(This is the full version of the previous four videos posted here for your convenience.) White Horse Inn January 20, 2008 Commentary: Joel Osteen: A Case Study in American Religion Hello and welcome to another broadcast of the White Horse Inn where we are launching our new year-long series, “Christless Christianity: The American Captivity of the Church.” In the last two programs we looked at Christless Christianity in general and Crossless Christianity which is really the heart of the problem as we are assessing it here. And then in this program we want to take a look at a specific example of what we are talking about. We realize an extreme example, but it does reflect a wider tendency and drift towards Christless Christianity that probably evangelicals would not have been attracted to in the 30s and 40s and 50s but today Joel Osteen is now considered an Evangelical leader. If Charles Finney’s legacy helps us to understand how we arrived at the current crisis, Joel Osteen the Pastor of Lakewood church in Houston, Texas may be the clearest example in contemporary American religion. Name it/claim it, heath and wealth, or prosperity gospel, these are nicknames for a heresy that in many respects is an extreme version of perhaps the most typical focus of American Christianity today more generally. Basically God’s there for you and your happiness. He has some rules, and principles for getting what you want out of life and if you follow them you can have what you want. Just …