NUTTY PASTOR TALK 4.0 To all acts and thoughts and feelings and words there are consequences and consequences of consequences. And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Ephesians 4:32 I upgrade this series of blog postings now and then because every now and then I am amazed by some of the nutty things said by pastors, priests, ministers, Buddhist or Hindu spiritual guru guides – during sermons to the flock of wide eyed church goers and cross legged grinning mantra moaners. Recently, a new resource for nutty pastor talk reached out to me from the TV set as I watched Joel Osteen on Sunday morning preach from Lakewood Church at The former Compaq Centre in Houston, Texas. Normally, for years, I have ignored television evangelists but Joel Osteen, I thought, was different. This past Sunday he proved to me just how typical, radical and fallible he truly can be. I was so disappointed for I hold Mr. Osteen in such high esteem. The sermon was all about protecting your peace, coveting your resting time, making sure that you structure your life by surrounding yourself with people who do not interfere with the serenity you have constructed. He spoke about the “peace stealers” in our lives, those who call to us for help, those who consider us a “go to” person, those who seem to have an abundance of misfortune in their lives and are frequently in need of help; those who are in need of an ear, in need of advice, in need of physical assistance of some kind. Your basic needy type. Mr. Osteen went on to advise his listening audience to let these people go from their worlds. He spoke about structuring our lives with positive things and positive people and family time and down time and peace time and alone time; he spoke about living that life and cautioned the viewer to avoid events and people who threaten to destabilize our “resting time.” He talked about people in our lives who will steal that time from us with their need for help with life’s events and issues and problems and catastrophes that they cannot resolve on their own. He claimed that these “peace stealers” have a negative impact on our lives and suggested that when we help them they end up sleeping well at night while we are awake worrying about their problems. He called such helpful people enablers and turned a positive into a negative and lumped everyone who has a needy friend into that category. How irresponsible. How insulting and defaming and debilitating to a huge chunk of society who suffer the misfortune of poverty. How ignorantly supportive of the stigma of mental health. How dispassionate of those born with issues such as health concerns, bad parenting, lack of opportunity. How deviously misleading to a flock of Christian believers gathered to hear the words of a spiritual leader they admire and revere and consider a destined translator and promulgator of God’s word. How abusive of the bond of trust between pastor and parishioner. If there are needy people in our lives they usually have reason for such behavior. It can be simple misfortune, bad karma as some would say. It can be many things and it can be mental illness, depression, anxiety, afflictions that effect twenty percent of the population. Mr. Osteen’s recommendations to remove such people from our lives because they will steal our resting periods is outrageously selfish. His words proliferate a stigma around mental health that should enrage us all for society is on the cusp of change toward mental health and is slowly creeping toward daylight when it comes to alternative perspectives on individuals who suffer from the very physical illness of brain chemistry disorders. Mr. Osteen encourages us to rid ourselves of these peace thieves. To remove from our lives people who ask us for help because he interprets such behavior as enabling. To toss away those who would call us during our Saturday afternoon hammock time in the back yard with issues that are serious to them, issues that compel them to reach out to us for love, support, calm, level headed brotherly assistance; true and raw Christian outreach. His advice was contradictory to basic Christian concepts of love, hope and assistance to those in need. So, Mr. Osteen, that’s some nutty pastor talk you released to the airwaves on Sunday. In thirty minutes you managed to insult a huge sector of the population, passive aggressively condemn brain disorders, discourage the Christian directive to help those in need and to suggest that we selfishly set up our lives with only those who will bring positive energy into our world declaring, en masse, that anyone else is useless to our life experience. How dangerously, foolishly, ignorantly, apathetically irresponsible for a pastor with such deep community bonds and power to bring to his church on Sunday. See ya next Sunday, maybe. To be fair, you can listen to this sermon at Mr. Osteen’s web site. Here is the link: https://www.joelosteen.com/Pages/WatchOnline.aspx Click on message #685 Living At Rest Comments are closed.
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