Don't know much about him. I know he didn't seem to be the normal thieving greedy evil snake oil salesmen that most televangelists are. That could just mean he was a really really good conman, or it could mean he was sincere. Hmm.... I'll go against my normal grain and be a glass half full guy on this one... so RIP sir.
He wasn't one of the bad ones. RIP.
Stay in Drugs. Eat your School. Don't do Vegetables.
He was less fire and brimstone - more interested in prosperity. Osteen has followed in his tradition.
Schuller was one of the old school, feel good, motivational, ecumenical preachers, not unlike J. Fulton Sheen, if anyone remembers him. But Schuller's Crystal Cathedral Christmas and Easter productions were very well done and on a grand scale and did present a spirit of worship. I believe Billy Graham spoke once or twice on Schuller's program.
Osteen does prosperity gospel which is a variation of Oral Roberts' seed faith routine. Osteen just didn't get into healing and his version of prosperity is if you have faith long enough, God will send "the breaks" your way, as Osteen terms it. At the bottom of tv screen during each of his shows are constant rolls plugging his latest book dvd appearances etc.
I think he was mostly harmless - with the emphasis on "mostly".
The "Protestant work ethic" has fallen into disfavor with some academics, but it still explains a lot, and there is a reason why Max Weber called it that. From there, it's a slippery slope to the "Gospel of prosperity".
Last edited by Rosebud666; 04-03-2015 at 01:25 PM.
I agree. Seed faith, prosperity gospel, whatever you want to label it is based upon the gullibility and greed of the follower of such charlatan preachers. Nothing new there.
Schuller mostly preached the power of positive thinking gospel, much like Norman Vincent Peale. Whether or not that was scriptural, I shan't get in to.
You really would never guess that most of these guys emerged from a staunch Calvinist background with concepts such as total depravity and predestination.
With regard to Osteen and the others: You can say what you want about the "mainline" denominations, but one of their major advantages is the way in which they give institutional expression to accountability to God and one's brothers and sisters in Christ. I am very sceptical about "megachurches" and anyone else who just decides to ride off and start their own rodeo.
Exactly. I personally know a man who broke from the Baptist church and started his own Charismatic thingamajig. My mother joined and tried to get me involved, and when I flat out refused to join, she punished me with chores. She finally saw the light, so to speak, when it really got way out there, as in seeing the devil rise from a body at a funeral home. I could go on, but I'll shut up now.
Aw, the other isn't that interesting. A few years after the above, she joined another group of some such. Again, she tried to get me to join--
Mama: my church is praying your ears will be opened so you can hear again-but they want you to join the church.
Me: Uh, no.And I don't want those people praying for me.
Mama was a searcher. She would have joined the JW's if I had agreed to take her to their Temple. Finally, I read their bible thingy and when I got to the part where it said that before Christ was sent to Mary's womb he was the arch angel Michael. Never heard another word about them again.
The danger of these religious heretics is that they lead people away from Christ instead to Him.
I spent the day busking downtown and noticed that the Jehovah's Witnesses and a local non-denominational fundamentalist congregation had information stands side by side. I hope they didn't come to blows. Too bad the Muslims weren't there handing out the Quran, but they were strangely absent today.
Last summer, one of those dudes left a Quran and two Euros in my banjo case when I was busking. I though that was a really nice gesture, especially since I had been thinking about reading a little in Quran anyway.
I know that it was a different thread, but did we ever figure out whether or not God exists? I kind of lost track.
That will never be figured out as long as there are people who don't believe He exists and those who are sure He does. We used to get hit by the JWs every Saturday and/or Sunday. Nabo would talk to them, because he's nice, and I would shoot them dirty looks, because the Bible teaches us to turn people like that away, plus I'm mean. Then we got Harry the American-Pit Bull, and when he grew up, he hated the JW. I mean hated them. I do not know why. He would have a fit as only his kind can. Spooky. (He also hated cops *snicker* but that's neither here nor there.) Anyway, I was sitting at my desk one time when I looked sideways out the storm door and saw Harry with his back legs spread and pinned, warning a JW to not even touch our gate. So, the guy motioned for me to come out there to talk with him and I go
That's it in a nutshell. There have always been false prophets, going back to the time of Aimee Semple McPherson and before. McPherson was the first traveling tent revivalist to take full advantage of electronic media...radio...to build the first modern age megachurch, cultist in nature to one degree or another. Christ warned of such false prophets.
For some interesting views, search in YT for Wretched TV.