I just want to take a moment to thank everyone who's listened or downloaded or shared our podcast so far.
It's amazing to see people's response and to just be a part of this conversation.
And I feel like I'm on this journey with a bunch of people now.
If you want to help us out, continue to listen, of course, but please leave us some reviews.
That's the number one thing in the internet world that helps people find our podcast.
Share this podcast with a friend.
We're going to do a poll on Instagram on Friday when this episode releases.
And we're going to have a few books and ask our audience which one we should do
as we are starting to plan the next season, which is also kind of crazy already.
We got some good books coming up.
Well, and should people stay tuned for further waves to support us as the holidays roll around?
Ooh.
And perhaps some bonus content that is premium?
Yeah, a little Giving Tuesday.
That'll be in the future.
But also, like, maybe it's not best to speak about on this episode,
considering we're talking about the prosperity gospel.
Hey, listen, open your purse.
We're about to talk about Joel Osteen.
I remember the day that I went into my local Christian bookstore and there was my book.
You are not God!
You are just a man!
The Total Money Makeover book is your sold-almost-present-thing.
The number one best-selling book.
Book.
No, because it's not a great book.
It's such a great story, you gotta read the book.
This is Bad Christian Books.
Welcome to Bad Christian Books, a podcast about the worst bestsellers Christianity has to offer.
I'm Mary Hall, a person of faith and a current churchgoer.
I am Sammy Collieto, also a person of faith and not a current churchgoer.
This is also maybe a good note.
We are operating off of very little sleep.
A funny thing happens when we operate off of little sleep.
I get very philosophical and I can't speak for you, Mary.
What happens to you on little sleep?
My words just like go down the drain.
I get a lot of brain fog, you know, like add extra letters into things,
which actually is really bad because until I started reading this book,
I thought the topic of the book, the person, Joel Osteen,
his name was Joel Olsteen with an L,
and I'm just like very paranoid that I'm going to say his last name wrong.
I called Dave Ramsey Gordon Ramsey, so I think we're, you know.
Yeah, that's true.
Okay, Samuel, what do you know about Joel Osteen in one sentence?
He scams old ladies.
Oh.
That's my image of him.
His book is at Target and he's got a smile that's a mile.
That is very true.
Yeah, so today we're talking about The Power of I Am by Joel Osteen.
Full disclosure, I want to say that I chose the best book because I'm just brilliant at
knowing which of his books are the best, but actually it was a total fluke,
or perhaps I'm manifesting the right things because I was just in the library
and it's the book of his that was in the library.
But, and this ties into the scamming older women thing,
this is actually one of his most popular books, Slash Sermons,
because all of his books were sermons that he made longer,
because he was promoted by a very specific celebrity who said that this sermon changed her life.
And Samuel, I sent you a link.
Is it going to be Oprah?
We shall see.
There she is.
Whatever follows I Am is going to come looking for you, just really was a big aha.
Yeah, you know, Oprah, so many people don't realize the way they go through life is,
I think they've just been trained that way. But like you're saying, I am so tired and I am unlucky
and I never get any good breaks. But when you speak that out, you're setting the tone for your life.
I always tell people if you want to know what you're going to be like five years from now,
listen to what you're saying about yourself right now.
He talks like a supermodel.
I want to know what you mean by that.
You can't go around saying all day that, you know what, I'm not attractive and
I'm never getting any good breaks and I'm a lousy mother.
That's just going to draw in negative defeat and things that are going to keep you from God's best.
Well, I love that whatever follows I Am is going to come looking for you because whatever follows it,
this just happened to me recently. I was filming the movie The Butler and I was so tired and all
day I kept saying, I'm so tired. I am so tired. And what I realized is I was getting more and more tired.
And then I thought about the sermon. I said, how can I turn this around? And for me, I can't
immediately go to I am so energized because I wasn't. So I was trying to think what, so I can't go,
I'm so energized. I'm now lying to myself because I'm not. But what can I use in between? So I started
to say, I am looking forward to my second win. I am looking forward to my second win. And it came.
Yeah. You know, I think that's true. You could say just what you said and I am refreshed. I'm
being restored and yes, you know, things like that. You don't have to go to the extreme.
Go to the extreme. How did you come to that? What spark of God happened that made you conclude that
whatever follows I Am is going to come looking for you? I think sometimes we make things so
complicated, but it's the simple things that keep most people back. Oh, look at that. We got to
simplify things. That's a theme I'm noticing on our podcast. Well, I think it's just so important
to never speak negative words about yourself, your family. You know, it may come to your mind,
but don't give your words life by speaking them out. Don't ever say anything negative about
yourself. You may feel it, but just, you know, zip it up and make those positive declarations.
It takes time though, because from the time I heard the I Am sermon, I mean, what it did,
and I'm hoping this is what's going to happen for all of you who are watching who are here,
is that you start catching yourself. Because, you know, if you're however old you are,
you have the habit of feeding the negative tapes to yourself. I do too. And so when you first catch
yourself doing it, you switch it. Just as we've been doing here today, you switch the I Am.
This is so LA. I feel like I'm at like Erewhon right now. And it takes practice. That's why the,
I declare the declarations help you get into the practice of it. Absolutely. It's not something you
go out and have to do in public. You get up in the morning, you're in the shower, you're driving to
work saying, you know what, Lord, thank you. I'm, I'm strong. I make good decisions. I'm healthy.
Just simple things like that. I'm looking forward to my future. Oprah just pointed at somebody and
called them out. Yeah, I think she must have been from earlier in the thing. Yeah. Yes. I'm looking
forward to my future. Yes. Could you lead us in a few I Ams? Absolutely. Okay. Can we all stand? Can
we all stand? Let's stand. All right. All right. Just repeat after me. I am strong. I am strong.
I am healthy. I am healthy. I am confident. I am confident. I am secure. I am secure. I am talented.
