Christian News Network reports,
Megachurch speaker and author Joel Osteen was among a group of political and religious leaders who met with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Thursday. According to reports, Osteen was part of a delegation organized by the International Foundation in an effort to encourage interfaith relations and ecumenicism. Utah Senator Mike Lee (R), a Mormon, Gayle Beebe, the president of the interdenominational Westmont College in California, and Pastor Tim Timmons, founder of South Coast Community Church also in California, were among those who who greeted the pope, along with Osteen.
“I just felt very honored and very humbled,” Osteen told local television station Click 2 Houston. “It was amazing. And even to go back into that part of the Vatican—there’s so much history there, the place that they took us through. You feel that deep respect and reverence for God.”
“I love the fact that’s he’s made the Church more inclusive,” he said. “Not trying to make it smaller, but to try to make it larger—to take everybody in. So, that just resonates with me.”
I bet it does. Please be warned that in no uncertain terms Joel Osteen is a false teacher, and so is the Pope. Gladly, not everyone has drunk the Kool-Aid, as this pastor bluntly demonstrates from the same article.
"Joel Osteen has joined the rank of all other popular ministries in bowing his knee to the anti-Christ system, and those that blindly follow his leadership will be the first ones in line with their hand out to be marked by the beast,” Pastor Mark Herridge Sr. of Lighthouse Baptist Church in Livingston, Texas told Christian News Network.
“Any Protestant ministry that links up with the pope and Catholicism is betraying the sacrifice of millions of faithful Christians that have died at the hands of this brutal, dictatorial and oppressive religion that has never represented the Church of the Living God as outlined in New Testament teaching,” he said"
GotQuestions discusses ecumenism, the notion that the church can be all-inclusive and partner with false religions in a spirit of tolerance and unity, and still be the church of Jesus Christ.
Walter A. Elwell, in The Concise Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, defines ecumenism as “The organized attempt to bring about the cooperation and unity among Christians.”
...As seen with the publication of Evangelicals and Catholics Together, there is a major emphasis in our day on ecumenical unity among Evangelicals and Roman Catholics. Those who promote such unity state that both are Christian and both are viable, God-honoring systems of faith. But clearly the substantial differences between the two groups render ECT a ridiculous document. Biblical Christianity and Roman Catholicism are two different religions that practice and believe different things about how one is saved, the authority of the Bible, the priesthood of believers, the nature of man, the work of Christ on the cross, etc. The list of irreconcilable differences between what the Bible says and what the Roman Catholic Church says makes any joint mission between the two absolutely impossible. Those who deny this are not being true to what they say they believe, no matter which side they are on. Any Catholic who is serious about his faith will deny what a serious evangelical Christian believes and vice-versa.
Osteen was only comfortable in the first place inside the Vatican with the Pope because he is false. And yes, the "he" refers to both men.
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