Joyce Meyer: Profile

From the February 2009 E-Block


It is inevitable that I will draw, in my own mind, comparisons between our last subject in this series, Joel Osteen, and the subject for the next installment, Joyce Meyer.

Both are popular television preachers - but whereas Osteen is tied to a church, Meyer is a "free agent."

Both have written books - but whereas Osteen has written only two to date, Meyer has written well over fifty!

Both are accused of being "prosperity" teachers that are part of the "word-faith" movement - but we saw that that charge may be overstated with Osteen; and though I have much more to check where Meyer is concerned, what I have read so far seems to be pointing in the same direction. I judged Osteen to be naïve, unaware of the impact or meaning of many of his teachings; so far, Meyer seems to be the same - though I have yet much more to study where she is concerned.

Because Meyer has produced, indeed, many more books than Osteen, I have elected to divide this series on her into three parts. The first, this one, will be devoted to a look at several of Meyer's books in the self-help category. The second article will be on books she has written that are more theological, and the third will be about any additional insights gained from her television program, and an evaluation of criticisms.

Once again, my desire will to be as objective as possible; and since I have never before this study ever read or seen anything by Meyer, I believe that this will be able to be accomplished. (For the record, my beloved Mrs. H wishes to note that she has seen some of Meyer's television programming...and that she doesn't trust her!)

The Reading Roster

For this article, I have read, essentially, 14 of Meyer's self-help books. Their titles, and abbreviations used, are as follows:

In many cases these volumes were repetitive.

Once Again...Good Advice!

As it happens, Meyer's similarity to Osteen also allows me to use the same categories in describing their work. The first category was good advice - and Meyer has plenty of it in her self-help books. As with Osteen, some 90-95% of Meyer's material is uncontroversial and falls under this category. Here are some samples from 7T:

Other books were filled with the same sort of advice. HMM in particular - a book of advice on how to be successfully married -- I found to be an excellent, insightful book that Mrs. H and I could have written ourselves. STH 35 contained the best advice of all, advising readers to find their identity in Christ. In this Meyer's advice is the same as that of on Matzat's, which I have recommended elsewhere here.

With that said, even though up to 95% of what Meyer says is non-controversial, what remains of that 5% does give us some cause for pause.

Once Again...Misused Scripture

Meyer does not have the pastor's burden that Joel Osteen has; but as a popular Bible teacher attended to by literally hundreds of thousands of people, she does bear the weight of judgment of those who teach, as James says. I did indeed find in Meyer's self-help books several examples of Scripture being poorly used; but as with Osteen last time, the incidence of such was no more than might be found in any typical sermon today.

Much of the incorrect application of Scripture had to do with Meyer wrongly reading modern, Western values into the text - in the same way Rick Warren does. This is perhaps not surprising inasmuch as Meyer makes no use of credible exegetical sources for her material. In 7T [191] she uses the badly outdated commentaries of Matthew Henry and Adam Clarke as sources.

We'll discuss some of the instances of "Westernizing" Scripture below; but here a few samples otherwise from the various books of exegetical error:

Many of Meyer's misapplications have to do with reading a message of "self-esteem" into the Biblical text (see again above link re Matzat's book). Meyer teaches as part of her program a message of self-esteem for those down on themselves, as for example in AA 80, where she tells readers to hug and affirm themselves: "I accept myself. I love myself. I know I have weaknesses and imperfections, but I will not be stopped by them." Meyer tells readers to do this several times a day, and perhaps, arguably, this has some use for persons who have been abused by others, as indeed Meyer herself was. Nevertheless, one may also wonder if Meyer has not swung the pendulum too far in the opposite direction.

As noted in the article linked above, true Biblical self-image is realistic, and self-esteem as understood in the modern world was unknown. Meyer is simply wrong to say, (IDY, viii): "Over the centuries millions of people have asked, 'What am I here for? What is my purpose?'" Not at all: This sort of question only emerged in the modern world, when the growth of leisure time permitted the luxury of introspection. Meyer, regrettably, often imposes ideas of self-esteem on Biblical characters, saying for example (AA, 81) that Mephibosheth lived in a small town because of his poor self-image!

