And the Winning Bid . . . $134.89
Tuesday, October 16, 2007 at 10:10AM 
How much would you pay to see Joel Osteen speak in MSG (Madison Square Garden)?
Someone dropped $134.89 for 2 floor seats (near the front) on E-Bay to see Joel speak in the Big Apple. Joel doesn't ask for money on his broadcasts, but he must be raking it in when he takes the show on the road. One thing about Joel . . . when MSG sells out and tickets to see him are selling for that much on E-Bay, he's sure having his "best life now."
I wonder if his MSG appearance will include bench-pressing? He might even shoot a few hoops on the Knicks' home floor. But he sure won't waste the audience's time talking about sin and a suffering Savior.
Kim Riddlebarger
I had hoped to let this Osteen business go, but then I saw this on "A Little Leaven" (Click here: A Little Leaven )
Someone is actually selling an "I Watch Joel Osteen" lapel pin! (Click here: Joel Osteen) Please, will someone reading this buy one for Zrim!
OK, I promise, no more . . .
Reader Comments (46)
My NJ PCA church is in the NY Metropolitan presbytery with Tim Keller/Redeemer. My pastor knows Tim and I've listened to plenty of his tapes.
I don't know exactly what he said or how he articulated a thought or what he meant, but please let me assure you that TK is NOT into the prosperity gospel, which is part of the faith movement heresy, which is indeed another gospel.
It is perfectly fine to be one of "Machen's warrior chirldren" and have a dueling match about the finer points of Reformed theology. But labeling Tim Keller as even subtly promoting heretical doctrines is seriously wrong on your part.
If he does have some audio out that is so poorly articulated that he can give that impression ( hard to imagine, but we all have bad days) I sincerely hope you will address your specific concerns to TK himself so that the tape could be removed from the Redeemer store.
Isn't that Rollin Keller's son?
My pastor LOVES the guy (Keller), but can NOT preach like him to save his life, and I don't think that's a bad thing; I don't really dig Keller's style either.
And I think I can see where zrim's coming from (although he hasn't gone into too much detail yet as to why he sees Keller as a prosperity type).
A. Why Renewing the City? What does that have to do with the Gospel?
B. Socially? Before Spiritually?
C. Culturally? Really?
Social and Cultural renewal and transformation is not the Church’s mission. So this is a social gospel, his church has a social agenda of cultural transformation. This can lead to a type of prosperity gospel because ultimately, he wants the church to usher in a golden age of equity and abundance on the earth.
That said, with Keller I’m sometimes able to chew the Gospel meat and spit out the transformer bones.
Social and cultural renewal has happened historically in many cities and nations that experienced genuine revival (unless they all get their heads chopped off or are thrown to the lions.) What exactly is so bad about wanting another great awakening? Haven't all the great Reformers longed to see true revival?
I long for it. I have teens and I see what they face. Thank God for men like Keller exhorting us to pray for revival.
And yes I read Iain Murray's book, and no, he is not another Finney. I know people that went there for years and they talk about how it is the word, the word, the word, every Sunday, not hype.
If you listen to his tapes there is a constant emphasis on repenting of our sins and idols, and seeking God in persistent fervent prayer. He focuses in on scripture in everything I ever heard.
Saying Keller is like Osteen at the core, but indirectly, is really a horrible false accusation.
Sometimes I think Presbys get suspicious of any Reformed church that is actually growing and reaching the lost...happened all the time with New Life/Jack Miller. People at WestminsterTS-PA would question him not on doctrine or sonship materials, but just on the fact that he was so "successful". He had to be "off" to be successful. Anybody truly reformed would just have a tiny struggling little church of the meagre remnant holding to pure doctrine.
My experience with many of the PCAs that adopt this ideology, and there are several in San Diego, is that the sermons contain little theology, they tend to be very shallow and feel good. I'll have to take a listen to Tim Keller before I say anything about his preaching style.
I've noticed that the most successful Reformed Churches are the ones that do the basic things: proper preaching of the Word, church discipline, proper administration of the sacraments, and elder visitation. It also helps if the elders have a mind for cultivating fellowship amongst the members. As near as I can tell, Christ Reformed does all of these things and is not struggling in the slightest. Of all the Reformed Churches in southern California, it is the only one we've found with good preaching since Redeemer OPC shut down (before it even got off the ground, really). Christ Reformed has an annual budget of somewhere around $800,000, if I'm extrapolating correctly.
It doesn't take any new form of worship or church style to have a successful church. It appears God honors the basics. It seems the basics aren't so basic anymore.
