An American Evangelical "Rhinestone" Pastor was on tour in Britain a few weeks ago, his mission is to save our stools. Joel Osteen, leader of the independent Lakewood Church (independent, that is, of any identifiable religious philosophy except the Gospel of Saint Geldof; "give us yer fokkin’ money.")
It is perhaps not fair to expect Osteen to have any understanding of Christian theology though, he attended Oral Roberts University, the premier training camp for America’s Bible Belt preachers, but dropped out after only one term. This he explains by saying he "felt called to start his own mission. In actual fact the death of his Dad created a vacancy he was only too ready to fill so as preaching was the family business, job training and qualifications ceased to be an issue.
Not that much goes on in Joel’s megachurch, actually a converted baseball stadium, that could in any conventional way be compared to the sermon’s of your local C of E vicar or Roman Catholic priest. And not only does Osteen eschew the gentle, inclusive doctrines of the liberal churches, he has no time for the hellfire and damnation of the traditional Pentecostalist ranters either. His message could be described as The Gospel of The American Dream, the worship of The Bitch Goddess Success. Joel Osteen’s mission is to tell people what they want to hear in order to part them from their money. It is the traditional skill of the confidence trickster.
Though he may not know much about the Christian faith that he preaches, Pastor Osteen does know a thing or two about financial success. His services, which are a cross between a Heavy Metal concert and a Nuremberg Rally regularly pull audiences of 30,000 and are watched by TV audiences averaging almost 20million. Lakewood Chuch has its own TV station of course funded by the faithful who cough up enough of their hard – earned to give the church an annual budget of $75 million, plenty to fund the conversion of a former baseball stadium into the "Church" that is headquarters to a corporate operation.
The God of Lakewood Church as it happens is a good God, a loving God who wants us to be successful in our lives. And so Lakewood God rewards those who kiss His butt with career progression and material gain. And how do Lakewoodians worship God in order to gain these beneficences? Well you just have to mention the words God and Jesus as many times as you can. If anybody got through the bodyguards and PR people to ask how he relates this to the advice given by Jesus to avoid "praying in the street like the hypocrites" I have the feeling his answer would be "What the hell did Jesus know about Christianity?"
Boggart Blog readers, even the practising Christians, being intelligent, worldly folk, will recognise that saying "God is good" or "Jesus loves us" many times is not actually a guarantee that good things will come your way. Its fair to ask then how does Osteen explain to some devout and faithful follower that despite their devotions and contributions they are suffering from an incurable cancer, their beloved partner has died in an accident or one of the kids is hooked on crack.
The Lakewood PR machine is strangely silent on such things. They have no message for the poor, the sick and disabled, those struggling with pain or grief. They are never going to "do well" and so Lakewood God, Joel Osteen’s God is not interested.
Bizarrely Joel is interested in the obesity problem though, and as he is based in Texas, the fat capital of the world he has plenty to deal with. But his nutritional message is as whacky as his religion. My friend Sandy Knaur first brought this bogus preacher to my attention in an article at Authorsden.
Just as God can change your life He can change your bowel movements too.
"God wants you to be healthy, God wants you to feel good, but the Devil tempts with a bad diet, high in fat and sugar." The majority of Americans, claims Osteen, pass "long thin strings of blue black stools," (Boggart Blog has dubbed these The Stools Of Satan", Osteen could never be that poetic,) because of their unhealthy diet. This diet also causes American’s to develop colonic plaque, all that sticky stuff builds up on the walls of your colon and you become constipated and feel lousy. At the time of their deaths, Elvis Presley was weighed down by thirty pounds of this faecal goo while John Wayne was packing forty pounds. It was all because they ate The Devil’s Diet and passed The Stools of Satan. Lakewood Christians are exhorted to eat a good diet in reward for which God will deconstipate them, send them some nice, thick. conker brown turds, (Jesus Jobbies?) and make them feel better.
It makes poo lady Gillian McKeith seem almost sane.
Well Elvis and John Wayne might have been stuffed with shite because of their bad diet, but if Joel Osteen ate only bran and beans he would still be full of shit.
Let us pray that nobody in Britain falls for the evil nonsense of this sleazy con man who preys on the insecure and vulnerable.
