In defense of Joel Osteen

If your Facebook is like mine, you've had one of these two posts come across your feed the past few weeks...

Why Joel Osteen is bad

or this:

Why Joel Osteen is good

Being a huge history nerd this reminds me that no matter what persecutions Christians have faced, no matter what threats loomed on the horizon to destroy the faith, and no matter how we were fighting to win a  lost and dying world, we have always found time to try and destroy each other.  It's the not-so-great commission.

I attended a Baptist school growing up, in it there was one Catholic girl and four kids (myself included) that went to churches defined as Pentecostal (and to Calvinists defined as Armenian).  And yet somehow, even with that small number of non-Baptists, at least once a week the Bible class would be about the doctrine of Eternal Security or why everything the Catholics believed was wrong and they were probably all going to hell.  I don't immediately recall any classes on the unity of our faith.  I actually credit that class for helping me define my own beliefs, because I knew I didn't buy what they were selling, but I had to know for myself why it didn't ring true.  So I studied, and decided for myself.  In fact, at least a few dozen passages in my Bible from that time have "disputes once saved always saved" written in the margins.

Fast forward a few years, I'm in the Navy, I have precious few Christians around me, and a new person reports into our station and the first words I hear him say are "Praise the Lord!"  Thus began one of the friendships I look back on as one of my greatest friendships of my military service.  But at some point it did come up that he was Baptist, and I was Pentecostal.  We were witnessing together to some one who had asked us about our faith, and he said something that I knew I didn't agree with, and I decided right then and there that I didn't care.  For two reasons, one being the person we were talking two wanted to know if what we had was real, and what better way to drive some one from Christ than by two Christians bickering.  And two, the matter was only as important as I wanted to make it.  We were both strong in our faith, we both acknowledged Christ as the only way to salvation, why take a brother or sister to task over how we formed our relationship to Christ?

I'm not saying doctrine isn't important, but remember that doctrines are at their core, defined by man as we try to understand God through his word and our experience with him.  Doctrine doesn't' define man, man defines doctrine.  And if only doctrine was all that divides the Church.  How about what type of music we play, or which day we worship on, or even something as trivial as what we wear to church?

I like what Glenn Kaiser said, "It's all either love or sin".  When you break down our faith, that's what it all boils down to, love or sin.  Are we acting out of love, are we motivated by love, is showing love the force that drives us to win the lost, or have we missed the mark?  Have we sinned?

When you see those posts, use this as your measuring stick, does it pass the Philippians 4:8 test, and is it done in love?  Regardless of how you feel about the subject of someones comments, you owe it to them to act and respond out of love.