Word: methodists
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...more liberal Mainline. It is taught in hundreds of non-Pentecostal Bible studies. One Pennsylvania Lutheran pastor even made it the basis for a sermon series for Lent, when Christians usually meditate on why Jesus was having His Worst Life Then. Says the Rev. Chappell Temple, a Methodist minister with the dubious distinction of pastoring Houston's other Lakewood Church (Lakewood United Methodist), an hour north of Osteen's: "Prosperity Lite is everywhere in Christian culture. Go into any Christian bookstore, and see what they're offering...
...past decade, however, the new generation of preachers, like Osteen, Meyer and Houston's Methodist megapastor Kirbyjon Caldwell, who gave the benediction at both of George W. Bush's Inaugurals, have repackaged the doctrine. Gone are the divine profit-to-earnings ratios, the requests for offerings far above a normal 10% tithe (although many of the new breed continue to insist that congregants tithe on their pretax rather than their net income). What remains is a materialism framed in a kind of Tony Robbins positivism. No one exemplifies this better than Osteen, who ran his father's television-production department...
...despite Warren's disdain for Prosperity's theological claims, some Prosperity churches have become players in the very faith-based antipoverty world he inhabits, even while maintaining their distinctive theology. Kirbyjon Caldwell, who pastors Windsor Village, the largest (15,000) United Methodist church in the country, can sound as Prosperity as the next pastor: "Jesus did not die and get up off the Cross so we could live lives full of despair and disappointment," he says. He quotes the "abundant life" verse with all earnestness, even giving it a real estate gloss: "It is unscriptural not to own land...
Talking about your Tao seems a long way from your Methodist roots...
...taken the pills to "sleep forever," Andrea told staff at the Methodist Hospital, according to medical records released by defense lawyers. But afterward she felt guilty for attempting suicide. "I have my family to live for," she told registered nurse Bridget Fenton. Andrea told a psychiatrist she was worried the overdose had done permanent damage to her body...