Joel Osteen’s book, Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your
Full Potential, has rocketed up to #1 on The New York Times
bestseller list. (It includes chapters titled “Enlarge Your Vision,”
“Develop a Healthy Self-Image,” and “Discover the Power of Your Thoughts
and Words.”) He’s filling up auditoriums for his road shows. His happy times
prosperity gospel church in Houston, Texas, has even bought up a 60,000-seat
stadium for Osteen to preach to his 30,000 followers. On June 20, 2005, Osteen
sat for an interview with Larry King on CNN’s The Larry King Show. King
introduced Osteen as “evangelism’s hottest rising star, pastor for the
biggest congregation in the United States.” And what does he preach? Osteen
said he doesn’t get into controversial subjects like sin and judgment. False
religions such as Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism don’t concern him. He doesn’t
really know who’s going to hell and who isn’t.
Excerpts below are from the interview—a full transcript
is available at:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0506/20/lkl.01.html.
KING: Is—have you always believed?
OSTEEN: I have always believed. I grew up, you know, my parents were a good Christian people. They showed us love in the home. My parents were the same in the pulpit as they were at home. I think that’s where a lot of preachers’ kids get off base sometimes. Because they don’t see the same things at both places. But I’ve always believed. I saw it through my parents. And I just grew up believing. [Believing what?]
KING: But you’re not fire and brimstone, right? You’re not pound the decks and hell and damnation?
OSTEEN: No. That’s not me. It’s never been me. I’ve always been an encourager at heart. And when I took over from my father, he came from the Southern Baptist background, and back 40-50 years ago, there was a lot more of that. But, you know, I just—I don’t believe in that. I don’t believe—maybe it was for a time. But I don’t have it in my heart to condemn people. I’m there to encourage them. I see myself more as a coach, as a motivator to help them experience the life God has for us.
KING: But don’t you think if people don’t believe as you believe, they’re somehow condemned?
OSTEEN: You know, I think that happens in our society. But I try not to do that. I tell people all the time, preached a couple Sundays about it. I’m for everybody. You may not agree with me, but to me it’s not my job to try to straighten everybody out. The Gospel is called the good news. My message is a message of hope, that’s God’s [message] for you. You can live a good life no matter what’s happened to you. And so I don’t know. I know there is condemnation, but I don’t feel that’s my place.
KING: You’ve been criticized for that, haven’t you?
OSTEEN: I have. I have. Because I don’t know.
KING: Good news guy, right?
OSTEEN: Yeah. But you know what? It’s just in me . . .
KING: So it’s self-fulfilling. Billy Graham was here last Thursday.
OSTEEN: I saw.
KING: Might have been his last interview. Is he a hero to
the evangelists?
OSTEEN: He is a hero to us all. His life of integrity. Somebody that can stick with it for that long and just stick with his message. What I love about Dr. Graham is he stayed on course. He didn’t get sidetracked. That’s what happens to so many people today. It’s a good lesson for me, a good example for me to say, you know what, Joel, you may have a lot now, but I want to be here 40 years from now sitting with you.
KING: Do you share Billy’s beliefs of life after death in a sense of going somewhere?
OSTEEN: I do, I do. We probably agree on 99 percent. I do. I believe there’s a heaven you know. Afterwards, there’s, you know, a place called hell. And I believe it’s when we have a relationship with God and his son Jesus and that’s what the Bible teaches us. I believe it. [So that’s the gospel?]
KING: Is it hard to lead a Christian life?
OSTEEN: I don’t think it’s that hard. To me it’s fun. We have joy and happiness. Our family—I don’t feel like that at all. I’m not trying to follow a set of rules and stuff. I’m just living my life.
KING: But you have rules, don’t you?
OSTEEN: We do have rules. But the main rule to me is to honor God with your life. To live a life of integrity. Not be selfish. You know, help others. But that’s really the essence of the Christian faith.
KING: That we live in deeds?
OSTEEN: I don’t know. What do you mean by that?
KING: Because we’ve had ministers on who said, your record don’t count. You either believe in Christ or you don’t. If you believe in Christ, you are, you are going to heaven. And if you don’t, no matter what you’ve done in your life, you ain’t.
OSTEEN: Yeah, I don’t know. There’s probably a balance between. I believe you have to know Christ. But I think that if you know Christ, if you’re a believer in God, you’re going to have some good works. I think it’s a cop-out to say I’m a Christian but I don’t ever do anything . . .
KING: What if you’re Jewish or Muslim, you don’t accept Christ at all?
OSTEEN: You know, I’m very careful about saying who would and wouldn’t go to heaven. I don’t know . . .
KING: If you believe you have to believe in Christ? They’re wrong, aren’t they?
OSTEEN: Well, I don’t know if I believe they’re wrong. I believe here’s what the Bible teaches and from the Christian faith this is what I believe. But I just think that only God will judge a person’s heart. I spent a lot of time in India with my father. I don’t know all about their religion. But I know they love God. And I don’t know. I’ve seen their sincerity. So I don’t know. I know for me, and what the Bible teaches, I want to have a relationship with Jesus. [Hindus love Jehovah God (Yahweh), and worship Him as Scripture commands? All sincere souls go to heaven? What about Christ’s claim that “no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6)?]
One thing is clear from Joel Osteen’s interview: He revealed more about what he doesn’t know than about what he claims to know. Osteen joins a growing company of celebrity “evangelicals” who have appeared on Larry King Live and have failed “to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you . . .” (1 Peter 3:15). As evidenced by this transcript, Osteen seems a great deal less certain about the Gospel than the following New Testament saints:
Paul declared, “I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded . . .” (2 Timothy 1:12); he prayed, “that ye may know what is the hope of [Christ’s] calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints” (Ephesians 1:18); and wrote, “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God” (Romans 3:19); “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings . . .” (Philippians 3:10); “Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man” (Colossians 4:6); John declared, “These things have I written unto you . . . that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness. And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life” (1 John 5:13,19,20).
And of course, the Old Testament also repeatedly states, “that ye may know. . . .” God certainly has conveyed the impression that He wants us to be certain! Yet for Joel Osteen, over and over again, it’s “I don’t know.”
The above material was excerpted and/or adapted from two sources: the August, 2005 issue of The Power of Prophecy; and the July, 2005 issue of The Berean Call.
