But while I am strongly against the idea of our "best life now" I want to join other Christian leaders and bloggers in commending Osteen for his response to being put on the spot by Morgan during the interview.
When Morgan asked Osteen if he believed homosexuality to be a sin he responded by saying, "Yes I've always believed, Piers, the Scripture shows that homosexuality is a sin."
Not surprisingly Morgan was flabbergasted and immediately jumped into accusing Osteen of being judgmental.
Accurate or not, Christians are constantly accused of being judgmental. Whether it's our stance on homosexuality, headship & submission in marriage, women's roles in the church, or Jesus as the only way to God, the tag gets put on us all the time.
We must admit that sometimes the accusation is accurate. Jesus said, "Do not judge, or you too will be judged," (Matt. 7:1) and went on to speak of the danger of becoming hypocrites. If we're honest we should all admit that we've been guilty of this before.
But here Jesus is not saying 'Do not make any moral judgments whatsoever.' Otherwise how could we take statements such as, "Why don't you judge for yourselves what is right," (Luke 12:57) or, "Stop judging by mere appearances and make a right judgment," (John 7:24)? How could we stand our ground on things that were wrong versus things that were pure and holy?
I think the good lesson we can learn from Joel Osteen's response to Piers Morgan is that we should let the Word of God speak for itself and then stand behind it. In doing so we allow God to bear the responsibility of the moral judgment. And when others are offended we can simply reply that we are only following the words of God.
Do I wish every person ever born would go to heaven? Yes. Will it happen? God's Word says, "No." We need not worry what others think about us when we stand behind the Word of God. The only thing that concerns us is how God, the ultimate judge, will judge us on whether or not we remained true to what He has revealed to us in the Bible.
I'll leave you with a quote from Al Mohler that I thought was clarifying and enlightening on the issue...
"To Morgan, making any moral judgment amounts to judgmentalism. Of course, this leads logically to total moral insanity, since the only way to avoid being identified with judgmentalism is to make no moral judgments whatsoever — which no sane person can do."
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