I am self-sacrificing. I am creative. I am disciplined. I am focused. I am valuable. I am beautiful.
I am blessed. I am excited about my future. I am victorious.
I am victorious.
That's really creepy. Okay. So what did you mean by he sounds like a supermodel?
So when they do like Miss Universe pageants and they're like, what is your solution to
world peace or something along those lines? And it's always just this word salad of
buzzword affirmations, or it's like, we're not doing this beauty pageant to get some nuanced
politics. We're here to look at people. And honestly, it's the same thing with Joel and Oprah.
I mean, they're beautiful people who already have what they want. Kind of just telling you that if
only you are as happy as these people after they got what they wanted, you too can get what you want.
Right. Yeah. I mean, that's that's a summation. And I did think about showing you the the clip
of the actual sermon. But in reality, what just happened is exactly what the sermon is,
except Oprah's not there. And I think Oprah's a little bit more interesting.
I got a little nostalgic for my old watching Oprah days.
Oh, I know. I used to watch Oprah with my mom every day. That's such a core memory for me.
Well, and I mean, that's part of Joel Osteen's rise to fame. I mean, he was famous before, but
Oprah really platformed him at a time when like her platform was arguably the biggest in the world.
I think that so so what we just watched, I should probably say it was an Oprah life class.
It took place in 2012. Don't distract me.
I'm so sorry. I just Oprah life class. Also, I could tell it was recent ish because she was
talking about Lee Daniels, the butler. It's just wild because it's such an old looking video. But
that's like only 10 years ago, really. Right. It was the year after she like ended her show,
but then like launched her network. But I was wondering if maybe you could describe like,
what you just watched, like the people and how people were reacting the energy.
I'm sure I'm like, do I let tired Samuel go wild? Or do I attempt to put it?
Let him go wild. It looked like the Hunger Games. Like,
you know, when they show the pageants on the Hunger Games be in between the actual kids fighting each
other, it just had this, it's this massive, massive venue that they're at, they're on a stage.
And the congregation because it is a congregation. It reminds me of like a hype and hoopla mega
church. There's a fervor to the room. It's like Oprah is the king, and Joel is the shaman. And so
she's saying what the shamans thinking. And then the shaman sort of, you know, subtly guides her.
Like she's like, because she kind of points out a hole in his problem in his viewpoint, which is
like, you can't just say I'm good if you're not good. But he kind of corrects her. And he's like,
well, you could say, I'm better. You know, like he's he is sort of right. Yeah, exactly.
Well, and I don't know if you noticed, but she goes, what big word from God did you receive to
come up with this amazing thing? And he literally just says, Oh, well, it's very simple. And then
he like, literally repeats everything he just said in a slightly different way. You're right.
I miss that because I kind of zone out when he talks. But he never answered her question.
No, he doesn't. I'm so glad you put Oprah on here. Because otherwise, I would have just been like,
he spoke, I didn't hear it. There's times where she's almost like, like a little kid or something
being like, can we do the affirmations? Like she's looking to him. It feels like a magic show.
Yeah, we'll link to it so people can watch it themselves. What happens like the I hesitate to
say argument because I don't even think it's like worth the meaning of that word. But like the
rhetoric that he has in that little clip is exactly what his book is kind of to give a slight
background about Joel Osteen. This sermon, the power of I am has been called the most popular
sermon on the internet. You can watch the full sermon on Oprah calm and where it has like more
than 4 million views. Every sermon he posts has like multiple millions of views, their own platforms
reach hundreds of millions of people around the world and a bunch of different languages. And
the Joel Osteen podcast is consistently in the top five in the world. We're talking about someone who
is enormous and is a much bigger personality than historically, I think a lot of the prosperity
gospel people were who, for most of America, for like a lot of Christian church goers was like,
okay, that's like kind of a fringe thing. And we recognize that that's not like great. That's what
it is. Whereas today, one in five Americans say that they believe that if they give money to a
church, they will receive blessings from God and that it's required to receive blessings from God.
So I mean, this is just a movement that is completely taken over how a lot of Western
people think about what churches and what God is. And because of who I am, I did turn this into a
two parter. So we're going to kind of look at Joel and what he does as a view of like, what the
prosperity looks like today. But then we're going to go back into the history books to talk about
like how the American prosperity gospel formed in the next episode. And as a teaser for that,
I am curious, what what year about would you say the prosperity gospel really began?
