{"id":2779,"date":"2011-10-05T02:00:30","date_gmt":"2011-10-05T08:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=2779"},"modified":"2011-10-05T08:27:19","modified_gmt":"2011-10-05T14:27:19","slug":"piers-morgans-drive-by-of-joel-victoria-osteen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=2779","title":{"rendered":"Piers Morgan’s Drive-by of Joel & Victoria Osteen"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am no fan of Joel and Victoria Osteen.\u00a0 Far from it.\u00a0 Any Christian pastor like Osteen\u00a0who uses Israel’s most wicked King — Ahab — as a positive example of faith in God <\/a>will not often evoke much, if any, sympathy from me.\u00a0 However, last night\u00a0I found myself at times strangely sympathetic\u00a0towards Joel (Victoria not so much) Osteen as he was being “interviewed” by America’s favorite nit-wit<\/del> Brit, Piers Morgan.\u00a0 If one of my church members had not called to let me know my “favorite” pastor was on CNN’s low-rated replacement for Larry King Live<\/em>, I would have missed watching Mr. Morgan’s drive-by attack on America’s most well-known Christian minister.<\/p>\n

In the old days, when Larry King was still at the helm, the Osteens\u00a0were given the kid glove treatment by King, who in the last stages of his long-running talk show was not known for asking hard-hitting follow-up questions of the Osteens.\u00a0 Not so with Piers Morgan.\u00a0 While I mercifully missed the first 15 minutes of the Osteen’s interview, what I did see was almost too painful to watch.\u00a0 But, I figured I owed it to my faithful readers and to members of my congregation to be able to warn them about the latest theological error likely to come out of Joel Osteen’s mouth.\u00a0 I was not disappointed.<\/p>\n

One of Joel’s\u00a0trademark lines — “I don’t know”<\/em> —\u00a0\u00a0was trotted out often, especially after\u00a0Piers Morgan began questioning the Osteens\u00a0about their views\u00a0on Capital Punishment.\u00a0 Right before a commercial, Morgan teased that he would ask the Osteens\u00a0about “Executions.”\u00a0 At this point, I realized two things.\u00a0 One, this would be good, and by good I mean that the Osteens — particularly Joel — would not be prepared for this line of questioning regarding Capital Punishment.\u00a0 I hate to say it, but I was spot on.\u00a0 The second thing I realized is that both Joel and Victoria were being set up for what would be an unrelenting, 45-minute drive-by attack by the irritating and unlikable Morgan.\u00a0 Someone has to be\u00a0such an arrogant jerk in their questioning that would even allow me to have the tiniest inkling of sympathy for Joel Osteen.\u00a0\u00a0Morgan, ever the\u00a0smarmy Brit,\u00a0fit the bill.<\/p>\n

Morgan, who was raised Catholic, appeared antagonistic\u00a0towards orthodox, conservative Christianity from the moment he started asking the Osteens about political\/moral\/religious issues.\u00a0 From his disdain for the Scriptures (“We need to bring them kicking and screaming into the 21st century”<\/em>) to his twisted logic in using Osteen’s view on abortion to trip him up on the Capital Punishment question, Piers Morgan was relentless in his attack on the first couple of American Christendom.\u00a0 Like a dear in the headlights, Joel never knew what hit him.\u00a0 From the look on Victoria’s face (pained, but priceless), it was obvious she knew what was happening, but had absolutely\u00a0no power to stop it (save from walking off the set, which might not have been a bad move).<\/p>\n

While Joel Osteen maybe a great motivational speaker, no one will ever mistake him for a deep thinker or gifted theologian.\u00a0 A learned pastor able to answer the most basic questions about faith and moral issues would be nice, but that’s\u00a0still too much to ask for Joel Osteen.\u00a0 Having badly wounded\u00a0Joel with his questions regarding Capital Punishment — which Joel said he\u00a0hadn’t thought too much about —\u00a0Morgan went for the kill shot, a question about\u00a0every pagan’s favorite topic, homosexuality.\u00a0 Having heard Joel Osteen’s painful answers to this topic on Larry King Live<\/em>, I just knew that he would fain ignorance and try to move the interview along.<\/p>\n