Again...Confirmation Bias and Verification Problems

In our examination of Joel Osteen, I referred to a significant problem of Osteen giving advice that was subject to "confirmation bias" and which also was not subject to verification. I find much the same problems recurring in Meyer's work, under two of the same categories:

A system which has an unsatisfactory accounting for failures which makes it non-disprovable. In many cases, we find Meyer advising people to "wait on God" to work out problems such as finding the best marriage partner. [7T, 3] To the extent that this counsel is given in order to keep people from wasting time and mental energy worrying, this is good advice. However, Meyer often takes the lesson too far, to the extent that if followed literally, her advice amounts to passive non-action which leads into epistemic disaster - of the sort that is no more open to verification than the Mormon "burning in the bosom."

In 7T, for example, we are told [45]: "trying to figure everything out is a joy stealer that causes us to listen to our heads instead of our hearts." Is it a joy stealer? Not really; what steals joy is trying to figure things out and failing to do so. My own life as an apologist is such that I find joy every day in "trying to figure everything out." Perhaps Meyer's advice ought to be recast: "Trying to figure anything out that is beyond your abilities is a joy stealer." Without this qualification, Meyer's advice becomes a sort of anti-intellectualism.

In such cases, "listening to your heart" is not a sound recourse. Inevitably, the law of averages is such that a person who takes this course will often hit on a successful solution; and yet, confirmation bias leads to ignoring stories of failure by those who "listened to their heart" and got burned - or else redefining what happened so that it was not a failure after all (per the next point).

CFL 30-1 provides another example. Above we noted that Matt. 18:19 was misinterpreted, but there is more. Meyer says, "God responds to the prayer of agreement when it is prayed by people who agree." Inevitably, this can be used to claim that prayers were unanswered because of some hidden or unknown disagreement in one's household.

CFL 215 offers another example, as Meyer advises readers to live by "discernment." What is discernment? Meyer defines that not in terms of thinking or perception, as indeed it ought to be, but as vague feelings of unease. She adds that you should attend to these feelings even if you have no reason to do so - and by the way, you may or may not discover the reason later on! Epistemically, this advice is simply disastrous.

Meyer would likely deny that her advice leads to passive non-action. Indeed, she says later in 7T [127], "It is true we need to wait on God and not get into works of the flesh. But on the other hand…God cannot drive a parked car." And later [252] she says, "To receive healing from God, we often have to be patient and steadfast. Miracles often occur instantly, but healing is frequently a process that takes time." And [254]: "I don't believe there is a requirement we must meet in order to receive supernatural healing." But, we should take medications if necessary. Indeed. Yet Meyer cannot see that this ends up with her giving advice that is inherently self-contradictory. Yes, logically, there could be some times when one must "wait on God" and other times when God wants us to move. But Biblically, the only way to determine which is the present condition is to have an inspired prophet give us the word - and with access to such rather limited today, Meyer's advice inevitably leads to either passive non-action or to the second option:

A system that too easily redefines problems out of existence. With Osteen, I gave this example, from which I will quote extensively:

Thus in YBL (41-2) he gives the example of searching for a parking spot in a crowded lot. Osteen thanks God for a good space when he finds one, but what if you do not find one? Then, he says, "....you get out and walk, and with every step, you thank God that you are strong and healthy and have the ability to walk." And he explains further of a time when he didn't find a parking space close by (43):

"...God has my best interests at heart...He is working for my good. A delay may spare me from an accident. Or a delay may cause me to bump into somebody that needs to be encouraged, somebody that needs to see a smile."

