The Wisdom of Osteen

Would you buy a used car from this man???

Joel Osteen (relevant keywords include: shallow, smiling, feelgood, megachurch, pretty-boy) was recently interviewed by Piers Morgan.

Here are two quotes from Osteen (thanks to Al Mohler for the exact wording):

(1) On capital punishment: "You know, it's a complicated issue, Piers. I haven't thought a whole lot about it but, of course, you know, and I'm for second chances and mercy, yet, the flip side is there's consequences for what we've done and, so, I - I don't know what my total stance is..."

(2) On a moral link between abortion and capital punishment: "Well, I think there could be when you say may or may not. You know, that's the troublesome thing, if we don't know for sure and, you know."

Wow. This is the man who casually announces that he wants to write a book, and the Christian publishers savage each other to be the first to advance Osteen a million dollars before he has put pen to paper. What is the world coming to?

Nonetheless, Osteen's burblings are a model of clarity when compared with the immortal statement of Doug Pagitt. During a radio interview, Doug (who is an Emergent Christian) was asked about the doctrine of hell, and he uttered these words:

"I think that there's ... I think there's all kinds of ... I mean that, that, damnation would sort of be that ... that there's parts of the uh, life in creation that seems to be counter to what God is doing and those are the things that are eliminated and removed and done away with. And so I think that's what damnation is, and so there's people who want to live out that kind of uhm, wanna have that good judgment - the judgment of God in their life. I mean you know judge ... judgment in a biblical fashion meaning that God remakes ... that God remakes the world."

Way to go, Doug.