So I think like you first see it really take hold in American churches and like the 1800s, late
1800s. That was my guess, but I wasn't sure. And interesting enough, like kind of the main thrust
of the American prosperity gospel actually came up out of the same movement as as Aureans came out
of anything in the like charismatic Pentecostal kind of vibe, like there was all the other churches,
and then there was the prosperity gospel that took like a hard left turn. So Joel Olson says
that he is not a prosperity minister, quote unquote. And he says this because he does not say
that you have to give money to the church to receive blessings from God. Is that the definition
of prosperity gospel? I always thought of it being like Christians get paid. Yeah. And I think what
he's referring to is kind of when we're looking at like the history of the gospel, like a lot of the
really big names, Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, a lot of them did literally say like, give $1,000
to be healed. Like it was very transactional. And it is true that he like doesn't explicitly say
that. He also like says, I'm not taking a salary anymore. Because he's so rich from his book deals
and his media stuff. He does like a conference that goes around like the country, which is a
little bit of like a medium true because like obviously he's using his work for the church as
a platform to earn money. I would assume that he's got a lot of passive income that remains even
without the salary. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's it's really hard like all of these guys to figure out
how much he's actually worth. But it's definitely in the tens of millions, if not hundreds of
millions. And he also says that he doesn't just focus on health and wealth, although he literally
does. But that he's like, Oh, well, I also talk about emotional health and family relationships
and job satisfaction. That sounds like health and wealth. I mean, exactly. And so I guess when
you say like, how would you define the prosperity gospel? To me, it is this idea that my faith
can make God give me what I want. Kind of the connection of that with a charismatic preacher
who is exploiting that point of view, then uses the wealth that he exploited out of his followers
to say, Well, you don't have enough faith, if you're not getting to where I am. That's kind
of the crux of what the prosperity gospel is to me. And that to me is the wicked, wicked dark side
of magical thinking. For any viewpoint, whether it's Christian or otherwise, faith is a beautiful,
beautiful thing. It's also a very personal thing. So if you as a separate individual are using a
lack of results to claim somebody else doesn't have enough faith, I can think of a few things
more shameful or sinister, you simply don't know that is the nature of faith. Yeah, exactly. The
level of exploitation that has happened out of this thinking this teaching is immeasurable
within Christian culture, like you're breaking down their faith in God to be good despite
circumstances. It is like a little bit like commenting on somebody's family situation where
it's like, well, if your husband loved you, he would do this or if your spouse cared for you,
they would do that. And it's like, that's not your business. And God's your relationship with God,
I think should be the same way. I'm very impassioned about this because I feel like I'm very susceptible
to magical thinking as somebody who is very imaginative. I like to think there's a good way
to go about it. But yeah, we'll talk about the bad way. I mean, as well as the prosperity gospel
that has been around for over a century, there is a rise of self help gurus like Tony Robbins,
and like those type of figures and kind of the 70s, 80s, 90s, that I think Joel Osteen has
taken on what they've learned from that side of the world as well. But because of the way that
prosperity gospel preachers, in my opinion, are abusing people spiritually, it just, it makes it
that much more important.
I wanted to kind of finish the origin story of Joel Osteen before we dive into what the book
says. Samuel, I'd love it if you would read the first excerpt. And this is how he tells the story
of how he became pastor of Lakewood Church.
I'd go the extra mile to make sure the lighting was perfect. Camera angles were just right.
I would even go over to my parents' house every Sunday night and pick out a suit and tie for my
father to wear the next day on television. I wanted that broadcast to be perfect. I wasn't
looking to become Lakewood's senior pastor. I was content where I was behind the scenes.
But when my father wanted to be with the Lord, this opportunity came looking for me. I never
planned on doing it. It chased me down.
God's dream for your life is so much bigger than your own. If you will keep being your best right
where you are, you will come into favor, promotion, and opportunity bigger than you ever imagined.
You won't have to go after it. It will come to you. Like a magnet, you'll draw it in.
So he got it from his dad, basically. Like he's an epo baby.
Right, exactly. Like several of the other people we've talked about. And he talks about it in other
places in the book where he's like, I just kind of like fell into where I am. And this wasn't my
plan. Literally, he worked behind the scenes. And then when his dad passed away suddenly,
they asked him to be pastor. It's like the most.
That's just like, that's how they do it in North Korea.
I will say the Ostian family has better hair.
I'm sure they'd be glad to hear that. They put a lot of work into it.
Yeah, right. The inability that certain people have to like see that they had a leg up is
bonkers to me. But also like this whole passage kind of is, I mean, playing right into what we
heard him talk about in the earlier clips and basically what the premise of this book is.
The book is called The Power of I Am. And this paragraph is the entire book.
I'm going to read it. It says, Here's the principle. Whatever follows the I am will eventually find you.
When you say I'm so clumsy, clumsiness comes looking for you. I'm so old, wrinkles come looking
for you. I'm so overweight, calories come looking for you. It's as though you are inviting them in.
Whatever you follow the I am with, you're handing it an invitation, an open door and giving it
permission to be in your life. There's a grain of truth to this though, because I suffer from
negative self-talk. And it's been very helpful for me to replace the negative self-talk with either,
you know, no self-talk at all, or in cases where that doesn't work, to at least have an affirmation
in my own head. That has been beneficial because it changes my perspective to what I'm grateful for.
We always think about bad stuff that you can't change. But it's nice to think about good stuff
that you can't change. There is value to that. But then he's taking it, he's taking that little
kernel of like, yeah, you could be cooking with that. And he's now saying like, and that's how
you're going to become a multimillionaire like me, which is not even the purpose of that kind of mindset.
Kite Yeah, exactly. And I think the other thing that he does is he says, whatever positive thought
you have in your mind, God has to act on that. Which means that God responds to our will,
which is like completely antithetical to what Christians believe, but also like, you should
believe that God is outside of like the human sphere, right? Or it's not God, it's just like
this puppet master in the sky. Well, it's so arrogant to think that God has any obligation to serve
our whims. Now there's there's promises in Scripture that he'll meet your needs. But I think
with that is the implication that he knows what you need better than you do. So if you're not getting
what you want, it might not be and there's a danger to what I'm saying here as well. And I
recognize that it could be done in a problematic way. But it's like if you're not getting what you
want, it might be a sign that it's not what you need. I think this is actually a situation where
it's easier to prove God doesn't exist than he does because the vast majority of people get neither.
Kite I mean, I guess you did say tired Samuel's philosophical Samuel.
That was not a conversation I was prepared to enter into.
Sam You should have heard my brain at 5am this morning. You're just like,
I see the sun rise, but does it truly rise? Kite Oh, my word. I do think what you're saying
about like the desire to have positive to use positive affirmations, it's sometimes called,
there's nothing wrong with working on feeling better about yourself and how God created you to
be. But what Joel Osteen promotes is whatever you want, say that about yourself and then it will be
true. It's a slight nuance difference, but it makes all the difference in how you view God.
Sam There's a difference between, you know,
affirmation and gaslighting. Like something I love about the Gospel of John is John describes
himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved. I think that's such a cool way of looking at yourself.
Sam And I think it can be beneficial for
Christians to see themselves that way. If that was Osteen's mission, I wouldn't have an issue
with the guy. But he's he's asking John to see himself as the disciple who gets laid and paid.
