Joel Osteen, the
smiling preacher, has quickly emerged as one of the most recognizable
Protestant leaders in the country. His megachurch, the Houston based Lakewood
Church, hosts an average of over 40,000 worshipers each week. Osteen is the
best-selling author of numerous books, and his sermons and inspirational talks
appear regularly on mainstream cable and satellite radio.
How did Joel Osteen become Joel Osteen?
How did Lakewood become the largest megachurch in the U. S.?
Salvation with a Smile, the first
scholarly book-length study devoted to Lakewood Church and Joel Osteen, offers
a critical history of the congregation by linking its origins to post-World War
II neopentecostalism, and connecting it to the exceptionally popular prosperity
gospel movement and the enduring attraction of televangelism. In this richly
documented book, historian Phillip Luke Sinitiere carefully excavates the life
and times of Lakewood’s founder, John Osteen, to explain how his son Joel
expanded his legacy and fashioned the congregation into America’s largest
megachurch. As a popular preacher, Joel Osteen’s ministry has been a
source of existential strength for many, but also the routine target of
religious critics who vociferously contend that his teachings are theologically
suspect and spiritually shallow. Sinitiere’s keen analysis shows how Osteen’s
rebuttals have expressed a piety of resistance that demonstrates
evangelicalism’s fractured, but persistent presence.
Salvation with a Smile situates
Lakewood Church in the context of American religious history and illuminates
how Osteen has parlayed an understanding of American religious and political
culture into vast popularity and success.
Endorsements:
“Sinitiere’s outstanding book on Joel Osteen and his
Lakewood Church combines the best of historical narrative, ethnographic
observation and analysis, and an empathetic but critically acute scholarly
understanding. The result is a work that explains and interprets one of
America's foremost religious celebrities, the ‘charismatic core’ of his church,
and the combination of positive thinking and positive confession which form his
message.
—
Paul Harvey, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
“Charismatic Christianity is increasingly the face of
American evangelicalism, and a smiling one at that. Joel Osteen is a major
reason why. In this deeply researched and richly contextualized study, Phillip
Luke Sinitiere nominates Osteen as America’s new pastor. No fair-minded reader
will come away doubting Osteen’s significance and genius. Anyone interested in
the nation’s protean religious landscape will benefit from this scholarly labor
of love.”
—
Steven P. Miller, author of
The Age of
Evangelicalism: America’s Born-Again Years
“The best possible book on Joel Osteen and his place in
American religious history. Well researched and well written, it uses Osteen’s
own words to portray the man who can now rightfully be called ‘America’s Pastor’
as Billy Graham passes from the scene. . . . What emerges is a positive yet
objective picture of the popular preacher with the big smile who has built the
largest congregation in the history of the American church.”
—
Vinson Synan, Dean Emeritus, Regent University School of
Divinity
