Joel Osteen blesses Houston's new (gay) mayor Annise Parker

(USA Today) - Annise Parker, the newly-elected happens-to-be-lesbian mayor of Houston was sworn in Monday and the opening prayer was given by ... Rev. Joel Osteen.

Is your head spinning? Osteen heads the nation's most mega of evangelical non-denominational megachurches, Lakewood Church in Houston where about 45,000 people cycle through a revamped sports stadium for services every weekend.

Osteen has been all over telling folks (Larry King, Whoopi Goldberg) for years that homosexuality is not "God's best." I presume he means "God's best choice" because otherwise I'm lost in the dropped or implied rest of the sentence. But "God's best" is phrase Osteen never finishes so I'm just guessing.

Yet, Osteen hasn't joined the more strident wing of the religious right in damning gays. Indeed, Osteen takes heat from other evangelicals who condemn him for not laying down a line of fire about sin of any kind. That's not his style, says the preacher known for his broad smile and sermons that God wants you to be happy. Osteen's best seller was titled, Your Best Life Now.

Televangelist and best-selling author, Joel Osteen (shown here with his wife, Victoria. at the opening of the nation's largest church in a former Houston sports arena, gave the opening prayer at the inauguration of Houston's new mayor, Annise Parker, a lesbian.

CAPTION

By Jessica Kourkounis, AP

Now (hat tip to Mark Silk for pointing me to the Box Turtle Bulletin) writer Timothy Kincaid suggests to his gay readership that they look at Osteen more fully and fairly. Kincaid's post (which carries a disclaimer that others on the staff of the webzine don't necessarily agreed) says:

I think it would be useful for our community to adopt a more nuanced view of religious leaders. By doing so, we might find ourselves with unexpected allies.

Joel Osteen does not agree with my understanding of Scripture; but his disagreement does not make him a hater or a bigot. And I recognize the value in having a lesbian politician -- elected despite her opponent's religion-based homophobic campaign -- being given blessing by the pastor of the largest congregation in the nation.

Does this change your idea of Osteen? For better or for worse?

• Link

Houston, Texas (CNN) -- Joel Osteen strides into the former Compaq Center. Some 20,000 people are standing and singing. Purple lights softly pulse across the ceiling, and mist floats around two giant screens flashing words to the songs.

It's not a pulpit but a podium. It's not an altar but a stage. There is no cross. Instead a huge globe spins, and two massive bubbling creeks flank the stage. A lighting system softens distant corners of the massive arena and spreads colored light and smoke in strategic spots. Somehow, the space that will hold 40,000-plus on Sunday morning doesn't feel like a sports arena...

Osteen's supporters and associates suggest mainstream Christian mistrust of his success may be as much jealousy as theology.

"Have you been to church in America recently?" one aide said. "They put on a funeral. If you put on a funeral every week, eventually people stop coming..."

And what of the Bible verse that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven? Or that Jesus preached his followers to give up all their belongings and follow him?

"Years back at least, you know you had to be poor and to show you were holy," Osteen said. "You're supposed to sacrifice everything, and I'm all for sacrifice and I believe in that, but I also believe that God wants us to be leaders. He's put gifts and talents in every person, that they're supposed to come out to the full..."

• Link
  

Depart From Me! I Never Knew You, Eaters of Bacon

By Katharine Shilcutt in Spaced City
Monday, Feb. 23 2009 @ 2:14PM

Did you know that Joel Osteen is kicking it old school now? And by old school, I mean Old Testament. Straight outta Hebron!

The new-agey motivational speaker preacher at Lakewood Church took a bizarrely old-fashioned approach recently when he advised his congregation against eating both pork and seafood, saying that "...for our health's sake, we have to be willing to make some changes."

He further explained his newfound nutritional path to salvation with deeply theological phrases like "back in the Bible days" and "this is kinda gross" before launching into a detailed diatribe about the inherent filth and evil associated with porcine digestive tracts...

More