Probably not laid, but paid. Kite Oh, man.
So everything we just talked about, you know, speaking what you want into existence,
that is relying on a prosperity gospel idea that goes back to the 1800s called positive confessions.
It's this idea that God only moves based on what our words say, like physically speaking words into
existence is equal to faith is equal to making God move on your behalf. But the flip side of that,
which he definitely talks about in this book is called negative confessions. And then some
traditions has been called like curses. And I'm going to read a little bit about a very strange,
I'm not sure if Joel believes this or if he's making this up, unclear. But this is kind of
an example of how he's thinking about these negative confessions. He writes, sometimes the
reason a promise is being delayed is because of what we're saying. Imagine an answer is on the way,
God has already dispatched the angel with your healing, your promotion, your vindication. But
right before it arrives, God says to the angel, Hold on, don't go any further. Stay right where you
are. The angel replies, Why God? This is what you promised. It's in your word. God answers, No,
listen to what he's saying. He's talking about how it's not going to happen. How the problem is too
big. How it's been too long. How he'll never meet the right person. Negative words stop God's
promises. I wonder how many times we were just a couple months away from seeing the answer. But
right before that special someone shows up, you let your guard down and start saying, Oh, that's
not going to happen. Wow, that's really sinister. Right? Like God's just sitting there being like
grading how positive you are as if there's anything he can't do, which is, by the way, a common way I
feel like a lot of these bad Christian books scam people is they posit there's some blind spot
to God's abilities. Like if you believe in an all powerful God, it's almost absurd to have it be
like, I don't know, this guy's a little too negative for me to really, you know, be omnipotent.
Yeah. Well, it's also against, like, literally the entire Bible. I feel like a lot of the stories of
the prophets are stories of quitters who get encouraged. I mean, you look at one of the most
righteous prophets, it's literally Elijah telling an angel like there is nobody left who cares about
God. There are men coming to kill me. I am the last person who's left and they're going to get me.
And the angel doesn't go, you know what, you were wrong, but now you're right because you were too
negative. He's like, no, you don't know the full story. That was a great example. That is not in
the book, but that's one of my favorite stories from the Bible, by the way. That's yeah, I mean,
it is a great one. We're gonna we're gonna dig a little bit more into the Old Testament, because a
lot of this book, the examples from the book centers around the story of Egypt and the Israelites
in the desert and that whole world. He literally says on the acknowledgments page that he made all
of the stories up, which is very bizarre. He writes, some of those mentioned in the book I have not met
personally. And as the son of a church leader and a pastor myself, I have listened to countless
sermons and presentations. So in some cases, I can't remember the exact source of a story.
He tells on himself, literally, pre page one, if this was a comedian, everybody would be dragging
them on Twitter for stealing jokes. And if that was the worst him making up stories of the book,
we may not be talking about him. But this book is also like insanely boring. I fell asleep multiple
times trying to get through it and had to force myself to read a chapter before bed every night
before I allowed myself to watch Hoarders, which is my like guilty pleasure show of choice.
That's a great sleep show.
I enjoy it. But yeah, like, it's just a book of stream of consciousness. It's like whatever comes
in his brain, he says, most of the stories don't have an ending where you would like find out if
God came through, it just kind of ends where they say, yes, there's no structure.
It sounds so avant garde. But I know it's like the most tweet Corpo stuff out there.
Well, he literally like chapter one, he just starts saying things. And then the chapter ends.
And then chapter two, he starts saying things.
He's like caroac.
The way he writes is he has an aphorism. So some kind of like pithy phrase that like means
something. Then he mentions an out of context Bible reference. And then he follows it up with
a weird anecdote that sounds okay, but actually proves nothing. And so because I know how much
you love grazing mammals, Samuel, I am going to have you read excerpt two called a place of
abundance. The background of this is that the pithy saying in this chapter is that you need to start
having a fatted calf mentality. Are you serious?
Another bovine mentality.
Yep. 100% serious. And I was like, I have to include this for Samuel.
So it comes from the story of the prodigal son where the brother who's good is jealous of his
other brother who gets a fatted calf. And the other brother who was good only ever got a skinny goat,
which like is not the point of this. Like the point he makes is not the point of the story.
But anyway, like his whole thing is like, act like you have a fatted calf mentality.
And then he leads into this story.
When the Israelites were in the desert in the land of just enough, they got tired of eating the same
thing every day. They said, Moses, we want some meat to eat out here. They were complaining,
but at least for a little while they had a fatted calf mentality. Moses thought,
that's impossible. Meat out here in the desert? Steak for two million people?
There were no grocery stores, no warehouses to buy truckloads of meat.
But God has ways to increase you that you've never thought of.
God simply shifted the direction of the wind and caused a huge flock of quail to come into the camp.
They didn't have to go after it. The food came to them. What's interesting is that quail don't
normally travel that far away from water. If there had not been a strong wind, the quail would never
have made it way out there in the desert. What am I saying? What are you saying, Joel? God knows how
to get your provision to you. I find myself stumbling over his words a lot because there's
a weird kind of... Oh yeah. They're arranged in a very... He just says things. He's just saying things.
Joel's just spitballing. No need for a new draft. A statistician ran some numbers. A stati...
A statistician ran... Yeah, you know, he's causing me to stumble.
A statistician ran some numbers. Based on the size of the camp, the number of people,
and enough quail to be three feet off the ground, as the scripture says, he concluded that there
were approximately 105 million quail that came into the camp. Also, it's like, it's an ancient
text. They just threw a number out there. That's an abundant god. He could have given them a couple
of quail per person, which would have been four or five million quail. But God doesn't just want
to meet your needs. He wants to do it in abundance. The question is, are you thinking skinny goat?
Skinny goat. Or are you thinking fatted calf?