There is good reason for this methodology to disturb us. Atheist Dan Barker, in his original book Losing Faith in Faith (and now also in Godless, a book reviewed in this very issue), tells much the same story of his quests for parking spaces - even having used the same Scripture that Osteen does, Romans 8:28: "All things work together for good to them that love the Lord." Before long, the logical strain becomes apparent: What of the person whose delay in finding a space caused them to get into an accident? To be sure, we are counseled to always be thankful to God, and we should be. Nevertheless, if we persist in a vision of God as a micromanager to this extent, then inevitably, we are compelled to rationalization as Barker was, ending up as he did, driving in random directions under the prompting of an inner voice, and ending up in the middle of a vacant lot thinking it was a test of our faith.

I am not saying of course that God cannot by His power arrange for a good parking space! However, I do find it presumptuous to think that He does such things on the microscopic scale that Osteen envisions. To claim this is to leave the system open to rationalization at the crux point of failures. (As for Romans 8:28, it is probably best to read it as referring to God working out things for "those that love him" in a collective sense -- that is, the church, as in the whole of the passage -- rather than for individual concerns.)

In light of the above, I could not help but shake my head to see this in Meyer's STH [66]: "Maybe not getting the parking place we wanted kept somebody from pulling in next to us and denting our car." It seems that parking provides all too ready an example for teachers of this variety! But another example from ST [375] is much the same: Meyer writes of a woman who prayed a prayer of protection while on a boat. When a wave hit, she bumped her head, and asked God why this happened when she had prayed a prayer of protection. To which, God reputedly replied: "You aren't dead, are you?" Meyer concludes that angels did protect the woman, so that she only bumped her head but did not die. One can anticipate a Dan Barker replying with the valid point that if an angel can stop someone dying, they can certainly also stop them bumping their heads. And then what? Someone like Meyer with no sound theology of prayer will be reduced to saying that God wanted the woman to have a bump on her head for a good reason. And what is worse, Eckhart Tolle offers the same sort of reasoning as Meyer does - only, as I say there, he appeals to the power of karmic justice rather than to providence. But in neither case is the system epistemically sound.

We must acknowledge that Meyer's trust in God is admirable; but she has left too many holes in her epistemology for it to be satisfactory. In ST 270, for example, this is her answer to faithful people who pray for years and get nothing, while others pray and get results at once:

I don't have a pat answer to that question, but I do know this: We have to believe above everything else that God knows what He is doing. It is amazing the peace that comes with that belief.

In essence, this is putting off the problem of inconsistency in Meyer's system. "Don't think about it, just trust God." That there might instead be a flaw in Meyer's epistemology of prayer is not even considered.

ST 277 offers a memorable account of how to have ministry like Meyer's: "...if God calls you, He opens the doors. He apprehends you, prepares you, provides the money, gives you favor, and makes it happen." Indeed? Some years ago, the same advice was given me by a Christian magician named Felix Snipes. Snipes engaged in tactics like "pew packing" to build his audience; and yet he would say that if people did not show up for your ministry services, then this indicated that the Holy Spirit was not in what you were doing. Nonplussed, I asked Snipes how one might discern between the Holy Spirit not being in what one was doing, and the audience simply not being receptive to things they needed to hear and see. Snipes had no answer for me on this, but merely fumbled about vaguely saying that that was something you needed to figure out. Indeed so. Meyer and Snipes arrive at their views via a notion of God as a micromanager; why is it not simpler to say that this is a view of God that is wrongly read into Scripture?

But as we will now see, this sort of conclusion is something that Meyer's theology simply will not permit.

A Warmer Burning in the Bosom

Meyer's Christianity is assuredly derived from the Charismatic tradition. Within that tradition, it is not infrequent for believers to claim to hear direct messages from God. One recalls Pat Robertson's professions on the 700 Club to hear from God about everything from a viewer's cancer to the future in politics. Yet few see that the lack of specificity in such predictions acts as a safeguard. If Robertson can say someone is cured of cancer, can he not name them also? (Contrived replies like, "It is not God's will for the person to be named" merely highlight the artificial nature of the system.)

