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Depart From Me! I Never Knew You, Eaters of Bacon!
Houston - Hair Balls ^ | Feb. 23 2009 | Katharine Shilcutt

Posted on 03/17/2009 6:57:11 AM PDT by Alex Murphy

Did you know that Joel Osteen is kicking it old school now?  And by old school, I mean Old Testament.  Straight outta Hebron!

The new-agey motivational speaker preacher at Lakewood Church took a bizarrely old-fashioned approach recently when he advised his congregation against eating both pork and seafood, saying that "...for our health's sake, we have to be willing to make some changes."

He further explained his newfound nutritional path to salvation with deeply theological phrases like "back in the Bible days" and "this is kinda gross" before launching into a detailed diatribe about the inherent filth and evil associated with porcine digestive tracts.

He appealed to his followers, "I know some of you love pork chops.  You love ham and cheese sandwiches.  I grew up on all that.  I love...bacon."  (The marked pause makes me think Joel doesn't really love bacon.)  But that they should follow the example set by his family -- who now eats turkey bacon -- and give up pork "to honor God."

He goes on to declare that his congregation should also avoid shellfish: "Shrimp, crabs, clams, oysters, lobsters..." because they eat the "excreetment [sic]" of other animals.

One can only assume that someone inadvertently left a Bible in the men's room at Lakewood, opened to Leviticus, and Joel -- since he hadn't brought his copy of The Six Figure Speaker with him that day -- read it to pass the time.

And having little to no theological education -- by his own admission -- nor context within which to understand the Old Testament's strictly-defined dietary laws, Joel interpreted the Bible's weird front pages that no one ever reads to mean that pork and seafood should be off-limits to Christians.  Because, clearly, other Biblical scholars have been mistaken about this for years.

Good work, Joel!  I look forward to your next sermon, wherein you discuss the segregation of women into red tents during their scary menstrual cycle each month.  In the meantime, I'll be eating a SCCOLBLT.  That's a shrimp-crab-clam-oyster-lobster-bacon-lettuce-tomato sandwich, Philistine.


TOPICS: Apologetics; Charismatic Christian; Evangelical Christian; Religion & Culture
KEYWORDS: joelosteen
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To: Billg64

I agree. Not eating pork or shellfish is for health and your own choice. I haven’t eaten pork in years. I do occasionally eat shellfish but prefer finned fish.


21 posted on 03/17/2009 7:23:51 AM PDT by gattaca (Great things can be accomplished if you don't care who gets the credit. Ronald Reagan)
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To: mnehring

By all means, yes, let’s stone a policeman and fireman to death for cutting a traffic victim out of a burning car to save their life — on the SABBATH!!!


22 posted on 03/17/2009 7:24:14 AM PDT by zerosix (native sunflower)
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To: Alex Murphy

Anyone who has read the Bible immediately thought of that passage.

Osteen’s true colors are beginning to show.


23 posted on 03/17/2009 7:25:09 AM PDT by kimmie7 ("It's time we reduced the federal budget and left the family budget alone." Ronald Reagan)
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To: Alex Murphy
He appealed to his followers, "I know some of you love pork chops. You love ham and cheese sandwiches. I grew up on all that. I love...bacon." (The marked pause makes me think Joel doesn't really love bacon.) But that they should follow the example set by his family -- who now eats turkey bacon -- and give up pork "to honor God."

Do these people even read the Bible?

Matthew 15:11 (New International Version)

11What goes into a man's mouth does not make him 'unclean,' but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him 'unclean.' "

24 posted on 03/17/2009 7:26:45 AM PDT by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - they want to die for islam and we want to kill them)
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To: theDentist
I’m told by a relative that there’s a book “What Jesus Ate”.

They might be thinking of "What Would Jesus Eat?" There's a book and a cookbook. The author says pretty much the same thing as Joel. He doesn't say that we're still bound by the Old Testament rules and cannot eat those foods. Just that there were reasons for those old dietary laws, they weren't arbitrary, and there really are good health reasons to abide by them. It was interesting, actually.

25 posted on 03/17/2009 7:33:25 AM PDT by Nea Wood (Silly liberal . . . paychecks are for workers!)
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To: Scotswife

Peter’s vision was actually representative of three “unclean” men who were coming to visit him and whom he would have ordinarily not associated with (as a devout Jew), so the sheet was lowered three times in his dream to represent these three men.

Getting back under the Jewish law (which didn’t apply to Gentiles anyway) is not for me and any time I feel any compunction about that, I read Hebrews again.

Having said that, just from a common sense approach, there ARE animals that aren’t so good for us to be eating just from a health perspective, and I guess that’s why God told his people those meats weren’t good for food. In Jordan Rubin’s book, “The Maker’s Diet”, he explains the nitty gritty about the hog that will give you pause as well as on the scavenger shellfish and fish. We don’t eat much pork at all as it causes my husband to have gout. I do like a well-cooked slice of bacon once in a great while, though. Having been raised on bacon (cooked to a burned crisp), it would be very hard for me to NEVER have any of it again.

Remember, if you’re going to undertake to keep the LAW about this or that, then you better from that day forth and forever keep the WHOLE LAW because if you break one slight one of them, you are then guilty of breaking the whole thing (a considerable lot of them). Hint: You can’t do it; that’s why Christ had to die for us.