I don't think Edwards and Nettleton sought any form of cultural renewal or revival. Edwards remarked that the response to his preaching was a "surprising work of the Holy Spirit." Rahter, they just focused on being faithful to the Gospel and doing the basic things. Luther probably thought he was going to be snuffed out, so I don't think he was worried about any cultural implications.
Thanks lkir.
"I don't think Edwards and Nettleton sought any form of cultural renewal or revival."
Having almost finished Marsden's massive bio work "Johnathan Edwards- A Life" I can only say you are wrong. Edwards prayed fervently for revival and was eagerly awaiting what he thought was the quickly approaching millenium ( a postmil).
He thrilled with the cultural changes in Northhampton and New England and England/Scotland as the awakening spread. Who wouldn't, when corruption and vice give way to loving God and ones neighbor.
Psalm 139:21,22.
Ilkr and Carolyn and all those who may disagree with my diagnoses of Keller, like I said, I think the case can be made; I didn't say you would be convinced. I understand your disagreement, but I think you have to get past this rather obvious idea that prosperity gospels are easily recognized.
Maybe another term would help? I am not sure what it would be.
But what is at root of all properity gospels is this: a marked impatience with the world as-is and a "hurriedness" to make it better instead waiting upin God to make all things new. "I am impatient with my finaces, my health, my vocation, my family my community, my government, my world. Let's make all things new again." I get that, since I am also a human being very impatient with the world as-is. But God has made His claim on making all things new. This is part of what Tomas Oden meant when he famously said that the "Liberals and the Fundamentalists have more in common than either would be willing to admit." It's a belief in the claims of moderinity that man can, may and should bring about the eschaton. So, the Liberals, the Religious Right, the Transformers, the Theonomists, all have this in common.
Lest I will be accused of having my head in the pietistic sand and not caring about earth, etc. (which happens all the time in my little corner of Transformer-ville Grand Rapids) insert here a shameless plug for my last post on the Outhouse with regard to Hart's "Learning from the Liturgicals." We Confessionalists begin with a world-affirming piety that knows how to put the right value onto earth without raising its stakes to being positively eternal. This is very hard for American religionists whose DNA has been fortified by the Puritannical "city-on-a-hill-ism." Believe it or not, America is just like any other quarter of the KoM and has no special place in the program of God.
I would suggest going to Stellman's De Regnis Duobus and reading through the archives to see some helpful discussion on just what Keller's Transformationalism is so problematic.
Zrim
P.S. Lkir, if you have not picked up on Keller's Transformationalism then you haven't been listening. Is the Pope, as they say, Catholic?
thank you for the explanation. I guess we disagree about where TK falls on the "value of the earth" continuum. From what I have heard, I would say he has placed the right value on it and you would say he has raised its stakes. I know you are not alone in this view. Am I correct in this assessment? Thank you for the reading suggestions. I do want to understand this.
Transformatiomalism, like all impatient systems, works off the principle that “the Gospel has an obvious bearing on and direct implication for the temporal world.” But it doesn’t. This is just another form of the “relevancy” doctrines in broad Evangelicalism (“make the Gospel relevant to my daily life, personal and social”).
And it is the kinder, gentler version of older, modern Christendom that sought to bring about the Kingdom of God through institution, laws, cultural values, etc. Instead of wanting to change institutions form the “outside in,” Keller’s post-modern version (read: missional, that is the buzzword), we are not so much interested in that so much as changing the world from the “inside out.” Don’t make the institution Christian, make the person in it Christian. Sounds good at first, but this is akin to saying, “Dispense with laws, just make everyone better people.” That won’t fly at city hall. It’s a genus in the species of “true religion makes bad people good and good people better.” This will sound rough to say, but Transformationalism is really quite arrogant because it actually implies that Christians are indeed better than non-. After all, only better people can effect a task like “transforming NYC.” May Calvinists really hold out hope that people have the potential to be better? There was One Who was better than all of us and He never seemed very interested in making His world a better place; in fact, He once said “the poor you will always have with you.” Not very inspiring to those who want to change the world. His mission, as it were, was entirely different. So instead of entering institutions with the idea that we are actually effecting some sort of idealistic and real change, I say enter them as a covenant-keeper who minds his own business and has a sober take on his humanity instead of thinking he transcends it.
Let the howls begin…
Thanks for taking time to explain your position.
TK has so many hundreds of tapes available that perhaps one gets slightly different impressions from different series about his thinking, which of course may have evolved over time.
My take on it all is that false Reformed orthodoxy, or hyper Calvinism, takes a stand that all we need to do is rightly preach the word and offer the scraments and let God do the rest.