Well, Joel, I could never afford a nice place to live. Can I say this respectfully? Skinny goat.
I could never send my kids to the college they really want to attend. Skinny goat.
What's that like to live deliciously? I'm gonna have so much fun with that in the edit,
Mary. You have no idea. Well, yeah, I read that. I was like, oh, man,
have to have to break that out. But I mean, so what do you think, Samuel? Are you a
fatted calf? Or are you a skinny goat? I'm a fatted calf son and a skinny goat rising.
Actually flip it around. I think I'm a fatted calf rising in a skinny goat, skinny goat son,
because people look at me and they're like, this guy, just nothing phases him. And then they like
talk to me and they're like, that is the darkest thing I've ever heard somebody say. And I'm like,
I'm so sorry. I didn't sleep last night. Oh, man. And she like, I have no idea what
you're even talking about, because I don't know anything about astrology. And I'm like a very bad
millennial woman for that. It's funny, because I feel like Joel vibes with tarot and astrology in
ways that I'm not even sure he knows. Like I have, I do the labyrinthos tarot app on my phone. And
it's like, I'm not sure I know anything about it. And next to each of the cards, they will give
affirmations or it'll say stuff like, I am grateful for what I have, or like I am loved. And it is so
similar to the language that he is using. And to be clear, I think it's hokey in both scenarios.
I just want to see what the card says.
So the context of the story, right, is the Israelites were slaves in Egypt,
God called Moses and was like, go save your people. Moses did that. There were all the plagues. This
is where Passover starts. And then they go into the wilderness. And then they have like a bunch
of people in the wilderness who are like, let me eat. The number of times before this and after
this where the Israelites like constantly say, I wish we would have died as slaves in Egypt.
And why did you bring us here to die? And like he even writes here that like, Moses, we want meat.
And he says that like, that's a fatted calf mentality. But like literally, they weren't saying
like, oh, we want meat, we believe they were saying literally, we're gonna die because we're
in a desert and there's no meat. Well, I would argue the pinnacle of this so called fatted calf
mentality is what Moses was treated to when he left the mount and saw that they had built a giant
calf to manifest calf meat. Like they built an idol of a fatted calf because they didn't believe.
To me, the whole mentality being everything thing falls apart immediately when you like take
idolatry into account. I hadn't thought about that aspect of the story. But you're right,
that happens not that long after this. And it's like to me, that shows a much deeper problem that
they had as a group of survivors, which is like, we're not even fully behind our leader. Well,
and exactly like, literally the story of Moses getting called from the time Moses is called
by the burning bush to his death, literally through like the rest of the Old Testament,
over and over again, it's people being negative and God being like, be quiet, I'm going to do it
anyway. It's the whole story of Jonah. Like, Jonah is just like, this is a bad idea, this isn't going
to work. He ends up in Nineveh and nobody dies. I mean, literally, like Moses says multiple times
when he's called, he says, Who am I? I have a weak tongue. No one's gonna listen to me because I
murdered a guy. And God's response is, he says his name, I am who I am. And if you notice the
similarities to the title of this book in that, we're gonna come back to that later. Well, that
was my first thought, because I thought that was what the book was going to be about. Like, he's
like, God says, I am who I am. So what if we adopted the same mentality? But no, it's like,
I am rich. That's not being who you are. That's being what you think you should be. I also liked
how at the end, he just has this weird anecdote about an unnamed statistician. Wow, that is hard
to say. It's a hard word. Some math person who does calculations based on some unknown formula
that proves that the Israelites were right to complain in the first place. I don't even know
how he did the math because no one knows how many Israelites were in the desert at this point,
because like, Exodus contradicts numbers. It's almost like they had to eyeball it or something.
Yeah, right. Okay, so just to prove that the Old Testament is literally about people having
negative confessions and God providing for them anyway, we're gonna jump to what Joel Osteen says
about the story of Gideon. And that is the next little part that I'd love for you to read, Samuel.
Very interesting. I find the book of Judges fascinating. Let's do this.
Just to clarify, this is the Bible. I'm having you read the Bible story, not what Joel Osteen says.
All righty, this is from Judges 6.
This is a little eerie to read right now.
keep it from the Midianites.
Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian's hand. Am I not sending you?
Pardon me, my lord, Gideon replied, but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh,
and I am the least in my family. The Lord answered, I will be with you, and you will strike down all
the Midianites, leaving none alive. Gideon replied, if now I have found favor in your eyes,
give me a sign that it is really you talking to me. Yeah, Gideon's kind of like, okay,
this sounds a little too good to be true.
I mean, he literally says all the things that, at this point, Joel had spent about 80 pages
telling me not to say out loud, or God's gonna stop the blessing angel from coming to me.
He's being a bit of a skinny goat, is what I'm hearing.
Yeah, exactly. In the book, Joel stops after halfway through, when the angel of the Lord
appeared to Gideon, he said, the Lord is with you, mighty warrior. That's the end of the story
in the book. And then Joel says, if you allow the wrong thoughts to play in your mind,
you can have the talent, the opportunity, the strengths, and the looks. But like Gideon,
you'll make excuses and talk yourself out of it. You may think you're ordinary,
but God sees the DNA of a champion.
Wait, did he read the story?
Right. So yeah, he says, start seeing yourself as a mighty hero. And I'm like, what?
Yeah, like not to go extreme here, but it would be similar to him using Jesus asking God to save
him from having to make the sacrifice. And then being like, are you going to be like Jesus and
give up? And it's like, Joel, Jesus died. Like he did the thing he didn't want to do.
Well, and Gideon is known for being the guy who did it.
Right. And literally, Gideon goes on after this passage to test God at least two more times.