Defender of the Faith Atheist Ian defends the concept of faith from people who give it too narrow a definition.
New Cannabis Health Scare After the paranoia about cannabis making poeople paranoid, Ian exposes the real health risk to dopeheads.
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Comments: 29
Just kidding - I only knew Osteen had written some kind of self-help book (not a genre I read). I had no idea he was born of a place like Lakewood (not to mention Oral Roberts).
On the Elvis and John Wayne intestinal goo, that is a myth that has been going around for awhile.
Here is what Snopes has to say about it.
Re Oral Roberts...based on his affinity for young boys, I think he should change his name to Rectal Roberts.
Our country has a number of these religious shysters plying their nefarious trade, prying money out of poor old folks who can't even afford to eat properly, much less get decent medical care. It's sad, and about as un-Christian as anything in my experience. I mean as far as Christian ideals are concerned. In practice, organized religions are among the most intolerant, hateful, reactionary entities in our society.
Sandy Knaur, my (misquoted I have to admit) source for the Elvis / John Wayne story and I would have both doubted the medical possibility of the story, but I think it suiterd us both to quote it without comment as an illustration of haw far these preachers will go to suck their followers into an atmosphere of fear and panic, in which God or Jesus (or actually the people who speak on behalf of that pair to us mere mortals) are presented as the only hope of salvation.
Fortunately us heathen Brits are just too sinful to fall for it. So sinful in fact that most of us eat our greens.
A very small group. Osteen had to bus in the same followers to from around Britain all his gigs to make it look like he had a following. Its a technique I believe was first used by Billy Graham.
ORAL Roberts? Is he a friend of Ted Haggard?
The sad part is that so many people enrich these hypocritical frauds. But that just shows, I guess that P.T. Barnum was right. There really IS a sucker born every minute. (Even though Barnum didn't say it.)
I live in Texas, so I have had the dubious honour of hearing about this Osteen critter. However, my tendency to avoid anything that smacks of religious hypocrisy has left me fairly uninformed as to just how idiotic this guy really is... now I know!
Apparently these paragons of false Christianity are already making their presence known in my native Canada, which, until recently had managed to remain largely unscathed when it came to Christian extremism.
(Having managed to keep such groups as the ultra conservative Mennonites and the largely unknown Dukabhors restrained.)
You could be a potential customer for my daughter's friend Big Al who has just gone into business building Yurts. Sounds like you're kind of life. Al's yurts are very spacious and comfortable actually - but when he has his show yurt on display I'll post some pictures and start selling for him.
You have an unfair advantage, you've had the wee frees to practice on all your life.
As long as they stay up in the North West Territories I suppose they're OK.
Ian
I'm still laughing, though!
Yeah, Bert B was on the ball there. But neither I nor Sandy Knaur who I got it from - OMG I make it sound as if the gave me a disease :-) - neither of us stated it as fact, only as what Osteen was telling his followers.
And anyway, I've never been the kind of writer who would sacrifice a laugh for the sake of the truth. Know what I mean ;-)
Ishbel and I should explain. she is Scottish, from Edinburch in fact, one of my favourite places. So we are being a tad self indulgent perhaps. In Scotland they invented sectarianism (or their own version of it at least) And the Scottish churches have schisms like Nero had orgies.
So first there was The Church of Scotland
Then came the protestant revolution and the pentecostalist Free Chruch of Scotland or the "Wee Frees" was formed. And they hated The Church of Scotland.
And then because the Free Church of Scotland wass not protestant enough, a group of splitters formed a new pentecostalist Free Presbyterian Chuch of Scotland (The Wee Wee Frees )(wee means small, not erm...wel;l you know,widdle.)
And the Wee Wee Frees hate the Wee Frees more than they hate The Church of Scotland. And they all hate the Catholics.
If you have seen Monty Python's The Life of Brian think of the scene where Brian is trying to join the terrorists, The Judean Peoples' Front and when he approaches some people who look like terrorists and asks "Are you the Judean Peoples' Front?" the reply is "Fuck off, we're the Peoples' Front of Judea. We hate the Judean Peoples' Front."
Well its all a bit like that really.
No, I have freelanced for the BBC though!
(I left a request on your new article. It's a topic so upsetting to me that I dare not touch it yet.)