Hard Economic Times and Kinder, Gentler Preachers

[World Traveler]

Inspirational Joel Osteen replaces the judgemental authoritarians as America's most popular evangelical preacher. Hard times seem to call for preachers who inspire hope and belief that a better future is possible, and whose message is love and acceptance.

Have you heard much lately from politicians about abortion or prayer in school? Probably not, because Americans have other things to worry about, like how to pay their inflating monthly bills. For hardball preachers like Jerry Falwell and Pat Roberstson who liked to mix religion and political power, their day in the sun is over.

Below is an article from August Portfolio.com on Joel Osteen. I find him particularly fascinating, because I was amazed when he bought Houston's Compaq Center (formerly the Summit), where I used to attend the Rockets games, the circus, and music concerts. It seats around 15,000 and is about 4 miles from downtown Houston. He manges to fill it every Sunday, and weekdays, there's a lot of activity at night.

I'm not a religious person, but I am glad to see this unfolding changeover in America's religious leadership. It may help and certainly won't hurt as we go through tough times as a nation.

http://www.portfolio.com/executives/...l-Osteen#page1

[phirang]

Re: Hard Economic Times and Kinder, Gentler Preachers

Joel is a waste of life: people should be hanging the oligarchs, not blubbering like pathetic idiots on their knees.

The US never had the necessary revolution during the Great Depression, and now we're really paying for it!

[alcyone]

Re: Hard Economic Times and Kinder, Gentler Preachers

What absolute nonsense! Osteen is just another New Age teacher who has built his popularity on selling people the idea that the Spirit can be brought into the servitude of the Ego. Those with a more enlightened understanding know better:

“None of us are here to ‘do as we like’, or to create a world in which we shall at last be able to do as we like; we are here to do what the Divine wills and to create a world in which the Divine Will can manifest its truth no longer deformed by human ignorance or perverted and mistranslated by vital desire.” Sri Aurobindo

For those who see clearly, these "Hard Economic Times" are not the result of random events or the usual ebb and flow of business cycles. They represent an epochal change in consciousness and have been predicted by seers for centuries. One of the most prescient of these described precisely what has happened and how it would occur:

"The Whore of Babylon is the consciousness of Materialism that reigns upon the Earth. She is the Whore that usurps the energies which should be channeled upward toward the higher ranges of consciousness. Yet the Earth has fallen under the sway of her power. The Great Whore is described as sitting upon many waters... a symbol of consciousness. It is she with whom the kings of the Earth have committed fornication. The kings are the political leaders of today and the global corporate oligarchs. They lie with the Whore collaborating in her pathological materialism. All during her rise, the world has slept, drunk with her wine and displaying her wealth. Babylon of our time is Sex and Money. She is the great scourge of our time which sucks dry the resources of the planet to satisfy the greed that is carrying the world to its doom. But the hour of God draws near. Babylon the fornicating whore, the queen of money power must soon collapse under the weight of her wicked and destructive accumulated energy. And when the moment of her collapse arrives, it is sudden and quick. Up to the end she will appear triumphantly powerful, because she cannot see her own condition. The most prominent characteristic of the moment of her downfall is the apparent increase of her splendor and glory. The moment she is most secure in her victory is the moment of her furious collapse, “therefore shall her plagues come in one day…” Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! (she is also Rome) For in one hour is thy judgment come.” Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet – The Hidden Manna - St. John’s Revlation.

So don't look for a return to the status quo. It ain't going to happen.

[World Traveler]

Re: Hard Economic Times and Kinder, Gentler Preachers

Interesting points. I don't agree with a lot of what Osteen preaches, but I do think he's a sign of the times we're in. A harsh message does not sell well in harsh times. Hope does.

Plus he's an indication of changes brewing in America's power structure. He stays out of politics.

Evangelical Christians and some politicized, power-seeking leaders (Falwell, Robertson, Christian Coalition, etc.) have been an important element in American politics in last 25 years. That's changing.

[GRG55]

Re: Hard Economic Times and Kinder, Gentler Preachers

Inspirational Joel Osteen replaces the judgemental authoritarians as America's most popular evangelical preacher. Hard times seem to call for preachers who inspire hope and belief that a better future is possible, and whose message is love and acceptance.

Have you heard much lately from politicians about abortion or prayer in school? Probably not, because Americans have other things to worry about, like how to pay their inflating monthly bills...