What I hear from Keller (and the late Jack Miller before him, one of his mentors, and Edwards and Spurgeon and all the way back to Paul and Jesus) is the call to fervent prayer. Last time I read my bible it said that the Father's house would be called a house of prayer. And that prayer does include a persistent intercession that God would save the lost, and bring times of refreshing refreshing and renewal/revival to the already saved. And yes, many people including Keller think that as a result the surrounding culture will be impacted.
I have five kids and I'd say the culture in this house is influenced by their spiritual condition...thank God the middle school years with my second are over:) He's a darling now but the local society was less pleasant in his know-it-all ornery days.
I just listened to a tape by TK on suffering last week about how up until the last century, people accepted a difficult lot in life and prayed for help to deal with it. Now, for many reasons he detailed, we pray to change our lot in life, we want a fix.
What Keller taught is TOTALLY OPPOSITE of your contention that his gospel, at the root, is word of faith:
"But what is at root of all properity gospels is this: a marked impatience with the world as-is and a "hurriedness" to make it better instead waiting upin God to make all things new. "I am impatient with my finaces, my health, my vocation, my family my community, my government, my world. Let's make all things new again."
He is focused on the scriptures about right and biblical responses in suffering...our repentance, our trust in God's sovereignty, our need to not fall into the "fix it make life perfect" trap.
( Power for facing Trouble, James 1:5-8, Redeemer tape # 658)
Honestly, I don't know what you heard or when. And you are obviously an intelligent and thinking person so I am sure your conclusions must have been precipitated by some comment that sounded a certain way to you. But truly I believe you are seriously mistaken. Again, it might be good if you can track down whatever sermon(s) is worded in such a way that you think he is preaching the prosperity gospel, and write to TK.
Well, I like to think I am not in the habit of forming views based upon a comment (or series of comments) a person makes. But Transformalism is all over Keller's web site, and his little tract called "The Missional Church" seems to say it all. I like to think I know something about Transformationalism as I inhabit a place called Little GRusalem, a cradle of Dutch Reformed Kuyperianism. And what I hear here is what I hear in Keller.
Don't get me wrong, like I said, Keller offers up a form of prosperity gospel in the midst of what I think is an otherwise good expression of principled confessional Reformed orthodoxy (heck, I even read to my kids out of the Jesus Story Bible he helped edit, so I am no witch hunter). But his Trans'ism simply does not square well at all with that overarching system. I know that doesn't go down easy as I get rountinely reminded of just how poor the exchange rate is of my W2K peso in the capital of Transformationalism (especially with a topping of American Manifest Destination in our collective DNA). Psst, BTW, that means there is more here than in NYC, and as great as Pleasantville is, it has a long way to go before I would call it truly "transformed." For my money, I will wait for the only One Who can do that.
Thanks for the advice, but I am also not in the habit of pestering men about things they are obviously wholly persuaded by. All the very best to Dr. Keller and his work...it's just that I won't be signing up for any Transformational seminars. And now you know why. I think.
Zrim
I guess there are better "forms" of Transformationalism than others? Well, at least we know Joel, while inappropriate on sooo many levels, is no kill-joy.
Zrim
http://www.epcnewark.org/recread/TKeller_CultureofthePCA-rev.pdf
It is Tim Keller's essay from 2003 about what he sees as three distinct cultures within the PCA, including comments on how they relate to the culture.
How about we all pray that God saves the lost we know and love, and American evangelicals all turn to sound doctrine? And if the culture changes, great, and if it doesn't, well, it'll still be to God's glory.
zrim, perhaps you can write up a similar article (on your blog) on our denomination's culture issues and get into the whole Dutch Reformed Kuyperianism. i began reading Mouw's book (marching of the kings? forgot what it is called) a while back but never got into it. i would like to hear more about the Kuyperianism and CRC relationship. i am still trying to understand why being reformed is about cultural renewal and not the 3 forms of unity, according to some?
cultural renewal, as my husband says is reconstructionism light. trust me he would know, he is a product of the dutch reformed kuyperian college and a former Chalcedon (Joe Morecraft) church attendee.
Interesting piece from Keller, thanks. A quick perusal indicates again just how principled he is, to be sure. I still can't beyond the notion, though, that this is mainly fueled by yet more post-modern assumptions that are non-churchly, more "ideas of men" that think they can do better than the ordained Church. Perhaps I am one of those poor old-schoolers who can recognize principled thought on the one hand, yet still believe that it's the unglorious church courts that God actually works through.
Rana,
Your husband sounds like my kind of guy. An older saint in my communion just slipped a bit into our Courier about old Kuyper. My paranoid side thinks it was his way of responding to my W2K musings (since he took me to task directly at one point, all in good humor), but I will give him the benefit of the doubt and say he was just being a positive Kuyperian!
Zrim