Imagine, for a moment, that I came to your typically conservative evangelical church and asked to visit with your young people, high school through young married couples. I want to ask them some questions.

-What do you think of the President?
-What is your position on abortion?
-What do you believe about the legalization of gay marriage?
-Are you in favor of any version of Federally controlled health care?
-What is your church’s definition of the inspiration and authority of scripture?
-What is a brief definition of the Trinity?
-How does your church’s beliefs differ from Roman Catholicism? [Continue reading]

This is extracted from the famous 60 minutes interview with Joel Osteen, where the reporter asked the questions most evangelicals ignore. Here’s the entire interview, parts 1 and 2.

From 2006, this is my diagnosis of why evangelicals are increasingly drawn to the culture war. It’s not, contrary to what the rhetoric wants us to believe, because we have a Jesus shaped mission to the world, caring passionately about the issues Jesus cared about. No, it’s a bit less flattering.

I’m suggesting that spiritually empty, poorly led and poorly taught evangelicals are mistaking the Kingdom of God on earth for the victory of their political and cultural preferences. The Culture War is a poor replacement for the mission of the church as a Jesus shaped community, pointing to the eschatological Kingdom of God.

Read: The Tactics of Failure: Why the Culture War Makes Sense to Spiritually Empty Evangelicals.

UPDATE: How did Jesus Fight The Culture War?

UPDATE II: Why angry Bob is angry?

Today being election day, and many of my evangelical friends being in somewhat of a foul mood, for reasons that, as of 12:28 p.m., are suspected and not yet clear, I found myself thinking about a fellow I’ll call Bob.

I met Bob while I was on sabbatical. He was a very dedicated conservative evangelical, and a pleasant enough fellow….when he wasn’t angry. And Bob was angry. Angry, afraid, frustrated and ready for a fight.

Bob was your stereotypical culture war evangelical. He was a Jesus follower, but his passion was what was going on in America, particularly the issues we broadly call the culture war: atheistic advances in the public schools, restrictions on Christian practice in the public square, the aggressive agenda of homosexual rights advocates. [Continue reading]

LINK: Read Matt Davis’s take on the 40/40.

Resource: IM lurker Pastor Scott sends along Greg Boyd’s sermon/prayer guide for a current emphasis in his church called “The Great Reversal: The Upside Down Kingdom of God.” Woodland Hills Church media for the series will be here starting Oct. 5.

UPDATE: Read IMB Missionary in the comment threads.

I can’t blog what I want to blog on this post. Wouldn’t be prudent, as George H. W. Bush often said.

I’ve just spent the last 30 minutes looking through this Prayer Guide promoting the current big emphasis in the Southern Baptist Convention, The “40/40″ Prayer emphasis.

The 40/40 Emphasis is for “Personal Revival and National Renewal.” It’s as big a focus on the culture war as I’ve seen in the SBC, straight up. [Continue reading]

UPDATE: A page of Horton resources related to Osteen.

UPDATE II: So many good Osteen pieces on there. Denny Burke zeroes in on Osteen’s glad admission that he does not preach the Bible’s main message.

UPDATE III: Slate Magazine on Osteen’s God.

The mentality that thinks in terms of marketing Jesus inevitably moves toward progressive distortion of him; the pursuit of the next emotional round of experience easily degenerates into an intoxicating substitute for the spirituality of the Word. There is non-negotiable, biblical, intellectual content to be proclaimed. By all means insist that this content be heralded with conviction and compassion; by all means seek the unction of the Spirit; by all means try to think through how to cast this content in ways that engage the modern secularist. But when all the footnotes are in place, my point remains the same: the historic gospel is unavoidably cast as intellectual content that must be taught and proclaimed. -D.A. Carson, The Gagging of God

A few thoughts on tonight’s 60 Minutes’ piece on Joel Osteen.

1. Byron Pitts, the reporter doing the piece, was simply superb. To the point. Unmoved by show. Understood the problem. In fact, probably understood far more than Osteen himself does about Christianity.

2. As much as I would like to join those who say that Osteen is a simpleton who doesn’t know what he’s doing, a close examination will show that at every point where there is a choice between being part of the church or departing into heresy, Osteen sticks with the church where there is money to be had and departs from the church where there is a faith to be confessed. He’s could be called a heretic by some, even if he is a believer, and he communicates a purposefully false trivialization of the person and work of Jesus Christ in favor of a man-centered motivational message of self-improvement.

Again, as I’ve said before, every evangelical leader needs to personally and by name repudiate and separate from Osteen, and call upon him and his followers to come back into the faith that is articulated in the Apostle’s Creed. [Continue reading]

UPDATE III: While we wait for CBD to apologize, we can all play Oprah or Osteen.

UPDATE II: Can anyone in a Lifeway Store or working for Lifeway confirm that Lifeway is selling this book? Please tell me it isn’t true. If TIME Magazine can tell us this fraud is a prosperity preaching wolf in sheep’s clothing, what does CBD know that TIME doesn’t? UPDATE: Ed Stetzer is in the comments with a response. Short version: They will order it, but they want to recommend customers avoid it. That’s about a C+, but I’m glad it’s not what I was afraid I’d hear. Thanks Dr. Stetzer.

UPDATE: My infamous Joel Osteen post. With lots and lots of links. Read the Harry Smith Interview. Also, read Ben Witherington on Osteen. Here’s Osteen from the Harry Smith interview:

Smith compared Osteen’s preaching to Norman Vincent Peale’s, and Osteen agreed.