Interesting points. I don't agree with a lot of what Osteen preaches, but I do think he's a sign of the times we're in. A harsh message does not sell well in harsh times. Hope does...

Every time I hear a clip of Barack Obama speaking in front of a large group the inflection and cadence of his delivery remind me of a "kinder, gentler" Baptist preacher. [not intended to be a criticism, just an observation]

[zoog]

Re: Hard Economic Times and Kinder, Gentler Preachers

Interesting points. I don't agree with a lot of what Osteen preaches, but I do think he's a sign of the times we're in. A harsh message does not sell well in harsh times. Hope does.

Plus he's an indication of changes brewing in America's power structure. He stays out of politics.

Evangelical Christians and some politicized, power-seeking leaders (Falwell, Robertson, Christian Coalition, etc.) have been an important element in American politics in last 25 years. That's changing.

There was a PBS NOW show a while back called "God and Politics".

But some in the evangelical community, disillusioned by what they see as broken promises from the Bush administration, are rethinking their political strategies. NOW on PBS travels to Wichita, Kansas, to investigate how and why the movement is shifting away from hot-button issues like abortion and gay rights to broader and less divisive issues like Global Warming and AIDS. Is the religious right forging a new path, and if so, how will it affect their political clout?

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/404/index.html

[Verrocchio]

Re: Hard Economic Times and Kinder, Gentler Preachers

Hard times seem to call for preachers who inspire hope and belief that a better future is possible, and whose message is love and acceptance.

Good observation, WT. Possible that people experiencing difficult times need a different kind of messenger/emissary to the Divine, I suppose.

For hardball preachers like Jerry Falwell and Pat Roberstson who liked to mix religion and political power, their day in the sun is over.

Not so sure about Pat Robertson, but I can guarantee you that Rev. Jerry Falwell won't have another day in the sun -- unless they exhume him first. ;)

[Brooks Gracie]

Re: Hard Economic Times and Kinder, Gentler Preachers

Well, I wonder what percentage of itulip readers/posters are atheists like myself? Bet it is more than double the general percentage of the population in the U.S.

Economics students seem to be more rational and intelligent than the average Joe, and atheism is all about rationality and intelligence. We demand proof, or at least some evidence before we practice faith in anything.

[GRG55]

Re: Hard Economic Times and Kinder, Gentler Preachers

Well, I wonder what percentage of itulip readers/posters are atheists like myself? Bet it is more than double the general percentage of the population in the U.S.

Economics students seem to be more rational and intelligent than the average Joe, and atheism is all about rationality and intelligence. We demand proof, or at least some evidence before we practice faith in anything.

"Faith" by definition is belief in something without proof...

[don]

Re: Hard Economic Times and Kinder, Gentler Preachers

“the word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.”

As for his fellow Jews, Einstein said that Judaism, like all other religions, was “an incarnation of the most childish superstitions.”



Go, Albert!

[Judas]

Re: Hard Economic Times and Kinder, Gentler Preachers

Well, I wonder what percentage of itulip readers/posters are atheists like myself? Bet it is more than double the general percentage of the population in the U.S.

Economics students seem to be more rational and intelligent than the average Joe, and atheism is all about rationality and intelligence. We demand proof, or at least some evidence before we practice faith in anything.

Be careful- just about the time you've decided you are superior is when you prove you're not.

I have heard everyone from engineers to "gender studies" majors to welders proclaim "they" are the ones with the intelligence and insight, who can see through the bullshit, etc. Economists are many of the folks who gave us the macro policies which have brought us to these times, so watch where you put your "faith". The "smartest guys in the room" often aren't.

[alcyone]

Re: Hard Economic Times and Kinder, Gentler Preachers

The sceptical comments by many of you are understandable in a culture that was not raised to understand the difference between “religion” and spirituality, let alone the true nature of Reality. In order to appreciate the gravity of what is going on today, one must come to recognize, like Plato, who wrote in his “Allegory of the Cave”, that what we perceive as reality is essentially a grand illusion, mere shadows of the real thing. What lies behind the apparent is the symbolic. Those who know how to ‘read’ the symbols and what propels them see a radical shift in consciousness that carries within itself the utter collapse of an old and pathological materialistic consciousness whose insatiable greed has carried this world and its multiple societies to the brink of ruin. Here are a few quotes that address the problem:

