much as I am skeptical of prosperity
gospel and find it artificial, I still wish for it to be true because it provides
hope of a better life for people while they are on earth.
2 comments:
Thank you for these balanced comments, Sam. Listening to Joel Osteen has helped me over the years. I don't agree with or apply what he says in an absolute way, but I do like his emphasis on having hope and a good attitude.
Thanks for your comment James. Indeed, it is good not to dismiss the good along with the bad when evaluating a person's teachings.
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