Live at your full potential. Become a better you. Be happier. It\u2019s your time. Live an extraordinary life. Achieve your dreams. Go beyond your barriers. You can, you will.<\/p>\n
This is the therapeutic message of Joel Osteen, lifted right from his dust jackets. In contrast with the more classical and philosophically grounded evangelicalism of a Billy Graham or a C.S. Lewis, Ross Douthat termed Osteen\u2019s brand of TV preaching \u201cthe gospel of self-help.\u201d\u009d But notice it\u2019s not the self-help of the Gospel; self-help is the gospel. The Gospel is the cask to deliver it, shucked and cast out as soon as the intoxicating wine of self-improvement is imbibed.<\/p>\n
Contrast this with Pope Francis who, quoting St. Basil of Caesarea of the fourth century, recently referred to money as the \u201cdevil\u2019s dung.\u201d\u009d We can follow this line of thinking right back to the New Testament. St. Paul used an even stronger word: skubula. Some translations of the Bible use \u201cfilth\u201d\u009d or \u201crefuse\u201d\u009d in its place in the third chapter of the letter to the Philippians. But that\u2019s not what he said. The nearest English equivalent of the vulgar Greek word is\u201d\u00a6well, you can Google it. Paul, I suspect, wanted to make an unambiguous point: all of his worldly respect, progress, and prosperity \u201d\u201c in short, all of his \u201cself-help\u201d\u009d \u201d\u201c was all skubala compared to the Cross and Resurrection.<\/p>\n