And like, literally the entire section of this story, he's constantly being like, God, you got
the wrong guy. And then God says, suck it up. And then he does. Like he never has, he never says
good things into existence. Which by the way, all the heroes of the Old Testament are negative,
like are negative about themselves with maybe the exception of David, like Moses, don't do it. I'm
not the guy. Jacob literally wrestles with God. And it's like, you know, God injures him after
that. But it's almost like him being like, good fight, man.
What the Old Testament shows, without a doubt, even the most cursory understanding of it you
could have is that the Israelites consistently over years were people who did not have faith,
who complained, who sinned, who did X, Y, and Z, and God remains faithful. And so to end halfway
through and then distort it and say, oh, well, you can also just speak things into existence.
I mean, it's like the most egregious way to talk about the Bible. I mean, and also is just like,
how stupid do you think we are as well? Because it's just so dumb.
I'm totally with you. It's, it really, it to me, it reeks of the days in which the church
did not allow the Bible to be translated. Because Joel is counting on you not knowing how those
stories go for his points to stick. You have to wonder in the days when there was no translation
of scripture that the common person could read when literacy levels were low, what kind of
stretches were leaders making then? I mean, we know they were doing indulgences.
You give money to the church in order to have favor with God. And I also want to point out kind of
like what you were talking about earlier, there is a hair of truth in this, you know, like you can
definitely look at the story of Gideon and be like, the Lord says you're a mighty warrior,
even though he's like, no, I'm not. And even though like Gideon literally had done nothing
in his life, except be ordinary to that point. So this idea of like, believing in living into who
God says you are, even if you don't see it, there's a kernel of truth there.
Well, I'm feeling so glib today, because I'm like, the kernel of truth is that song
from the Prince of Egypt where it says look at your life through heaven's eyes, like the way you
see yourself might not be the full story. Yeah. Oh, I love that. I think the piece that
Joel misses is like, you can say positive things or have affirmations or you know, have better talk
about yourself, but it needs to be rooted in what God says about you and what God wants.
It's not just like whatever you want. And when you turn those on their head, you know, it does
distort the character of God. If you're a Christian, it distorts the gospel that you say you believe in
because it puts you in the driver's seat. And I think whether you're a Christian or not,
the giant red flag here is it puts enormous power into the hands of humans, which we're going to
dive way deeper into next week, but has led to unspeakable abuses. Well, and we should say to
enormous power in the hands of humans that are benefiting from an already power imbalance. I
mean, it's it's no mistake that Joel is sitting on Oprah's stage and selling the snake oil to
people. There was a really good quote I read in a Financial Times article that says, you know,
Times article that that quoted a social scientist and this is the quote, preachers like Osteen know
how to work the modern marketplace. They are like the mega mall of religion with an Amazon account
added on. They are at the cutting edge of consumer trends. Wow, that's, that's eerie and it's dead
on. To me, it shows that there is in fact a God at play with these things, but it is not the God of,
you know, Abraham and Isaac. It's not the God of the apostles. It is the God of the free market,
this thing we call the invisible hand. It's something you can't see, but people still appeal
to and that we talk about the golden calf. I think this is the same God is that. Well, and I think
kind of as we've said in like almost every episode, it creates a new form of legalism,
legalism through simplification. It puts all of the impetus on the individual to have faith in the
right way, say the right words and never fail in that as a way to meet God. When the Bible lays out
fairly clearly, like faith is not supposed to be based on what you do. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's
always the tricky thing, right? Because there's the concept of faith that that works is dead,
but I do think that prosperity Christians in America really throw that in your face and
that it becomes only about works because, because nuance is dead. Yeah. Well, it becomes about works
for their congregants, but very little work for themselves. And so that was kind of the end of
like what I wanted to say about this book. I'll be very happy to return it to the library, but I kind
of wanted to dig into a little bit of that of like, what are the works that Joel Osteen has? Like,
what is the fruit? The first is that he has zero financial accountability. This probably surprises
no one, but Ministry Watch, basically they rate different churches and denominations on a confidence
score of like how confident a donor could be that their funding will go to the right place or, you
know, whatever. Would you like to guess what percentage out of a hundred they got? For Joel
Osteen? For Joel Osteen Lakewood Church? I'm going to say, honestly, I'm going to go big and say zero.
Yeah, he didn't get to zero, but he is at a solid six. A six is very close to zero where percentages
are very close to zero. Yeah. It says, does the board have more than two non-independent
members? The answer is no. Fun fact, he does not have a board. There is no board for Lakewood Church.
There's a bunch of stuff about the board that's all wrong. Does the organization file a Form 990
and make it available to the public? The answer is no. Does the organization have an audit or review
that is available on the website? No. Is the CEO presence compensation that's Joel Osteen within
one standard deviation of the median compensation? No. Does the organization operate at a net profit
in the most recent year? Yes. So that would be like a pro for them. In the past five years,
has the organization been free of any lawsuits or administrative actions? No. So I mean, it goes on
and on, but basically they have an F. That should be a red flag in and of itself as nonprofits.
I mean, the very lack of some like, listen, I don't like bureaucracy any more than an ex-guy,
but a lack of oversight is what I'm hearing by no church board. That's bad. The church is a
nonprofit status. That means they don't have to pay taxes in the same way that like everyone else
does. With that status, there is an understanding of an amount of oversight that exists as a legal
status, which they do not have. And then you add on that they are prosperity gospel preachers.
That money is not going into the work of the Lord. It's complicated because I think separation of
church and state is good, but I think that the tax exempt status has created such a loophole where
it's like, what does America do to really enforce that? Oh, nothing. Nothing. Because it's like
Scientology exists. I have friends who are ex-Mormon. They told me how much money the
Mormon church, which is hemorrhaging members, is sitting on. It's insane. I mean, they just have a
war chest, the likes of which Fortune 500 companies would kill for, literally. The next little piece
of fruit that I was going to talk about kind of ties into that. So in March, 2023, there was a
widespread scandal with Hillsong Church. They're based in Australia, where Australia is much better
than the US at investigating nonprofits. Basically Hillsong, which has this huge brand, they have
these like conferences all over the world. They had this scam where like mega church pastors could
buy their way into this list that they had called the Hillsong family. These are like massive
donations coming out of individual churches. Joel Osteen was one of the people on here, although
it's not clear whether he paid or he was already on the list prior to like the scam happening.
