{"id":5068,"date":"2005-07-21T09:57:55","date_gmt":"2005-07-21T09:57:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/last-one.html"},"modified":"2005-07-21T09:57:55","modified_gmt":"2005-07-21T09:57:55","slug":"last-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/last-one.html","title":{"rendered":"Last one"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ll try. But this Internet Monk post on Joel Osteen’s inaugural sermon was too good to pass up<\/a>. This was one of the big religion stories last week, so we’re justified in coming back to it as new comments pop up.<\/p>\n

Further, it gives the Catholic readership of this blog some context. Religious life in the United States doesn’t exist in a vacuum, obviously. Religious expression and practice is influenced by the culture, pop and otherwise. In some areas of the country, Catholics are bleeding members to these kind of full-service ministries. Catholics read Osteen, Warren and Joyce Meyers, I would guess<\/em> in greater numbers<\/strong> than they do Catholic authors. <\/p>\n

I mean seriously. Even with all the recent heavy sales do you really<\/em> think that more Catholics are reading Ratzinger than they are Osteen and Warren? I don’t. I would bet that if you surveyed an average parish’s reading habits, a greater percentage of them would have read one of those authors cited above than would have read a Ratzinger, Nouwen or Merton book (the perpetual bestsellers). <\/p>\n

Plus, Catholics are (as we’ve seen in our comments boxes) constantly tempted to imitate these kinds of churches, both in substance and style. Should we? One favorite commentor and former blogger (he may come forward if he wishes, but I’ll keep his anonymity for now) wrote me last year and said that his Catholic parish is probably more like a "megachurch" than any other Catholic church in his area – full service ministries, small groups, energetic liturgies, etc. Nevertheless, he said, a new Protestant megachurch was still leeching members – I think he said three (if not four) couples involved in leadership in the parish had left for this Protestant megachurch in the month before he’d written me. Food for thought.<\/p>\n

Anyway, here’s the IM’s closing shot (and remember, he’s Protestant himself!)<\/p>\n

\n
\n

I have no doubt that Joel Osteen is a Christian, but as a pastor, as a minister of the Gospel, as a preacher of Jesus Christ and salvation by grace through faith, he is a zero. Non-existent. Invisible. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

And his first sermon in the era of Lakewood’s dominance of evangelicalism shows what he is: a motivational speaker with a 15 second prayer at the end of the talk.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ll try. But this Internet Monk post on Joel Osteen’s inaugural sermon was too good to pass up. This was one of the big religion stories last week, so we’re justified in coming back to it as new comments pop up. Further, it gives the Catholic readership of this blog some context. Religious life in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nLast one - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/last-one.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Last one - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I’ll try. But this Internet Monk post on Joel Osteen’s inaugural sermon was too good to pass up. This was one of the big religion stories last week, so we’re justified in coming back to it as new comments pop up. Further, it gives the Catholic readership of this blog some context. Religious life in…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/last-one.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2005-07-21T09:57:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Last one - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/last-one.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Last one - Via Media","og_description":"I’ll try. But this Internet Monk post on Joel Osteen’s inaugural sermon was too good to pass up. This was one of the big religion stories last week, so we’re justified in coming back to it as new comments pop up. Further, it gives the Catholic readership of this blog some context. Religious life in…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/last-one.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2005-07-21T09:57:55+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/last-one.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/last-one.html","name":"Last one - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2005-07-21T09:57:55+00:00","dateModified":"2005-07-21T09:57:55+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/last-one.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/last-one.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/last-one.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Last one"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5068\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}