On Joel Osteen

60 Minutes transcription. A nice counter follow up via Internet Monk

Osteen’s theology is ocean wide and puddle deep. It’s interesting to hear the defenders of Osteen basically point out how he has helped so many(ocean wide). The issue here though is when theologians go, “Yeah, but…” and then they put their finger in the water and it doesn’t even go up to their knuckle. Even Osteen himself will admit that theology isn’t his strong point.

I mean, there’s a lot better people qualified to say, ‘Here’s a book that going to explain the scriptures to you.’ I don’t think that’s my gifting,” Osteen says.

Actually, as a pastor, it “kind of” is. I get that pastors will have various talents and not all of them are theology geeks. I’m not saying that a pastor who is a theology geek is by default better than one who isn’t. A pastor who is very strong in theology might be very bad at compassion, or administration. Osteen just seems all too happy giving the watered down all positive version of the Bible and then twist it enough to where it’s not really the gospel anymore. I would dare say I was curious and scared to see what Osteen thought about what Paul wrote during his time in jail. I don’t think Paul was thinking about how God wanted to bless him with a promotion.

Dear ABC

When you talk about why ABC rules Wednesday night you better make sure to mention the show people are currently watching. Way to support what’s considered the best new show. As if having what was deemed one of the best pilots in years wasn’t enough, Pushing Daisies was top notch stuff in episode two. The musical scene with the dog had me chuckling well after the show was over.

20

There’s a higher power working for these guys, and that’s not even a joke: David Fleming’s ESPN The Magazine feature about Jon Kitna contained the follow nugget: “Since [Kitna] signed a four-year, $11.5 million deal in March 2006, about 20 Lions have given their lives to Christ.”

I thought that number seemed startlingly high, but just to make sure, I called my buddy House to see how many guesses he would make before he reached “20.” He started out by guessing three, then five, then seven. Then he yelled, “You’re lying!” Then he made four more guesses before getting to “15″ and giving up. When I told him the answer, he screamed, “Whaaaaaat??? Jon Kitna needs to be stopped!” I thought that was funny, especially because House was drinking a beer in a bar when I called him to play the game. (He’s definitely headed to hell, and not just because he’s naming his fantasy hoops team “TRUCK PARTY” after one of the N.Y. Post headlines about the Marbury/Knicks intern sexual escapade.) But clearly, SOMETHING is going on with the Lions here, right? Twenty teammates???? Don’t we need more information about this? Did any beat writers convert? What about ball boys and trainers? It’s the single most fascinating story of the 2007 season other than Moss’ comeback and Turner and Cottrell slowly turning Tomlinson into a serial killer.

Ok, so take the 53 players an NFL team can have. Kitna is already a Christian, so that makes it 52. Even if you consider the odds that 52 of his teammates would actually be non-Christians, that still means he’s converted roughly 38% of the non-Christians over to being a Christian. Let’s just all assume they mean more than just players when they are talking about “Lions.” Side note, I as a Christian find this great, interesting, and a number of other things, but you have to partly wonder how much is based on the Lions winning and how authentic this mass conversion really is. I’m not saying those in question aren’t genuine in their conversion because I simply don’t know. There just happens to be far far too many examples of short term mass conversions that later on very little ever comes out of it.

One point The Sports Guy didn’t bring up. Kitna used to play for the Bengals and the team has been widely known for it’s run-ins with the law. This of course basically happened after Kitna left. While Kitna was there even after handing off the QB reigns to Palmer, the Bengals have been a sexy pick as to going down the path to the Super Bowl. Once Kitna left, the team has largely regressed from where they were.

Chuck and Heroes

I swear when I originally started this blog I thought I was going to be posting frequently, but it hasn’t worked out that way. I got back from vacation only to get sick. *sigh*

I watched “Chuck” out of part curiosity and partly because it was the lead in for “Heroes.” It has a certain cute show factor going for it, but it just seems like the writers are trying too hard to sell the product. The best example is the over usage of showing the blond spy being half naked for no other reason than to push the sex aspect. Do we see an over abundance of special effects on “Heroes” even though the show is about people with superpowers? No. Why not? Because the writers can still sell the story by itself. Obviously the people behind “Chuck” feel differently about their own show. I give it around a B- though. It’s still way better than “Deal or No Deal.” “Heroes” for me was about the typical quality I expected from it. I say it was in the B+ to A- range.

That time of year

I am about a week away from being past the “back to school” part of the calender. What this means is that for the first time in over a month I’ll have a sane work schedule which translates into a sane sleeping schedule. There have been weeks where I have never slept less, or that one awkward week where the only time I slept more was when I was sick. Needless to say, much of my life has been a vast blur during this time. I’ll be getting back to normal posting soon.