But in return for those donations, the pastors would get perks like being invited to speak at
Hillsong's events, where at those events they could have these like huge honorariums and then
like profit from like selling their merchandise. These pastors would be invited to luxurious
over-the-top Hillsong family retreats several times a year. We know about this because the
Australian government is investigating specifically this scam. But the majority of the pastors here
are from American churches. So besides just the lack of financial accountability, I wanted to dig
a little bit into two incidents that happened with Joel Osteen in 2017 that I think really show that
while he claims the money that you give to the church is going to help people in need, that may
not really be where the money is going. Both of these events happened in like August, September
of 2017 back to back. The first was his response to the neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville. While I
think in general it's probably a good thing when churches sometimes try to stay out of politics,
in this case like when something's just so obviously wrong, even the most trying to take it easy mega
church pastors spoke out against what happened. Joel Osteen did not. He first posted a Facebook
post in 2017 that is still up and it reads, one of the biggest challenges we face is getting along
with people because everyone is different. We have different personalities, different temperaments,
we come from different backgrounds. When someone doesn't agree with us, it's easy to get in conflict
with them, to argue, to try to straighten them out, to prove our point. No, you have to be the
bigger person. Just because they're doing wrong doesn't mean you have to engage. Wow, that is so
sinister, especially when you consider like these protests happened because people in a black church
were murdered by a white supremacist terrorist. A woman died in the protest when a white supremacist
drove his car into the crowd. I mean this isn't as simple as a disagreement. And then he has the gall
for his tone to be scolding and it's very vague. We don't know who but we can kind of guess who he's
scolding here. Well yeah, I think people rightly got very offended. So I just bring that up to say
that like I think that really put him in the spotlight in secular spaces. He never wants to
say anything negative. His whole message is about placating people. Well and there's a kind of fear
in his attitude. I actually see this interpersonally when there are people who cannot stand to say
anything negative. It's usually because they're deadly afraid that that negative thing is the
truth. The negative thing doesn't have to be the truth but usually the truth is much more complicated
than light or dark. So that was obviously not great. Right after that, Hurricane Harvey hit Houston,
the city in which his church is. It was one of the most extreme rainfall events in US history.
Some areas of the city had 50 inches of rainfall. Thousands were displaced. If you talk to a Texan
about Joel Osteen, I have family who live in Texas and they bring this up as the reason why
like they hate him. The Lakewood Church didn't open their doors in the first days of Hurricane
Harvey to anyone who was displaced. I mean 50 inches is like the equivalent of four feet.
You only need like a foot of moving water to be lethal and just like irreversible property damage.
Right exactly. Truly a miracle. More people didn't die. Thousands and thousands of people
across the city did not have homes to go to and a lot of the places that like theoretically would
have been like the shelter or whatever like also was flooded. In his style, he wrote one of these
like placating tweets that was just like, God has the best for you even in hard times or something
like that. You're really seeing the masks start to fall off. It's like word salad, mystification,
and vague positivity can only get you so far. But as the world gets darker, it does sort of reveal
these things for the BS that they are. They didn't open the church. They issued on Saturday,
which I don't remember exactly what day of the week like the hurricane first hit, but it's like
several days into kind of the crisis. Church officials issued a Facebook statement that said
that the church was inaccessible due to severe flooding. There was a huge internet storm because
people had photos of like the outside of the church because the church is up on a hill. So
like there was no water around the church. A spokesperson for the church later said like,
I don't know why people are saying it was closed. It was never closed. They just were talking out
of all sides of their mouth. To this day, they now open their church. They're like one of the first
ones to open it in any storm, which I guess is great. But when you're thinking about like,
where are the millions of dollars going? The answer is it's not to the people around them.
Sam Brace Do you think he sees generosity almost as a skinny goat mentality? Like, oh, if I'm being
generous, then that suggests that there are people in need instead of people who aren't just about
to receive their blessing. I mean, that's assuming he believes any of what he's saying.
Katie Grant That's a great question. I've been thinking a lot about our Dave Ramsey episodes.
Dave Ramsey has a prosperity gospel message. You know, the same mentality of like, each individual
can create their own power in a way that is so antithetical to how I think how God calls you to
live out your faith. His message falls flat in so many ways. But I think the biggest way is that
like, if we could really create reality with our words, why would I be putting out, give me a
promotion at work? Totally, right? Like, if you believe that all humans are made in the image of
God, put out, I want war to end, or I'm going to end genocide in this world, or end poverty and
illness on a mass scale. Sam Brace This is like kind of goes back to my question of like,
in trying to end those things, would he say that you're admitting those things exist,
which would be bad because it's negative? Do you admit that you have need? Or do you just focus on
the greed? I didn't mean for that to rhyme, but there's something interesting there.
Katie Grant It's very pithy saying you could start your own book with.
Sam Brace Oh, I should do a bad Christian book.
Katie Grant Well, and I mean, I think it ties into what we were talking about with Dave Ramsey.
It's created in a way that the individual can't win. Anything that you don't receive is your fault
because of lack of faith. And anything that these like gurus have, they've earned through faith.
When you tie it into someone's spiritual health, that is an abuse at a level that I put among like
the worst things a person can do, truly. Sam Brace Well, it's a little bit like that verse
where it's like, it's better to have a millstone wrapped around your neck and tossed into the sea
than to, you know, I think the context of that verse is then to discourage little ones. But I
think with that is what is discouragement if not preying upon somebody's faith?