Much to my surprise, Joel Osteen, at least at first, acquitted himself quite well when responding to Morgan’s predictably\u00a0asinine line of questioning regarding\u00a0same-sex marriage.\u00a0 Joel, in a fairly\u00a0strong way (at least for him) stood on the authority of God’s\u00a0Word that homosexuality\u00a0is a sin.\u00a0 He\u00a0turned to Scripture for his understanding of marriage, even pointing out that no\u00a0where in the Bible does it mention two people of the same\u00a0gender getting married.\u00a0 If Morgan would have\u00a0moved on, the Osteens would have gotten a solid “B”<\/em> for their stand on homosexual marriage.\u00a0 Morgan didn’t and the Osteens subsequent answers brought this portion of their test down to a “D+.”\u00a0 <\/em>Their overall grade was still an “F,” but they at least tried on this issue to withstand Morgan’s attacks.<\/p>\n

Even though Joel Osteen was clear that he would not perform a same-sex marriage and that he believed the Bible’s language clearly prohibits same-sex marriages and will still be clear 200 years from now on the issue of gay marriage, Morgan was not through with the\u00a0questions on homosexuality.\u00a0 Asking Joel if he would ever attend a gay wedding, Joel hesitated.\u00a0 What would he say?\u00a0 Surely he wouldn’t attend a\u00a0same-sex wedding, would he?\u00a0 Before he could answer, Lakewood’s Co-Pastor, Victoria Osteen, piped up and said she would most definitely attend a gay friend’s wedding if asked and if she had the time.\u00a0 By this time, Joel also has to admit that he would attend his friend’s same-sex wedding to “show respect”<\/em> for his friend.\u00a0 While this might sound admirable at first blush, for America’s leading “pastor”<\/em> to tell Piers Morgan that he would attend a gay wedding makes about as much sense as saying that he would attend a friend’s first-ever\u00a0pole dance at the local strip club!\u00a0\u00a0A\u00a0Christian pastor has no business at either event, even if people find it disrespectful not to attend.<\/p>\n

After\u00a0watching this painful interview, I came away with a tinge of sympathy for Joel Osteen.\u00a0 He seems like a nice man who is a great husband and father.\u00a0 No one will mistake him for Billy Graham or Charles Spurgeon.\u00a0 However, whether we like it or not (I don’t), Joel Osteen has become the face of evangelical\u00a0Christianity in America.\u00a0 Piers Morgan knows it.\u00a0 That’s why he tried his best to\u00a0take out Joel on\u00a0Tuesday night.\u00a0 Badly wounded in the drive-by, Joel Osteen\u00a0will live to fight another day.\u00a0 Perhaps he will come better prepared and well-armed with Scripture.\u00a0 More\u00a0drive-by attacks will come and they\u00a0won’t just be directed at Osteen.\u00a0 I may not like his theology or methodology, but on this night,\u00a0I’m glad Joel survived this well-planned drive-by attack.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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I am no fan of Joel and Victoria Osteen.\u00a0 Far from it.\u00a0 Any Christian pastor like Osteen\u00a0who uses Israel’s most wicked King — Ahab — as a positive example of faith in God will not often evoke much, if any, sympathy from me.\u00a0 However, last night\u00a0I found myself at times strangely sympathetic\u00a0towards Joel (Victoria not…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,27,34,35,39],"tags":[158,1429,1431,1428,1430,431,495,1426,558,585,594,1230,1427,3399,1029],"class_list":["post-2779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-homosexual-agenda","category-politics","category-religion","category-theology","tag-billy-graham","tag-capital-punishment","tag-charles-spurgeon","tag-cnn","tag-executions","tag-gay-marriage","tag-homosexuality","tag-joel-and-victoria-osteen","tag-joel-osteen","tag-king-ahab","tag-lakewood-church","tag-larry-king-live","tag-piers-morgan","tag-same-sex-marriage","tag-victoria-osteen"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-IP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2779"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2789,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2779\/revisions\/2789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}