“It’s amazing,” Osteen said. “I was preaching two or three years when someone gave me one of his books. I was going to say, ‘He thinks like me.’ I think like him. It seems like it’s the same base there. God is on our side and if you think right, I believe, like Norman Vincent Peale did, that your life follows your thoughts. You get up negative, oppressive, you’re (sic) day will go that way.”

Did someone once say “I find Peale appalling and Paul appealing?” Not Osteen.

Dear CBD, [Continue reading]

How do you know I like this book? I spent three hours writing the review, hit publish and Wordpress promptly ate it.

I’m rewriting it.

Tyler Wigg Stevenson is a writer, preacher and political activist with credentials as wide-ranging as a Yale Divinity M.Div., a year as an assistant to John Stott and being part of the beginnings of a Strategic Security think-tank with the late Senator Alan Cranston.

He’s also part of the new voices within evangelicalism that defy easy categorization as “left” or “right,” but who are offering evangelicals a new, more honest, view of themselves as Christians living in “the empire” that is the modernized west. The discussion of Christians and empire involves mostly scholars from the center/left of the evangelical spectrum- Wright, Crossan, Walsh and Keesmaat- but the applications of that study are desperately needed among Christians and churches that are unlikely to ever hear it from their pastors. [Continue reading]

I’ve mentioned the “Prosperity Gospel” in some presentations recently, and I’ve had some questions about what I mean when I use the term. I’m going to outline some very basic responses- and have a little to say about them- so that I can refer others to them as a more complete answer than I can give in a cafeteria line.

I believe it is critical that every pastor take this subject on directly, and that we speak clearly about it. The prosperity message is not the Biblical gospel and is a distorted, spiritually dangerous muddle at the very least, and a damning spiritual cyanide at the worst. This is an error that is consuming millions of evangelicals around the world as it is propagated by way of TBN and so forth. Clarity and Biblical faithfulness are important at this moment.

[As is true so often, John Piper is to the point and on target with what's wrong with the Prosperity message.]

What is the Prosperity Gospel? [Continue reading]

Sometime when I was in seminary, I first heard the term “civil religion” and started to understand that some people had a problem with the American flag in a church sanctuary. The flag- and its companion, the “Christian” flag- have been in every church sanctuary I’ve ever been in, and both flags are in the chapel where I lead worship today.

Where I live today, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if there are churches with the Confederate flag in the sanctuary.

In the culture where I live, a pastor of a typical church who removed the flag would be fired. A pastor who started a process aimed at removing the flag would be starting a process to find another job. Removing the flag would be seen as something like a declaration of atheism or endorsing Al-Queda. Or both. Multiplied. By 10. [Continue reading]

[Check out the previous IM post, "With God On Our Side."]

One of the results of working with international students, and especially of having them in worship services you’re leading, is a new appreciation of how some commonly accepted elements of American Christian culture sound to those who aren’t Americans.

Take, for example, those patriotic songs at the back of your average American hymnal. They sound somewhat unusual when you look out into dozens of African and Asian faces.

This morning, the worship service I attended featured a very tasteful remembrance of those who had given their lives in the service of their country. We also sang this song, a song I’ve known since I was a small child, and a song that I’ve never really considered very much until I realized students from other countries were being asked to sing it with us in the context of worship.

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea! [Continue reading]

My men’s Bible study has been reading and discussing John Piper’s book Don’t Waste Your Life. If you aren’t familiar with DWYL, it is a small book that Piper wrote to persuade college-age young people to live missional, Kingdom-building, God-glorifying and passionate lives. If you want to give the “Piper” experience in short form, this book is your best bet.

As IM readers, know, I am a real fan of this book even though I disagree with aspects of Piper’s appeal. None of my reservations, however, take away from the value of the book for American Christians, particularly as Piper deals with materialism. [Continue reading]

A good friend mailed me a note the other day, asking my opinion of a book that was all the rage in his megachurch. It’s not the first time we’ve had that conversation. We’ve covered this ground many times because his church, like most of American megachurch evangelicalism, often behaves like a group of consumerist sheep looking for a shepherd. Such shepherds are supplied these days by Joel Osteen products, Rick Warren products, Jabez prayers and products, Left Behind books and games, Beth Moore products, Joyce Meyer products, Thomas Kincaid products, Max Lucado books and products, and so on and so on and so on. [Continue reading]

Dan Edelen is on one of the best bloggers I know of, and his post We Need A Gospel That Speaks To Failure is outa the park, center field.

Your church is looking for new elders. Which of these two 40-year old men has a better chance of becoming an elder, the self-made man who runs his own company OR the fellow who works the night shift as a convenience store clerk? In the split second (Blink!) you thought about that pair, did class distinction enter into your assessment? Has anything been said about the spiritual maturity of those men? Don’t we assume that one is more spiritually mature simply because he runs a successful business, while the other only makes $8/hr.?

Did Jesus ever think that way? He summons the less esteemed to the head of the table, while one who believes he belongs in the place of honor is sent down. The beggar Lazarus, whose sores were licked by dogs, winds up in heaven, while the rich man suffers in torment. Jesus said nothing about Lazarus’ spiritual maturity, did He? But Lazarus is the one in Abraham’s bosom. Obviously, failure and poverty have nothing to do with one’s eternal destiny and spiritual depth. [Continue reading]