The Osteen-Smock Paradox
The Osteen-Smock Paradox: Discovering the Unity in Diversity Spectrum of the Church in Joel Osteen and Jed Smock
I was sitting on the ridged pew at the back of the church when it happened. The man on stage vibrated the PA system, shook the stained glass windows, and rattled my eardrums as he roared, “Turn or burn sinner! You’re going to hell if you don’t know Jesus!” I sat there as ridged as the pew and stupefied beyond reason.
At that stage in my walk with God, being born into the faith of my Fathers but only recently having become an actual follower of Jesus, a hundred questions fleeted through my mind. Only two got stuck: “Wait…is telling someone they are going to burn Good News? Is that the Gospel of Love that Christ taught?” For the next decade, I would wrestle with these questions and how Jed Smock preached that night.
Sometimes Love is a…Fiery Punch?
Jed Smock would drop by our little Pentecostal church every year when he came to the University of Texas in Austin. Jed’s ministry was evangelism and his methodology was going from college campus to college
campus rattling ear drums and consciencees like he had done mine. Throughout the years I got to witness the fruits of Jed’s ministry each time he visited (Matthew 7:16-17). The most notable fruit of all was his wife.
Jed was at the University of Florida. He was blaring brimstone via a bullhorn of doom and his eyes landed on a young woman who was sitting there snickering at him along with other student spectators who gathered in large numbers to gauk at Jed as he preached damnation. Jed looked at her and boomed, “Repent of your sins, you wicked woman.” She spit in his face. Mere months later this same woman, Cindy, became the one with the bullhorn of doom, herself going from campus to campus preaching the Gospel.
Cindy said that although Jed’s words had hurt and cut deeply, they also opened something within her that allowed God to get her attention. She was never the same after that and went on to not only join Jed Smock and his team of confrontational evangelists but she and Jed got married! Years later this firey couple could still be seen drawing droves of gawkers as they went preaching from campus to campus, now with their children in tow.
Is telling someone they are going to “burn in hell if they don’t repent” representative of the love that Jesus taught? Apparently so! In some cases, it seems, love is a fiery punch that wakes those who are callous to the truth from their stupor! For me, however, the picture of how Jed and Cindy’s burning Gospel message brought balance to the Body of Christ wasn’t clear until years later when I sat in a very different pew (more of a seat), this one in Houston, Texas at Lakewood Church.
Sometimes Love is a…Cool Glass of Water…and some Honey…maybe a lot of Honey!
Most are familiar with the winsome smile of Joel Olsteen. His sermons are sweet as honey and his eyes shine with the love of Jesus. His message is a refreshing cool drink of water in the midst of a hard and hot life of heartache, and is often punctuated with lifting adages like: “You may not be where you want to be, but you can look back and be thankful you’re not where you used to be.” Don’t you feel lighter already?! I don’t jest! I am lifely serious. There is an undeniable mark of God that resonates through those who choose to see with eyes full of light (Matthew 6:22; Ephesians 1:18).
Sadly, many in the Church at large wag their ridged finger at Joel saying, “You need to preach more about sin and hell. Stop watering down the message of Jesus! Where are the crosses in your church?” Those who say such things pass a similar judgment on Joel as I did on Jed.
I ask you finger-waggers, “Have you seen how many people come to know Jesus because of the Gospel as preached by Joel Osteen?!” Don’t qualify, just answer. The last I checked some 50 thousand Christians come to worship Jesus at Lakewood Church every weekend. LOOK. AT. HIS. FRUITS!
Some people just need honey to understand the Goodness of the Gospel message. I’ve one more word for Joel-haters. You are making the same foolish error that the first disciples made when they ran to Jesus complaining, “We saw someone driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him, because he does not follow with us.” Jesus’s reply was the Gospel writ large! “Do not stop him, for whoever is not against you is for you.” (Mark 9:38-40)
The Spectrum of Incarnational Love and the Body of Christ as a Unity in Diversity
From the extreme method of Jed Smock and the extreme method of Joel Osteen, I have developed one illustration of the “unity in diversity” of the Body of Christ, summarized as, “The Osteen-Smock Paradox”. Can both screaming at people that they need to turn to Jesus and hugging them into the Kingdom of God both be forms of the Good News preached in love? Absolutely! Love is a paradox. On the one hand, love is gentle and kind and on the other hand, love is jarring justice that wakes the sleeping and holds each person to a higher standard of accountability.
Both aspects of love are necessary in a broken world. More to the point, we humans are a multitudinously diverse lot and God created us so. There are people, like Jed’s future wife, for whom the Good News of the Gospel can only be heard when their shells are penetrated by fiery love’s cautionary screams of jarring justice. On the other hand, some people can only take the medicine of the Good News of the Gospel slathered in sweet syrupy honey. Is either wrong? No! Both methods are necessary and there is a beautiful spectrum between them. This is the balance of the Body of Christ. This is unity in diversity…or it should be.
Instead of living and ministering on the spectrum of The Osteen-Smock Paradox, which is simply one picture of Christ’s incarnational love meeting people where they are, we see Christian brothers and sisters arguing about this, that, and the other thing. Can we not simply love one another? Can we not see the beauty of the various denominations and celebrate the diversity of the Body of Christ in how we seek to worship Jesus? After all, isn’t this our litmus: the love that we have for each other? Can we not heed the words of our Savior, “Do not stop him, for whoever is not against you is for you”? (John 13:34-35)
