Joel Osteen Wins Worst Easter Sermon Award
From the Christian Newswire:
Joel Osteen Wins First Ever ‘Worst Easter Sermon Award’
INDIANAPOLIS, April 28 /Christian Newswire/ — Chris Rosebrough, captain of internet based Pirate Christian Radio and host of the Fighting for the Faith Radio program announced on Monday that Joel Osteen is the winner of the “Worst Easter Sermon Award” for 2009.
“Every Christmas Christians whine and complain about secular and atheistic efforts designed to take Christ out of Christmas yet more and more Christian pastors have committed an even worse offense and have removed Jesus Christ and His victorious resurrection from the grave from their Easter sermons,” said Chris Rosebrough. “Far too many pastors have played the role of Judas and have betrayed Jesus. Rather than being paid 30 pieces of silver, these pastors have sold Jesus out for the fame and adulation that accompany having a ‘growing, relevant ‘man-centered’ church’.”
Said Rosebrough, “These Churches have stopped preaching the offense of Christ Crucified for Sins and His resurrection for our justification and have traded the Biblical Gospel for empty feel-good platitudes, and self-help mythologies that scratch itching ears.”
Rosebrough decided that it was time to raise awareness of this serious and growing problem within Christianity and to call these pastors to repentance by holding a contest on his radio program whereby his listeners would decide which sermon was the Worst Easter Sermon of 2009.
In preparation for this contest, Rosebrough screened nearly 100 sermons from churches across America and picked the 5 worst ones to be contestants for this new ‘award’.
The sermons Rosebrough picked for this year’s contest included:
A sermon that explored the “deep” spiritual lessons of the movie Slumdog Millionaire .
A sermon entitled “Beer Babes & Baseball”
A sermon entitled “Livin’ Venti” that encouraged people to live life to the fullest.
A sermon entitled “You Have Come Back Power”
And a sermon entitled “Easter in the Octagon”
This year’s winner of the first ever, Worst Easter Sermon Award went to Joel Osteen’s sermon “You Have Come Back Power”.
Commenting on Osteen’s sermon Rosebrough stated, “Jesus didn’t die and rise again on the cross so that you can have ‘come back power over life’s set backs’. Osteen completely missed the point of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection and as a result he missed the entire point of Christianity.”
Said Rosebrough, “I wasn’t surprised that Osteen was the first winner of this award. Osteen is like the Tiger Woods of heresy, he takes false teaching to a whole new level.”
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There are a lot of “winners” in that list. I am always mystified at church’s that teach spiritual lessons from movies. How about teaching spiritual lessons from the Bible? A movie may be a good illustration of a point, but must not be the source material of a lesson. “Easter in the Octagon” shows how influential mixed martial arts have become. While there is a necessity for marketing, I believe that the world can see through most of the gimmicks that churches push (Beer, Babes, and Baseball???, come on!).
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1 Comment so farOne Response to “Joel Osteen Wins Worst Easter Sermon Award”
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Wendyl
April 29, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Well, this doesn’t surprise me either! It’s like Paul said in 2 Timothy:
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.” (2 Ti 4:3-4 NASB)
I think the time Paul was referring to has arrived in full force in today’s so-called post-modern era. Everyone now is so used to having their “felt needs” met that they’ve forgotten the whole essence of living for Christ. And as Mr. Rosebrough has so aptly pointed out, Joel Osteen take the cake for his false teachings which are leading thousands upon thousands from the truth.
It’s like Albert Mohler once said: “The sinner’s need for Christ is a need unlike all other needs — and the satisfaction of having other needs stroked and affirmed is often a hindrance to the sinner’s understanding of the Gospel.”
So true!