Meyer, too, professes to hear the voice of God in very specific ways; but there are times when, quite frankly, we might find it hard to believe that she is hearing the voice of the same God who manifested Himself upon Mt. Sinai. Among the things God (or God through the Spirit) reputedly has told her:

It is, quite frankly, difficult to see this as anything but Meyer's imagination at work as she remakes God into her image - not as the holy dispenser of judgment known from the Bible; not as the active agent of grace and practical, agape love that sent Jesus to die for us - but as perhaps all this, and some sort of personal lifestyle counselor. The question: Can Meyer seriously believe that this is indeed God speaking to her of these matters? Is there even a Biblical precedent for such things? We see God speaking to persons like Paul of matters like where to conduct missionary work, but never of such trivialities as what toga to wear!

The question which arises: How does Meyer know that it is the voice of God she hears, and not her own imagination? How can she differentiate this voice from something like a Mormon "burning in the bosom"? Objective criteria are not easy to find, at least not so far, in the self-help genre of Meyer's books. In STH 221, she says, "Every time we disobey God, it becomes more difficult to hear Him the next time He speaks, but every time we obey Him, it gets easier to hear and be led by His Spirit." Disturbingly, this resembles far too closely a model of deepening self-deception, and tells us nothing by way of discernment. At 7T 157, Meyer describes the voice of God: She has heard God's voice audibly, she says, but this is "rare" - mostly she says, God speaks by a "still, small voice". With this, we still are not offered any way to distinguish between revelation and imagination. Only once, at 7T 159-60, does Meyer offer any sort of epistemic guidelines:

You may be unsure that God is really speaking to you, and you won't find out if it is God until you do the thing He is prompting you to do. If it is God telling you to do something, you will feel joy once you obey Him.

And yet, this is as useful as the burning in the bosom is: Is not the joy just as well because you are convinced that you obeyed God - even though you have no idea whether it was actually His voice? Christians who accept such ideas will find themselves ill-prepared to meet serious challenges to their faith.

What we find, indeed, is that Meyer adheres to a rather well-known idea (especially in Charismatic circles) that one may hear God's voice, or "rhema". As she says in 7T 155:

...if you want to hear God's voice (His rhema), you have to study His written Word (logos). Any other way in which God speaks to you will always agree with His written Word...The more knowledge you have of the logos (written) Word, the more God can speak a rhema (personal) word to you when you need it…When a Scripture comes to life for you and is full of sudden meaning, you need to hang on to it, because that is God talking to you.

Objectively and epistemically, this is a disastrous teaching (one I have addressed before here). Every step of the process is subjective and externally unverifiable or unfalsifiable. This is a far cry from the strict test for prophets laid down in Deuteronomy for those who claim to hear God's voice.

It is one thing to say that God is personal. It Is quite another to claim that God is personalized. Ironically, even Meyer realizes this, as she warns in ST 111: "Many people treat God merely as their buddy, one who is too kind and merciful to discipline them, ask them to sacrifice for Him, or require them to adjust their attitudes and behaviors." Such people, she says, need "reverential fear."

One can only conclude that Meyer's understanding of "reverential" is much colored by Western individualism.

Satan Here and There

Not only does Meyer see God as involved in her life on the most minute level; it seems that Satan, too, is quite the micromanager! Throughout her books, Meyer blames Satan for nearly every bad thing that might be conceived to happen, though to be fair, she does so in a way that does not absolve humans of responsibility for evil, as some teachers do, and does (ironically) counsel readers to not blame everything bad on the devil (ST 82). However, what Meyer does attribute to Satan is quite difficult enough to countenance:

As a preterist, it is my view that Satan is currently bound and doing none of these things, or anything else; but even if that were not my view, I would be somewhat startled to hear that Satan (or his minions) has so much leisure time at his disposal that he even takes the time to ruin a barbeque. One suspects rather that Meyer is also remaking Satan in an "image" in the same way God has been remade.