“At present mankind is undergoing an evolutionary crisis in which is concealed a choice of its destiny; for a stage has been reached in which the human mind has achieved in certain directions an enormous development, while in others it stands arrested and bewildered and can no longer find its way... Man has created a system of civilization which has become too big for his limited mental capacity and understanding and his still more limited spiritual and moral capacity to utilize and manage, a too dangerous servant of his blundering ego and its appetites.”
Sri Aurobindo; Chap. 28, p. 1053 The Life Divine


"...No sign will enlighten those whose eyes remain closed. But for those whose look is clear, darkness itself becomes a sign. For do they not know that the night grows darker as the dawn approaches? Nevertheless, we will give to everyone a means of discernment: When all moves and quakes, when a shiver passes through the people, awakening those who had been plunged in sleep for centuries and threatening thrones, when that which seemed immovable begins to waiver, when the proudest and most solid constructions shake on their bases and threaten ruin because the very foundation of things is displaced, then can be seen the advent of one whose superhuman steps make the earth tremble."
The Mother


"The great mass of mankind, destined in our time to suffer more cruelly than ever before, ends by being paralyzed with fear, becoming introspective, shaken to the very core, and does not hear, see or feel anything more than everyday physical needs. It is thus that worlds die. First and foremost, the flesh dies. But although few clearly recognize it, the flesh would not have died if the spirit had not been killed already."
Henry Miller

[GRG55]

“the word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.”

As for his fellow Jews, Einstein said that Judaism, like all other religions, was “an incarnation of the most childish superstitions.”



Go, Albert!

"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish."

"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods"

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind"

"There are two ways to live: You can live as if nothing is a mirable; you can live as if everything is a miracle."

--Albert Einstein--

[raja]

Re: Hard Economic Times and Kinder, Gentler Preachers

Well, I wonder what percentage of itulip readers/posters are atheists like myself? Bet it is more than double the general percentage of the population in the U.S.

Economics students seem to be more rational and intelligent than the average Joe, and atheism is all about rationality and intelligence. We demand proof, or at least some evidence before we practice faith in anything.

IMHO, agnostic is the only logical position.

To say there is no God implies that one can know that for certain, which is impossible. So atheism is not a tenable view.

At the same time, it is astonishing to me how much faith people have in some writings made 2000-4000 years ago by people living in tents in the desert, i.e., the Bible. How could anyone possibly know whether this book is "the word of God"?

On top of that, consider that all world religions disagree to greater or lesser degrees on what is true, and their discrepant views are mutually exclusive. How people can be so sure their brand of religion is right in light of this is hard to fathom. But I guess it's like everything else . . . politics, economics, etc. . . . people believe what their life experiences have led them to believe . . . rationality and logic are easily disregarded.

That being said, I think religion has some evolutionary advantages, which accounts for it's continued existence in spite of the overwhelming evidence of its apparent fallacies . Religion can (but not always) temper aggression and greed through guilt and fear of divine retribution, regardless if that retribution is real.

I could never say with absolute certainty that religion is incorrect, or that anyone's beliefs are wrong, hence my agnosticism. But being religious is not how I choose to live my life . . . .

[GRG55]

Re: Hard Economic Times and Kinder, Gentler Preachers

IMHO, agnostic is the only logical position.

To say there is no God implies that one can know that for certain, which is impossible. So atheism is not a tenable view.

At the same time, it is astonishing to me how much faith people have in some writings made 2000-4000 years ago by people living in tents in the desert, i.e., the Bible. How could anyone possibly know whether this book is "the word of God"?

On top of that, consider that all world religions disagree to greater or lesser degrees on what is true, and their discrepant views are mutually exclusive. How people can be so sure their brand of religion is right in light of this is hard to fathom. But I guess it's like everything else . . . politics, economics, etc. . . . people believe what their life experiences have led them to believe . . . rationality and logic are easily disregarded.

That being said, I think religion has some evolutionary advantages, which accounts for it's continued existence in spite of the overwhelming evidence of its apparent fallacies . Religion can (but not always) temper aggression and greed through guilt and fear of divine retribution, regardless if that retribution is real.

I could never say with absolute certainty that religion is incorrect, or that anyone's beliefs are wrong, hence my agnosticism. But being religious is not how I choose to live my life . . . .

I am not "religious" in the conventional sense either, but the older I get the more convinced I am that the way the universe is ordered is not a completely random outcome...