Category Archives: America

Joel Osteen & the Glory Story

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Joel Osteen and the Glory Story: A Case Study
by Michael S. Horton, Ph.D.
horton1This article is a part of a collection of essays written recently by Dr. Horton after his interview on 60 Minutes which aired on October 14, 2007.

“Name it, claim it”; the “health-and-wealth” or “prosperity gospel” : these are nicknames for a heresy that in many respects is only an extreme version of perhaps the most typical focus of American Christianity today more generally. Basically, God is there for you and your happiness. He has some rules and principles for getting what you want out of life and if you follow them, you can have what you want. Just “declare it” and prosperity will come to you. God as Personal Shopper.

Although explicit proponents of the so-called “prosperity gospel” may be fewer than their influence suggests, its big names and best-selling authors (T. D. Jakes, Benny Hinn, Joel Osteen, and Joyce Meyer) are purveyors of a pagan worldview with a peculiarly American flavor. It’s basically what the sixteenth century German monk turned church reformer Martin Luther called the “theology of glory”: How can I climb the ladder and attain the glory here and now that God has actually promised for us after a life of suffering? The contrast is the “theology of the cross”: the story of God’s merciful descent to us, at great personal cost, a message that the Apostle Paul acknowledged was offensive and “foolish to Greeks.”

READ THE REST HERE

Let us believe and boldly defend of the one true gospel,
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Low fertility rates change whole cultures

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When a country’s fertility rate drops below 2.11 children per family, it can no longer sustain the present population, and it will shrink. That is, if 2 parents only have 1 child (which is almost the norm in many countries in the western world), the next generation is drastically smaller, and is statistically unlikely to recover. This means there are (and will be for decades to come) fewer laborers in that country’s economy.
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Today, in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and even the UK, their shrinking workforce has attracted lots of immigration — primarily from Muslim countries. While this helps the workforce (but drains money out of the country), it also radically shifts the country’s social and religious situation. (Do you remember the head-scarf issue in France a year or two back? Or talk in Britain about accepting Sharia law?).

There are reports that in 2004, 18% of the children born in Germany had foreign-born mothers (that’s nearly 1/5th). And Germany’s government foresees that by 2050 it will be a Muslim state!

Here is one sobering video presentation on these statistics and their implications. I do not know its source, but its fundamental theories are appearing more and more in the news.

As Christians we should be concerned, but also prayerfully committed to:
(a) diligently raising our children in the Christian faith, preparing them for this changing world, and, (b) specifically evangelizing the 100,000+ immigrants who come to these Western countries — seizing this huge opportunity to reach them while away from their closed home countries.

May the Lord lead us in our thinking, planning and serving the cause of Christ, in this generation and the next…
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