By sifilings on
Anything Else
Joel Osteen

Pastor Osteen and Christian Narcissism: Symptom of a Larger Problem

“If Lakewood Church is any indication of the biblical literacy, genuine devotion to Christ, and fellowship of the saints of the American evangelical church, we are in serious trouble.”

Discussion

Mon, 09/01/14

Very similar to John Piper and his thoughts on Christian Hedonism. I know, he parses it slightly different, but his views on happiness of one’s self, and the passion for which we seek it, is not much different.

KML

Mon, 09/01/14

[KLengel]

Very similar to John Piper and his thoughts on Christian Hedonism. I know, he parses it slightly different, but his views on happiness of one’s self, and the passion for which we seek it, is not much different.

KML

http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/we-want-you-to-be-a-christian-hedon…​

My shortest summary of Christian Hedonism is: God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

We all make a god out of what we take the most pleasure in. Christian Hedonists want to make God their God by seeking after the greatest pleasure—pleasure in him.

By Christian Hedonism, we do not mean that our happiness is the highest good. We mean that pursuing the highest good will always result in our greatest happiness in the end. We should pursue this happiness, and pursue it with all our might. The desire to be happy is a proper motive for every good deed, and if you abandon the pursuit of your own joy you cannot love man or please God.

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Jim's Doctrinal Statement

Mon, 09/01/14

Also from John Piper,

“There it was in black and white, and to my mind it was totally compelling: It is not a bad thing to desire our own good. In fact, the great problem of human beings is that they are far too easily pleased. They don’t seek pleasure with nearly the resolve and passion that they should. And so they settle for mud pies of appetite instead of infinite delight.

I had never in my whole life heard any Christian, let alone a Christian of Lewis’s stature, say that all of us not only seek (as Pascal said), but also ought to seek our own happiness. Our mistake lies not in the intensity of our desire for happiness, but in the weakness of it.”

I am sorry to disagree, but as I said, he may parse it ever so slightly different, but it is the same thing.

KML

Mon, 09/01/14

Jim,

Piper does not just state “Glorify God, be happy”, IMO. He tells us to “seek” pleasure. That is not just “be happy”. He states we do not seek pleasure fervently enough.

Thanks for the chat. I have better things to do now. I just saw it amazing that we can point out Osteen (and we should) but leave out the same criticism of Piper. (we don’t do enough of here.)

KML

Mon, 09/01/14

The sad thing is that some people seem to fail to see any difference between Piper and Osteen. In practice they treat Piper, Dever, Mohler, Keller, etc. the same way they treat apostates and false teachers.

When I first read Piper on this subject, my first reaction was that he had just restated Edward’s Religious Affections.

"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan