Greg Boyd's Unbiblical Condemnation of Elijah and Why It Matters

I ran across something from Greg Boyd by way of someone criticizing a recent pronouncement. Turns out that Greg thinks that Elijah, acting in the Spirit and the same Elijah who is taken up bodily in a chariot of fire by the Lord, was acing in an ungodly and even demonic fashion when he defeated the prophets of Baal. From his article Eye for Eye: That Time JesusRefuted An Old Testament Teaching (emphasis mine).

So Elijah, through faith calling down the wrath of God on the false gods of the world, is acting in an ungodly, perhaps even demonic, manner.

Yes, one of the most potent examples of the power of God and the utter helplessness of the false gods of this world where God Himself calls down fire is actually an example of demonic power. This event recorded in Scripture is usually thought of as a comforting and encouraging verse for Christians. Turns out we all missed the point. Or maybe not.

When you feel free to make pronouncements that are barely tethered in any sort of way to Scripture you eventually find yourself making statements that are not only not tethered to those Scriptures but are completely contrary to what Scripture teaches. God indeed calls us to refrain from taking vengeance but not because vengeance is demonic but rather because it is God who will wreak

vengeance on the ungodly. Apparently Greg thinks that God can be invoked to do evil for demonic purposes by a mortal against His will, as though He is little more than an impersonal power supply like The Force that can be used for good or evil depending on whether you are a Sith or Jedi (in his example Elijah is a Sith Lord). Given that Greg is a well known proponent of the error known as "open theism", I guess it isn't surprising that he would embrace "God as the Force".

So Greg's statement, taken in context, is foolish, un-biblical, contrary to the plain reading of Scripture, contrary to the historical understanding of the church and, worst of all, more than a little blasphemous and defamatory to the person of God. It epitomizes the sort of clumsy eisegesis that tends to characterize a lot of what Greg writes. 

So what, there are plenty of people who are tossing theological manure around the internet. Why does this bear mention?

The problem I have is that because Greg is so widely read and quoted, primarily among "progressive" religious types and also happens to espouse a form of non-resistance, when he says this sort of stuff  it paints those few voices who hold to more orthodox positions alongside non-resistance with the same heterodox brush. We already face an uphill battle against our culture and against hundreds of years of erroneous teaching on "just war". We really don't need Greg Boyd making statements that are not only foolish but also harmful to the greater cause of promoting practical peacemaking in the church. Guys like Doug Wilson easily blow apart this silly statement by Boyd and in doing so throws out stuff like:

So when you have painted yourself into an anabaptist corner, and your theology requires you to say that black is white, and that up is down, and that holy is unholy, and that God is the devil, and the devil is God, perhaps it is time to go back and review some of your foundational assumptions. You don’t ever want “I love the devil” to show up in your conclusions.

Wilson is scathing and correct about the error of Boyd on so many levels but Wilson also very neatly lumps Anabaptists as a whole and the entire stream of Anabaptism throughout history into the same camp as Boyd. I am not aware of any actual Anabaptists historically that would concur that Elijah called down the fiery power of God in an act of demonic pique. The more Anabaptists and their modern admirers welcome and embrace false teachers, the less the rest of the church is interested in hearing about actual, historic  Anabaptism and as I have written many times before that is tragic because the historic Anabaptists have a lot to teach the church to help prepare for the days to come.

There are also plenty of Boyd fanboys on the interwebs that will swallow his assertion about Elijah without question. It is fine to have well-known teachers that you appreciate but you have to also be able to read them with some discernment and call out when they are in error (like Al Mohler's statement on voting last week). If no one calls out people like Boyd they just keep going, deeper and deeper into error.

As I have written before, the impulse to overreact against tradition or fundamentalism or whatever is leading too many people, Christians and other generic religious folks, to welcome anyone who is perceived to not be a mean old fundie. The list of people peddling error is growing by the day, selling books by the thousands and getting invited to speak to the church. This is not a sign of progress, it is a sign of retreat. When the church fails to exercise any sort of discernment and the only sin is being too serious about the faith, it has ceased to be the church in any meaningful and Biblical sense. People like Boyd, even when he is close to the mark on an issue or two, who deny the fundamentals of the faith should be called out and called to repent, not celebrated and fawned over.

John Piper Is Coming: A Response To Piper and Game of Thrones

I was going to title this post "You Know Nothing John Piper" as an homage to Game of Thrones but I thought that was disrespectful and he has some legit points.

About a week ago John Piper posted 12 Questions to Ask Before You Watch ‘Game of Thrones’ in response to the enormous popularity of the HBO series that is an adaptation of the George R.R. Martin book series. As you would expect, John Piper isn't a fan of the series (although I am quite sure he hasn't seen any of the episodes) and he is pretty concerned that a lot of Christians are watching something he assumes is unhealthy. A lot of my fellow believers have been reposting his article with varying degrees of commentary including one that assumed that every single person who watched the TV series was lost, a breathtakingly arrogant and theologically ignorant statement.

Full disclosure. I own all of the published books and have read them all at least twice, as has my wife. We own the released seasons on DVD and have watched them. They are full of violence and gore and sex because they depict a world that is not a neat and tidy, black and white world but one that is full of violence and gore and sex, rather like how things probably were in a similar era in our world and ironically much like the world described in the Bible that likewise describes sex, extra-marital sex, incest, rape, war, murder, etc. No Game of Thrones is not on par with the Bible. That is silly to even say but hey this is the internet and sure enough some knucklehead would suggest I was saying that. What I am saying is that the presence of sex or violence in a book is not in and of itself a disqualifier, indeed cannot be for Christians. People have sex. War and rape go hand in hand, not just in Game of Thrones, but in World War II and Vietnam and even today. People kill and torture and maim one another. The world depicted in the storyline of GoT is a dark one but not all books can have settings like Rivendell and the Shire.

There are legitimate concerns about GoT. Like I said, Game of Thrones, both the books and the TV adaptation, are full of violence, sex and atrocious language. I understand that. I don't let my kids read the books. I especially don't let them watch the show or even be around when we are. I fully understand that this is a pastime that requires some discernment. I do wish Martin had left some of this stuff out of the books and that the producers of the show on HBO did the same. I think that the violence and sex is integral to the story even though the story is not about them, if that makes sense. In other words these aren't books about sex and violence, they are books about complicated people who live in a world full of sex and violence, kind of like our world. For a people of the Book who revere flawed men like Noah and Abraham and David and Paul and Peter, you would think that

However I reject the notion proposed by John that people watch because we want to be "hip, cool, savvy, culturally aware". I read the first book in the series long before HBO started filming the series. I don't read them because of the coolness factor nor for the titillation factor. I read them because they are incredibly compelling. The storylines, the characters (until Martin kills them off), the vivid imagery. They are some of the best written books I have read and the TV series is a pretty decent adaptation with incredible acting on a limited budget. Unlike the horrific CGI heavy The Hobbit adaptation, Game of Thrones relies on characters for the story rather than characters being props in the latest CGI excess. I would read the books whether they were "hip" or not.

I do wonder how many of the people jumping on the "Game of Thrones is evil" bandwagon would say the same thing about other cultural entertainment? It is easy for those who don't watch GoT to stand afar and cast stones. What about movies and TV shows that glamorize and glorify warfare? Christians love those. A lot of Christians love the TV show 24 where hero Jack Bauer tortures people and violates their civil rights for our entertainment. How about entertainment that subtly or not reinforces greed and envy? We certainly have a more widespread problem with that in the church than we do Christians beheading each other. Then of course there are sports which certainly rise to the level of idolatry for many a Christian and especially so with football which not only is idolatrous for many Christians but is a sport based on violence and one in which many players, from children to adults, are injured every year for our entertainment. Christian men flock to TVs to spend hours watching modern gladiators slam into one another while women in provocative "clothing" gyrate in high definition to....well to titillate because no one at an NFL game can hear them "cheer". Of course these televised games are interspersed with many advertisements extolling the virtues of alcohol or others that appeal to the insatiable need for the latest pick-up truck or car or the latest, greatest smart phone or an erectile dysfunction medication. That stuff is apparently OK. After all America is specially blessed by God with material wealth so why shouldn't I have the latest smartphone or a brand new car?

So here is my point. I think John Piper raises some legitimate concerns, some that I share and my wife and I have talked about. On the other hand I think a lot of Christians wagging their fingers at their fellow Christians might be a touch hypocritical. I absolutely think their are some cautions about Game of Thrones but I think that the writing is compelling enough to warrant reading. It is not for everyone. It is not for children. I will keep watching Game of Thrones, even if it stops being "hip, cool, savvy, culturally aware" and I will continue to exercise discernment on the issue. I appreciate John Piper asking hard questions and I have given them thought. I just don't agree on this one. Perhaps I will change my mind later on. Perhaps not. It wouldn't be the first time and won't be the last.

Preaching The Gospel To Unbelievers Is Bad?

I watched this video from Todd Friel yesterday and it just rubbed me the wrong way for a number of reasons. Give it a look see...

I think where this goes wrong is where discussions like this often go wrong: at the beginning. Todd assumes that "preaching" means "sermons" and that this sort of "preaching" is what the Bible means when it talks about edification, equipping and discipleship. As I have stated over and over, we always see preaching done in the New Testament directed at unbelievers and never see a single sermon associated with the gathering of the church. It is only because we have adopted and modified the Mass that we assume that watching a speaker deliver a prepared speech somehow equates to preaching and this "preaching" is at the heart of the gathered church. The church as an event we attend is invariably going to attract sheep and goats so to decry some for trying to share the Gospel with the lost is foolhardy. If you are going to have a performance driven event, you might as well reach the lost while you are at it.

Todd seems to confuse our cultural religious expression of church (showing up on Sunday, sitting in a pew and somehow being spoon fed via sermon until we magically become mature) with the purpose of the church demonstrated and revealed in Scripture. These are all common topics I post about so no need to go any further on that.

That misunderstanding about the purpose of the church is not all that surprising. What I did find especially troubling was his "baby bird" analogy, the idea that we are continually showing up on Sunday to be spoon fed. The Bible talks about those who never seem to get beyond theological infancy

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.  (Heb  5:12-14)

The author of Hebrews seems remarkably disdainful here. He seems to think that these people should be further along than they are and is disappointed that they are not. Keep in mind that these are people surrounded by a pagan culture unlike anything we can imagine, coming from a legalistic reinterpretation of the Old Covenant community and without the myriad "benefits" we have: a complete Bible, a deep cultural tradition of Christianity, ample resources. Yet the author of Hebrews expects that they will have moved beyond the "milk stage" into the more mature "meat stage", or moving from spiritual infancy to adulthood.

I don't necessarily blame Todd here, even though as someone who frequently posts discernment videos pointing out the errors in other you would think he would be past the stage of sitting around with his mouth open to be "fed", i.e. listen to a sermon. The church is structured in a way that locks people into perpetual spiritual infancy by constantly spoon "feeding" them via sermons, Sunday schools and rituals rather than equipping them with the expectation that they will come to a level of maturity and actually begin doing the work of ministry. The flip side of this is a spiritual dependency where Christians are perpetually dependent on their clergy to do the work of ministry while the rest watch. If you doubt this, visit a typical local church and see how many long term "members" have not served the needy or shared the Gospel with someone who is lost in the last six months. Few evangelicals can express even the most basic theological concepts. We have churches stuffed with Bibles, books, tracts, sermons and Sunday school that are also populated with milk level immature Christians.

The author of Hebrews exhorts the readers of his letter to come to maturity by constantly practicing their powers of discernment. How do we practice our powers of discernment? How are we fed and equipped? By picking out a "church" and listening to a sermon each week? Clearly not since that was not the practice of the early church so it hardly seems to make sense that the author of the book of Hebrews would imply that. The pattern clearly seems to be that being a disciple involves on the job training, i.e. being actively involved in the work of ministry and emulating the example of others, younger men emulating and imitating the elders and older, more mature women teaching and training by their example the younger women. In other words, getting saved, getting basic training and getting out of the pew and into the mission field all around us.

The trouble in the church is not that our sermons are aimed at the goats, the problem is that the sheep are being spoon fed astroturf and never being truly equipped. It is inexcusable that in a nation with millions upon millions of professing "Christians" has such lackluster participation in the work of ministry and such theological shallowness. Something is clearly not working and a solution that boils down to "more of what is not working" is doomed to repeating the cycle.

Discernment

Just thinkin’ out loud here, this is totally random and disjointed.

What is discernment? How do we employ it and how do we recognize it in others?

Discernment is appealed to on a regular basis, often when someone crosses a doctrinal line. In other words, I disagree with you and my position is so patently obvious from Scripture that you must be lacking in discernment. There are even some people who claim to have “discernment ministries” which basically amounts to a “ministry” dedicated to sniffing around and finding people who are wrong about something and then telling the world how wrong they are. Those folks generally are self-important and self-appointed. I occasionally post about someone doing or saying something silly but I try not to make a career out of it.

It doesn’t take much to go from being considered a “discerning” Christian to a Christian who lacks discernment. A perfect example is the tempest in a teapot over John Piper inviting Rick Warren to speak at the Desiring God conference. Many people are pleading for discernment or accusing Piper of lacking discernment. Many of those same people own his books and listen to his sermons and attend conferences where he is speaking. Unless someone is an unbeliever, I don’t see any warrant to treat them as persona non grata in the Body. There are lots of Christians I disagree with about lots of stuff, from Arminians to dispensationalists to defenders of the traditional church to paedobaptists. That doesn’t mean I see inviting them to speak as somehow compromising the Gospel.

So I guess being discerning doesn’t mean covering your ears and yelling “La, la, la I cannot hear you” when someone is speaking without being properly vetted by the Reformed doctrinal police. I have certainly learned an awful lot from the T4G guys and other Reformed teachers. I have also been learning that a) they are not right on every issue (i.e. the church) and b) I have also learned a lot from men that I disagree with on lots of stuff. Being discerning doesn’t mean agreeing with certain teachers or affirming this creed or that confession.

There are a number of places that speak of being discerning or employing discernment in the New Testament. Here are a couple that I found especially pertinent:

About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. (Heb 5: 11-14)

So here we see that we (i.e. Christians, more on that in a second) have “powers of discernment” that can be honed by practice with the goal being the ability to distinguish good from evil. So someone who is mature and discerning can tell the difference between good and evil but this requires training and doing so constantly, i.e. with lack of training our discernment can grow weak. Interesting. I would point out that this is consistent with us all attaining a maturity of faith (Ephesians 4: 13-16), so discernment is not the sole province of the theologians and the academy but is something that should be seen in all believers. Getting back to my point about discernment being solely a “Christian thing”

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Cor 2: 12-16)

Wow. We have the mind of Christ. Pretty sobering stuff. This kind of reminds me of the “my flock”/”not my flock” distinction John quotes Christ as saying in John 10. I think that what Paul is saying is that, at least as it applies to the things of God, people who are unbelievers cannot be discerning. They don’t understand the mind of Christ and cannot discern the things that are spiritual because they don’t have the Spirit. Further proof that we cannot force compliance to holiness on the part of unbelievers. Here is another one….

For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. (Phil 1: 8-11)

Here Paul is linking love, knowledge and discernment. I think this is important. Love seems to me to be preeminent, the first thing that Paul is praying for, but that love must be accompanied by knowledge and discernment. Why is this important? It is clear that love can be misdirected here. Not speaking specifically of “romantic love”, although it is true, but rather love as in affection. Where do your affections lie? If the answer is centered in anything other than Christ Jesus, there is a problem. Even good affections can go wrong if they move into the place that is reserved for Christ and love of Christ is more than a fuzzy feeling. Dare I say that some people love some good things (theology, the church, their family) more than Christ and that is not a sign of discernment but a lack thereof.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12: 1-2)

Ah. So now we see that discernment is something that is distinguished from the world and hampered by a focus on the world. Could this perhaps mean that worldly scholasticism is not only not aiding discernment but in fact hampering it? This also seems to say that discernment is more than knowledge. Discernment has an aspect of knowledge but it is not merely knowledge. Being very knowledgeable doesn’t make one discerning. Some of the most knowledgeable people out there are some of the least discerning. Conversely, being willfully ignorant exhibits a lack of discernment. So in other words, knowledge does not equal discernment but ignorance negates even the possibility of discernment. So as I said, discernment is more than knowledge but not less than it either. Discernment employs knowledge that is gained through practice framed by love and empowered by the Spirit to enable the Christian to distinguish between good and evil. Is that a good definition?

What say you? What is discernment? What does it mean to be discerning and what does it mean to say someone lacks discernment? How would you define “discernment” or what does a discerning Christian look like?

Teaching kids to be discerning without being disagreeable

As my older kids move into their teens and pre-teens, I have been pleased to see that they are developing a sense of discernment. A couple of examples:

First. I visited a friend’s church with two of my daughters and the comment after the service was over was that it seemed like a rock concert held in a church. It was clear that there was no Gospel proclamation going on. Just loud music and middle-aged guys trying to dress and act like teenagers and a “pastor” rushing through an inane “sermon” in fifteen minutes before people started getting bored.

Second. When we lived at our house in the Detroit area, a couple of women from a local Baptist church were going door to door. My wife invited them in, but while she was talking to one of the women, the other woman was trying to lead my younger children through the “sinners prayer” and pronounce them saved. My twelve year old called her on it and the lady got kind of huffy.

So some of what they hear and read is sticking. My concern is that they are not just reflecting discernment from me but also my combatitive nature. In other words, how do we teach our kids to contend earnestly without being contentious? I fear that I am teaching them that the Gospel is like a 4 D-cell maglite, it gives off bright light but you can also beat people over the head with it.

For a lot of people, that is easier than it is for others. They are naturally more easy going. But for me, my heresy radar is going all the time and even a whiff of bogus teaching, playing fast and loose with the text or applying a manmade tradition sends me into “ramming speed”. I like that my children, in a day and age of “anything goes theology” are building a sold foundation of the Biblical basics. However, the point of that foundation is not to be a club to beat people up with (“BAM! You are wrong and this is why!), but to give them a grounding in Biblical truth upon which to build.

It is no fun and not very spiritually uplifting to be looking for the negatives everywhere you go. I am hardly the only Christian who suffers from this affliction (and you know who you are), but I really don’t want to instill that in my kids. So along with reforming my own behavior, how do we teach our kids to be discerning without being disagreeable?

Where do we draw the line on heresy?

What makes one a heretic?

We have been discussing heresy in Sunday school at Indian River Baptist Church and it raised the question in my mind: what makes one a heretic? I mean besides the obvious things, when is it OK to call someone a heretic?

Heresy is a word we toss about, and I especially do, fairly cavalierly. Phil Johnson has a whole section on his webpage of famous heretics throughout the ages. It seems the easy thing to do, when faced with something we disagree with strongly, to throw down the heresy card to end discussion.

Some things are fairly easy to diagnose as heresy. Mormonism is clearly a heresy. The same with the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Both cult groups deny such fundamental doctrines of the Bible that they stand clearly outside the pale of orthodox Christianity. The list of obvious heretics is pretty lengthy and easy to identify. What is far more difficult, and far more dangerous, is when we point the finger of heresy at someone within the church. On the one hand we don’t have the option to ignore or brush over false teaching and false teachers in our midst. Yet we also must be careful to not label genuine brothers and sisters in Christ as heretics without justification.

Just disagreeing with someone on a point of doctrine is not a sign of heresy. I feel baptizing infants is un-Biblical and constitutes an inaccurate way of administering the sacrament of baptism. I would not be a member of a church where infant baptism was performed. Yet some of my closest and dearest friends are paedobaptists. I would feel perfectly justified in telling them, cheerfully and in Christian love, that I think that baptizing their infant is improper, but to call them a heretic? Hardly. I would no sooner call R.C. Sproul a heretic than I would label John MacArthur the same. Both hold very different views on baptism and ecclesiology, but that doesn’t mean that one is right and one is a heretic.

Doing something differently is not a sure sign of heresy. The sign of orthodoxy is not that a church follows the traditions set forth over the last hundred years. Granted, a lot of heretical movements have very obvious oddities in their worship services, and the excessive exuberance can be a warning sign. But many heretical churches have very sober, somber services with a seriousness that would please the most starched shirt Baptist. But seriousness is not a marker of orthodoxy anymore than casual services are a sign of unorthodoxy.

Where does that leave us? What is the magic line that differentiates disagreement over doctrine with heresy. Is N.T. Wright a heretic because of his views on the New Perspective on Paul? Is Joel Osteen because of his refusal to address sin and his embracing the health, wealth and prosperity gospel? Men like Charles Finney are clearly heretics even though they are embraced by many in the church today, but as always popularity or acceptance is not a hallmark of orthodoxy. But where should we draw the line today? As hard as it is for me to admit, I am not sure I know the answer to that one...

What exactly does Joel Osteen consider to be a "big detail"?


There are certainly doctrines that are not as divisive, or at least shouldn't be, compared to others. Dr. Albert Mohler ranks these under theological triage, and his advice in this area is as sound as ever. For example, third level issues are things like eschatology, that should not divide us or cause us to break fellowship.

Unfortunately, one of the best known Christian leaders in this country, in this world perhaps, has shown yet again a remarkable ignorance when dealing with mormonism and violated a number of the level one theological triage categories. Joel Osteen, on December 23rd, 2007, was interviewed on Fox News Sunday and in the course of the interview was asked about Mitt Romney and mormonism. His response is, to say the least, sad and disappointing:

WALLACE: And what about Mitt Romney? And I've got to ask you the question, because it is a question whether it should be or not in this campaign, is a Mormon a true Christian?
OSTEEN: Well, in my mind they are. Mitt Romney has said that he believes in Christ as his savior, and that's what I believe, so, you know, I'm not the one to judge the little details of it. So I believe they are. And so, you know, Mitt Romney seems like a man of character and integrity to me, and I don't think he would — anything would stop me from voting for him if that's what I felt like.
WALLACE: So, for instance, when people start talking about Joseph Smith, the founder of the church, and the golden tablets in upstate New York, and God assumes the shape of a man, do you not get hung up in those theological issues?
OSTEEN: I probably don't get hung up in them because I haven't really studied them or thought about them. And you know, I just try to let God be the judge of that. I mean, I don't know. I certainly can't say that I agree with everything that I've heard about it, but from what I've heard from Mitt, when he says that Christ is his savior, to me that's a common bond.

I have hesitated to post anything about this (which is pretty amazing if you know me that I would hesitate to offer my thoughts about anything) for a couple of reasons:

1. It is a fine line between rightly chastising a brother in Christ and attacking a brother publicly.
2. It is so obvious, so silly as to be almost below mention.

But the longer I think about it, the more irate I get. How can you, on national TV, when asked about a clear heresy, an attack on Biblical Christianity like mormonism and respond that the nature of God and the divinity of Christ are just little details that ought not be judged and get in the way? There are men of God like John MacArthur and Albert Mohler who appear on TV on a regular basis, and never fail to declare the Gospel and stand up for the truth, regardless of the derision they may receive or the lack of return invitation they may get.

A quick refresher: Mormonism holds that God the Father is a created being. That Jesus Christ is also a created being, and is the spirit brother not only of mankind but also Satan and his demons. That the Bible is unreliable and requires the priesthood authority to interpret. That temple worthy mormon men will become gods and live in polygamous relationships in eternity, propagating their own planets. Etc. Etc. Etc. These are not "little details". These are heresies of the highest order, on par with anything ever peddled throughout the ages. If Joel Osteen cannot differentiate between mormonism and orthodox Christianity, or if he cannot be bothered to inform himself of the pressing issues of the Gospel, he may need to spend less time on TV and jetting around the world hawking his latest book, and instead spend more time in the only book that really matters.