Meyer and the Word of Faith

Though I expect to return to this issue when I consider Meyer's more theological works, it is natural to consider the question, "Is Meyer part of the Word-Faith movement?" I may find otherwise in those theological works, but in the self-help books, at least, Meyer seems to be no more "Word-Faith" than Osteen was. Some of Meyer's statements, taken alone, seem to bespeak a Word-Faith orientation, such as these from 7T:

Also, from CFL:

And, from ST:

And, from STH:

None of these statements, however, lays out a clear cause and effect in terms of how our words affect our circumstances. The examples Meyer offers seem to concentrate on the psychological impact of words rather than attributing to them any sort of inherent power.

The most clear statement I could find among the self-help volumes appears in STH 49, and would seem to deny Word-Faith principles, if anything: "Living by faith is looking at everything in a positive way, not trusting in the power of positive thinking, but trusting in the power of God, who loves us and wants the best for us." However, there still seems to be some room for doubt. It remains for me to see if Meyer will be more specific in terms of that cause and effect in her theological volumes.

Health...and Wealth?

A charge seemingly less difficult to assess against Meyer is that she teaches "prosperity." But is it the prosperity message of the Word-Faith movement, or something more general, such as is taught by Osteen?

So far, the results indicate the latter, but it seems that Meyer has unusual difficulty reconciling her message with both Scripture and the reality that most Christians simply are not materially prosperous. Meyer's prosperity message is hedged about with caveats and confirmation bias, as can be seen:

All of this said, Meyer does advocate responsible use of wealth (which can be considered apart from any charges - with which we are not here concerned - that she does not practice such responsible use in her own life). In 100W 6, she notes that wealth can be a distraction, but it does not have to be, and "we should learn how to handle (abundance) properly." (Here at least, the Spirit goes somewhat beyond trivialities, and orders her to prune her possessions and give things away.) In HMM 195, she counsels readers to enjoy themselves, but not love money, and to buy wisely. IDY 28 tells readers to stay out of debt, and observes that : "...our culture today is almost totally self-absorbed." (! - Regrettably, Meyer does not see how that might apply to her own "personalized" vision of God.) And most significantly, unlike the popular "health and wealth" teachers, Meyer sees prosperity as something earned through obedience (IDY 128) rather than something God owes us.

As noted, we have much more to consider in our evaluation of Joyce Meyer's teachings, but this much may be said so far: As a popular Bible teacher who is drawn upon by hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people, Meyer has an immense responsibilty towards the Body of Christ. Based on the above, I do not believe that Meyer is taking this responsibility seriously, any more than Joel Osteen is, but is rather trapped in the same "vision of sugarplums" that causes her to see things as more rosy than they are. This is indeed a peculiarity, since Meyer's heroic recovery from childhood sexual abuse is well known, and her ministry engages so many worthwhile causes in the eradication of poverty.

Our attention now turns to the theological works of Joyce Meyer. As noted in Part 1, Meyer has over 50 books in print, so to produce this series in a timely manner, I have merely selected some of these works and issue a caveat that these may not represent all that she believes theologically. That said, since it seems that these volumes in themselves were highly repetitive, it may well be that these gave us a fairly complete handle on Meyer's theology!

The books chosen for this round were:

We'll first return to our categories used in Part 1 of this series. Then, we will look into a new category, in which Meyer presents theological ideas related to her charismatic orientation (and which may not necessarily be unique to her teachings).

Once Again...Misused Scripture

As before, Meyer's misuses of Scripture are generally no more serious than any that might be heard from a typical pulpit on Sunday morning, and repeat some we have seen before in her self-help books:

Again...Confirmation Bias and Verification Problems

As a reminder, we approach this topic in terms of looking for:

These problems appear again in Meyer's theological works; indeed, much the same examples come to the fore:

A Warmer Burning in the Bosom

The most serious of Meyer's epistemic difficulties remains her claims to have direct communication lines with God, that the everyday believer can likewise possess. Most importantly, we would seek from Meyer some idea how one might discern that it is indeed the voice of God one hears - especially as she notes that (HHG 2/7) God can use your own voice to speak to you inside so that you think it is you!