26 posted on 03/17/2009 7:36:45 AM PDT by Twinkie (Obama is NOT Reagan !)
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To: Alex Murphy

YAY! More for ME!

Yummy bacon...mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....


27 posted on 03/17/2009 7:37:03 AM PDT by HeadOn (Lord, please save us from Socialism.)
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To: Alex Murphy

Woo-hoo! I love that passage. Pass the crab legs!


28 posted on 03/17/2009 7:38:01 AM PDT by opus86
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To: Billg64
"YHVH never proclaimed any food clean that was considered un-clean before"

All foods were considered clean in the days of Noah, and that the only foods considered unclean were those that Israel was directed to avoid for the purposes of separating them from other nations.

Gen 9:3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.

Lev 20:24 But I have said unto you, Ye shall inherit their land, and I will give it unto you to possess it, a land that floweth with milk and honey: I [am] the LORD your God, which have separated you from [other] people. Lev 20:25 Ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean, and between unclean fowls and clean: and ye shall not make your souls abominable by beast, or by fowl, or by any manner of living thing that creepeth on the ground, which I have separated from you as unclean. Lev 20:26 And ye shall be holy unto me: for I the LORD [am] holy, and have severed you from [other] people, that ye should be mine.

29 posted on 03/17/2009 7:41:35 AM PDT by DannyTN (Impeach and Deport)
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To: Alex Murphy
This article sure has a snotty attitude.

For myself, I love bacon. Joel is entitled to his opinion as are we all. There is no need to resent his income, et cetera.

If one listened to all the various dietary critics, I think several good foods would come off the list. It might be a good idea to prefer free range chicken and grass fed beef, but they cost more. There is a lot of disagreement on diet. Some experts recommend eggs; some recommend that you avoid eggs. Some insist eggs be cooked; others recommend raw eggs. There is disagreement on milk, on soy, and so on. Some favor more carbohydrates, some fewer. I recommend people listen to the arguments (to the extent that they want to invest the time) and decide for themselves, without insisting that others agree.

30 posted on 03/17/2009 7:41:56 AM PDT by ChessExpert (The Dow was at 12,400 when Democrats took control of Congress. What is it today?)
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To: mnehring
I have some old laws for you to try out.

Thinking about that stoning false prophets thing?

Me too.

31 posted on 03/17/2009 7:42:11 AM PDT by Lee N. Field (2)How many things are necessary for thee to know,..? the first, how great my sins and miseries are;)
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To: Twinkie

Nicely stated. Thank you.


32 posted on 03/17/2009 7:43:42 AM PDT by HeadOn (Lord, please save us from Socialism.)
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To: Lee N. Field

Honestly, my first thought was his wife’s big hair not being covered in church, however, there are a lot of fun laws in the OT..


33 posted on 03/17/2009 7:44:15 AM PDT by mnehring
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To: KarlInOhio

mmmmmm... sacrilegious delicious...


34 posted on 03/17/2009 7:47:02 AM PDT by mnehring
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To: Alex Murphy
In the meantime, I'll be eating a SCCOLBLT. That's a shrimp-crab-clam-oyster-lobster-bacon-lettuce-tomato sandwich, Philistine.

< homer>MMmmm. Seabugs. Tasty, delicious seabugs. Drooooollllll.< /homer>.

Wikipedia on "Cockroach of the Sea"

I saw the clip of Joel's nutrition advice a bit ago, pointed to by an FR post, IIRC. No context, so I have no idea at all how he got on that.

35 posted on 03/17/2009 7:48:30 AM PDT by Lee N. Field
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To: Alex Murphy
I don't understand his idea. According to Noachide laws, only Jews have to keep kosher.
36 posted on 03/17/2009 7:53:13 AM PDT by Ukiapah Heep (Shoes for Industry!)
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To: Alex Murphy
BTW, here's the YooToob vid of Joel giving dietary advice.
37 posted on 03/17/2009 7:53:39 AM PDT by Lee N. Field ("I'm so thankful for the active obedience of Christ. No hope without it." -- J. Gresham Machen)
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To: paulycy

Adkins unfriendly. Too much bread.


38 posted on 03/17/2009 7:55:03 AM PDT by Lee N. Field ("I'm so thankful for the active obedience of Christ. No hope without it." -- J. Gresham Machen)
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To: Alex Murphy

Never, ever, ever put trust in a preacher who wears a permanent.

And yes, who doesn’t like Joel as a person.

He is way off the wall on this, theologically.


39 posted on 03/17/2009 7:55:27 AM PDT by TFMcGuire (Life is tough. It is even tougher if you are stupid--John Wayne)
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To: mnehring
You know that's just the beginning, don't you.

Bacon Explosion

Very carefully separate the front edge of the sausage layer from the bacon weave and begin rolling backwards. You want to include all layers EXCEPT the bacon weave in your roll. Try and keep the sausage as tight as possible and be sure to release any air pockets that may have formed. Once the sausage is fully rolled up, pinch together the seams and ends to seal all of the bacon goodness inside.

40 posted on 03/17/2009 8:00:24 AM PDT by Lee N. Field ("I'm so thankful for the active obedience of Christ. No hope without it." -- J. Gresham Machen)
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