Katie Grant I can understand how it could be comforting to feel like,
okay, well, this actually is in my hands because I can control my faith.
Sam Brace And that's the interesting thing to me is I think simplicity,
this push for simplicity that we've seen literally in every single person we've covered for bad
Christian books, beneath that desire for simplicity is a desire for control. If you believe in God,
I do think the need to control that which you can't control is one of the first things you have to
give up. That's easier said than done. And I certainly have compassion for the average person
who struggles with that. I'm in that boat. We all try to control.
Katie Grant I was gonna say, God's working with me on it. I'll just say that.
Sam Brace Sure. Yeah. And I don't have compassion for folks who do have control,
and they create a false narrative for how they got it, and they use it to make other people feel
worthless.
Katie Grant There's also some really wild,
weird Olsteen scandals that have happened. I just said Olsteen with an L. O-steen.
Sam Brace Spill the O-s-T, Mary.
Katie Grant Yeah, so one is that he and Kanye West did this weird baptism slash service where
they pretended they could walk on water, and there was a choir in the background.
Sam Brace I didn't realize that Joe Olsteen was a potential keynote speaker at Donda University.
Katie Grant But you should go look up the pictures. They're kind of weird. The second weird
scandal, quote unquote, is like there was a plumber working in Lakewood Church. He apparently found
$600,000 in cash stuck into the wall of the church.
Sam Brace I heard about this. There's always money in the banana stand.
Katie Grant Well, and I guess, again, I also didn't go very deep into this because people kept being
like, why is there money, blah, blah, blah. And from what I read, I think it was just someone
stole from the church and then hid it in the wall and then couldn't come back for it.
It doesn't seem like there was anything wrong in the part of the church except they just
had that much money in cash, but we know that. So I said earlier that we're going to come back to
the meaning of God's name.
Sam Brace Well, yeah, I mean, just as a refresher,
the story is, you know, this is sort of Moses's origin story. He's fled from Egypt after killing
somebody. He's a shepherd. He sees a burning bush, and the burning bush is God's presence.
And it tells him to, you know, go back to Egypt, this place that you fled from, and tell them who
I am. And he's like, well, who am I going to tell them you are? God's answer is simply say,
tell them I am who I am, or more accurately, I am that I am. But basically, this idea that I speak
for myself, I am the God of gods.
Sam Brace The Israelites that Moses would be going back to
have not heard from God in 400 years. He doesn't really talk about the story except in the half
baked ways that we already talked about. So I was looking up the meaning of this name and,
you know, digging into it a little bit, I came across this organization called the Center for
Hebraic Thought. What they do is they publish and support people who try to put the Bible back into
the context of how the person writing it would understand it, especially the Old Testament,
but also the New Testament, because the New Testament was written by Jewish people,
for the most part. One of their scholars writes, to the Hebrew to be does not just mean to exist,
but to be active, to express oneself in active being. Perhaps a helpful paraphrase of God's word
at the burning bush would be, say to the people of Israel, I am present has sent me to you.
Sam Brace I never left, essentially.
Sam Brace Right. And then you compare it to the God
that Joel Osteen promotes. They're truly opposite of each other.
Sam Brace And you even see that in how Osteen is
interpreting Scripture. I mean, Gideon, his telling of Gideon's story is the polar opposite
of the actual arc of that story. It's almost like this guy has no credentials other than inheriting
a job from his daddy. Lina Hickman
It was almost like an inheritance. But in doing that inheritance, there was just this complete
disconnect from Scripture. Sam Brace
It makes so much sense, though, because that's how generational wealth operates. You have to keep it
in the family. And if your wealth hinges upon a story, then your son and your grandson and your
great great grandson, and I am deliberately framing it patriarchal, they need to keep telling that
story. Lina Hickman
Yeah, that is this book, Joel Osteen. Sam Brace
That's our boy. Lina Hickman
Yeah. Next episode, we're going to dive into kind of some of the stuff we very hinted at.
Specifically, we're going to follow someone who did choose to leave and not follow the prosperity
gospel movement that they were kind of raised into and what they have to say.
Sam Brace Well, I'm looking forward to that. Stay
tuned for that next episode, then. I feel like I'm Stan Lee here being like, stay tuned loyal
listeners. Lina Hickman
Anytime we can get Spider-Man in an episode, we win.
Sam Brace What's funny is I think any references to
Spider-Man always get cut. So eventually we're going to be like, we keep referencing Spider-Man
and the listeners are going to be like, Lina Hickman
But only to ourselves. Actually, you know, it's funny, my partner, when I was reading this to them,
so I explained the whole like, whatever you say I am, like, that's what it is. And literally,
for a week straight, every morning they woke up turned over to me and said, I am a Jedi,
and then got out of bed. I'll never join you.
If you only knew the power of I am. That's all to say, Samuel, do you have any
affirmations you want to speak into the universe?
Sam Brace I am a highly successful writer of Christian
horror. I am reaching a lot of people, and they are listening to this and they are going to check
it out. I'm going to speak into the world. We will get many five star reviews in the next few weeks.
Sam Brace I am certain this is the case.
Mary Katz Oh my gosh. It's so dumb. I'm sorry. Okay.
Our social handles are at bad Christian pod or bad Christian books. You can email us at
badchristianbooks.gmail.com. Sam Brace
I'm going to say one more I am, Mary. But it's going to be a we are. We are the Oprah
of bad Christian books. Because every two weeks, you get a book, and you get a book, and you get a
book. And what's more, it's a deep dive. Mary Katz I love it.
Sam Brace Very similar to Joe Osteen, Mary was like,
I have an idea about an Oprah joke. And then I immediately was like, oh, I've got it. And then
I just did her idea. Mary Katz
Yeah, so this has been bad Christian books. And we'll see you for the next dumpster dive.
Sam Brace Skinny goat.