Meyer admits that she has seldom heard God speak to her audibly (for example, while driving, FWS 70-3), but regardless of the volume level, we would like to know more of discernment. In the end, Meyer's tools for discernment are limited to:

In any event, Meyer remains steadfast that the Spirit speaks to her in various ways about various things - in some cases, for quite important things, much like a conscience (KGI 40, 52-3) but also for the trivial (KGI 77-8, 220): She refers to the Spirit reminding her where she put things she has misplaced, such as car keys, glasses, and the TV remote: "Immediately in my spirit I thought of the bathroom and, sure enough, that's where it was." KGI, however, offered three points which are rather unpleasant indications that Meyer does not wish to know if she is only imagining these things:

The only good test Meyer offers for knowing whether one is hearing from God in reality (HHG 4/12) is that we may judge whether a message is from God by the character of message. This would certainly be helpful in eliminating many types of messages, but it simply is not enough to offer solid tests which are needed for every other kind of message we might think we receive.

Satan: Not So Much Here

Oddly, Satan doesn't seem quite so active in Meyer's theology books, though he is still engaged in remarkably trivial pursuits such as (PSP 112) "filling our minds with ungodly thoughts about other people." He is also about telling people who speak in tongues that (KGI 141) "their particular language is just gibberish they are making up." This relates to an interesting issue we will return to shortly.

Meyer and the Word of Faith

I wondered in Part 1 if I might find evidence that Meyer was of a "Word of Faith" persuasion in her theological books, and I did find some evidence of this, only in The Secret Power of Speaking God's Word (SPS). Here there is no doubt that Meyer directly teaches a Word of Faith principle: We are told (xiv-xv), "When we confess God's Word out loud, the angels hear it and go to work for us…….we need to release [the angels] by speaking or praying God's Word." That's admittedly not much, and it may be tempered by the fact that Meyer also considers the psychological effect confession can have, and does not go as far as many teachers of this doctrine have in saying we can get whatever we want (xvii):

Do not look at confessing God's Word out loud as a formula for getting everything you want. Do it in faith, knowing it pleases God when we agree with His word. Enter God's rest concerning the timing of the results. God is faithful and as we continue to do our part. [sic] He never fails to do His.

Meyer's Scriptural basis for this teaching is rather thin. She appeals to Is. 55:10-11, which is God speaking of how His word will not return void, but says little about our own "word" doing the same. Also appealed to is Ezekiel 34:3-4, 7, 10 (xxiv):

Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed: [but] ye feed not the flock. The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up [that which was] broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost; but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them….Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the LORD….Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I [am] against the shepherds; and I will require my flock at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; for I will deliver my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them.

"These Scriptures are a striking example of how things can change by prophesying (speaking forth) God's Word," Meyer says. Indeed. But Ezekiel was a prophet, an assigned broker for God. The rest of us are not. However, perhaps Meyer believes that she is and that we can be. Even so, the word here did not create the change; rather, it predicted and authenticated it.

Thus we do find minimal indication of Word of Faith teaching in Meyer; little enough that we may perhaps attribute it to naivete. I also found no "health and wealth" teachings in these books. We may therefore close with a new topical section.

The Charismatic Connection

Meyer's ideas in the following paragraphs are not unique to her, but are part of a more general charismatic leaning, and I intend to address these ideas more fully at a later date in terms of the broader charismatic movement. Perhaps others make a better case for these things than she does. I'd like to comment on two things Meyer discusses: the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the use of tongues.

The Holy Spirit: Meyer affirms (FWS 9), "I believe there is no way to live in total victory without receiving and understanding the baptism of the Holy Spirit…Much of the dissatisfaction that many believers experience in their Christian walk comes from a lack of power in their lives, power which only comes through the infilling of the Holy Spirit." This is quite a bold claim to make, and one would hope that Meyer has something to back this up - by showing, for example, that Christians of a non-charismatic bent are having more problems with "satisfaction" or power than charismatic Christians. One can only wonder what Meyer would make of Billy Graham in this case. Is he filled with the Spirit and unaware of it? How do we measure this? Meyer does not say. Her belief appears to be based entirely on experience - her own, and anecdotal experience from others.

Tongues: We find no sense in Meyer that it is worthwhile to validate a gift of tongues, and little to validate that it is at work today in any particular person. Meyer says of herself (FWS 75-6) that she uttered 4 words in a tongue, and later, found a dictionary with some Latin words "that I thought looked like some of the words I felt I received when I was asking God to give me the gift" of tongues. Then she tells us, "I discovered that all four of them meant something like 'Omnipotent heavenly Father.'" Indeed? What were these words? May we verify the meanings ourselves? The tongues spoken in Acts 2 were heard and verified by natives (and so, experts) in their languages. If Meyer is speaking Latin, it is not hard to find a Latinist who can verify this. The apologetics impact would be tremendous. (I also find it curious that Meyer says that when we speak in tongues [FWS 121], "We are saying things in a spiritual language that our enemy Satan cannot understand." Does Satan not know Latin, or how at least how to look it up?)

Unfortunately, this is another area where it seems Meyer is not open to having verification done. The reference above to Satan trying to convince people their "tongues" are not genuine regrettably makes it easier to shut the door to verification. Her single reply to criticisms on this point is (KGI 147), "I doubt that many people are making up languages and spending their time talking in gibberish just for the sake of thinking they are speaking in tongues." Simply being indignant is not an answer to serious questions people have on the authenticity of tongues. In this, then, it is ironic to see Meyer then say (KGI 148): "Sometimes we blindly believe whatever someone tells us, never bothering to check it out for ourselves…." Perhaps just as ironic are these words: "Once people are fully immersed in the Spirit, it is difficult to convince them that they are not filled with the Spirit and that tongues and the other gifts of the Spirit are not for today."

Indeed so. It is hard to escape the idea that Meyer has indeed made herself "difficult to convince" - by not looking closely at the evidence if it can be avoided.

To close out this series, as with the last one on Joel Osteen, I endeavored to watch as many television presentations of Joyce Meyer as I could. As before, I ended up finding nothing new, save one particular point which was perhaps not so much new as poignant.

In a talk before a large audience, Meyer related a story (whether true or not was not clear) of someone with a doctorate, and a ministry with ten people, who asked her "what right" she had to have a ministry and teach as she did. Meyer indignantly replied that she was like the man born blind in John 9, beings someone called by God to testify; and her only qualification for ministry - apparently sufficient, in her eyes - was that she "just loves Jesus".

In a microcosm, I think Meyer's answer represents the heart of the problem that lies within Meyer's ministry. Putting it as mildly as possible, Meyer simply does not realize that "just loving Jesus" is not a sufficient qualification for running a teaching ministry.

A ministry of compassion - yes, that would be very important, and mostly sufficient. But not a teaching ministry. More than this, there is a certain arrogance implied in her response, to the effect that because the other ministry has only ten employees, it's own voice is undeserving of a hearing. One wonders then what to make of Jesus' ministry having only twelve "employees".

Teaching ministries are meant to broker knowledge which leads people to join and serve the Kingdom of God. Inaccuracies in teaching are therefore difficult to countenance. In a compassion ministry, such as serving at a soup kitchen, delivering bad information is the equivalent to passing out soup laced with botulism. Arguably, some have more resistance to illness than others, but the point remains the same: "Just loving Jesus" is not enough qualification to maintain a teaching ministry. What it provides is the heart to do such ministry - but not the head needed to responsibly pursue it. Let us keep in mind that even the Moonies claim to "love Jesus."

Which leads to the matter of criticisms of Meyer, which is our subject for this installment. I do not know whether Meyer is fairly characterizing her critics with stories like the above. But needless to say, on both sides of such exchanges, there needs to be, initially at least, a certain approach taken. The criticizing ministry needs to be fair and document problems - which is what I have strived to do here. On the other side (Meyer's), the ministry needs to listen carefully and not simply dismiss criticism because e.g., "the Holy Spirit guides us" or "we love Jesus" or even because "so many people are blessed by it" (to use a well-worn analogy, many people like candy too). Once again, the Moonies, Mormons, and many other groups with false beliefs could say the same thing.

One common non-theological criticism of Meyer is that she is often arrogant, haughty, or seems too sure of herself in her teachings. Having been accused of much the same thing myself at times, I do not make much of such criticisms by themselves. However, coupled with verifiable claims that Meyer's teachings are deficient or lacking in substance - something which we have indeed found - this criticism takes on a new light. One can only hope that Meyer is willing to listen to a well-reasoned presentation showing where her teachings have erred.

I may have more to say on such things in the future. For now, let us discuss criticisms I have found of Meyer's ministry. As it turns out, there seems to be only a handful that are regularly repeated, apart from issues of wealth (which is by far the most common criticism I found), so this item will be unexpectedly shorter than I imagined.

Criticism: Too Many Pies?

Judgment: Open.

One criticism of Meyer which is frequent, but beyond our scope to fully address, is that her ministry, so to speak, has too many fingers in too many pies. Meyer's ministry offers outreaches outside of her teaching ministry (e.g., for AIDS victims and orphanages), and it is said that Meyer's ministry is in the process usurping more capable and efficient ministries better suited to the jobs.

I am not qualified to assess this criticism in practical terms, whether indeed Meyer is displacing better-qualified ministries. I can only say, based on Meyer's comments such as the one noted above, that at the very least the criticism is believable. I would expect Meyer to that say "because we love Jesus, we're qualified to do this ministry." That of course may not actually be the case, and in such cases Meyer may simply be unaware of how such ministry should be done and not see the long-term effect her less proficient methods have on the situations as a whole.

Of course we do not condemn Meyer's intentions in such actions. However, if the technical aspect of the criticism is actually true, it bespeaks a need for Meyer to step back and evaluate her sub-ministries and decide whether she is letting "love for Jesus" mislead her into thinking her ministry is best suited for the job.

As noted, Meyer' ministry has also been criticized for careless financial management, and for living a luxurious lifestyle ill-suited to a minister of the Gospel. Once again, since our concern is with theological matters, this is beyond our scope, but we may note again that this would fit in well with a perception that "loving Jesus" has allowed Meyer to take less care in such matters than she ought to. We may also note that Meyer's insufficient understanding of Biblical teachings, we have found to some extent affects her understanding of whether it is a good thing to live such a lifestyle.

It is, however, fair to note that Meyer's ministry has recently (March 2009) been accredited by the Evangelical Council of Financial Accountability, which hopefully indicates that such difficulties have been overcome.

Criticism: Meyer teaches "Word Faith" principles.

Judgment: Plausible.

In the final analysis, this is the one criticism from a theological perspective that I found most often repeated.

Much as with Osteen, we found that this criticism was a bit off the mark. In my readings and viewings I found only one statement (see Part 2) that actually made a cause-effect connection between faith and God doing things for us: "When we confess God's Word out loud, the angels hear it and go to work for us...we need to release [the angels] by speaking or praying God's Word."

That could be read as Word-Faith; or, it could be read in terms of a Frank Peretti novel. It is certainly not a verifiably correct teaching, but it is not uniquely Word-Faith.

Meyer also has taught other ideas associated with Word-Faith, such as Jesus descending into hell; but as we have noted before with Osteen, this is something also taught in the Apostles' Creed (albeit, I think, in error). She has likewise (as Osteen) taught ideas of "reaping what you sow" - giving to God in order to get something back from Him. But I have not found evidence that she goes as far as e.g., saying Jesus became an evil being on the cross.

In summary, I think it is fair to say that Meyer, while not teaching Word-Faith principles in full, has been unduly influenced by them, or else is uncomfortably close to such teachings. I therefore reiterate for Meyer my assessment on Osteen: Meyer is imitating some of what he has heard from WF teachers, and does not know (or care) how they have misused it.