Just because something's popular doesn't mean it's good for you. That's true of fast food and it's also true of the following Christian books that have sold millions of copies in spite of the bad messages they contain.

So in today's episode, we're going to talk about four awful Christian books

that have managed to become bestsellers.

Here's the first one.

Number one, your best life now. Seven steps to living at your

full potential by Joel Ostein. Ostein is the pastor of Lakewood Church in

Houston, a mega church that holds 16,000 people.

It used to be a stadium called the compact center.

So how did it become so popular?

Well, he's got a 1.21 gigawatt smile,

and he knows how to make people feel good with folks he

sayings that kind of sound Christian but are more focused on making you happy

right now. In 2004 Ostein wrote Your Best Now, which has become one of the most successful books

defending the Prosperity Gospel.

This is the idea that if you are faithful to God, then God will reward you with health and wealth. And if you're poor and sick, well that's just because you don't have enough faith or you didn't tithe enough to Joel or I mean God. Here's O'Stein's seven steps to living your full potential. Enlarg your vision, develop a healthy

self-image, discover the power of thoughts and words, let go of the past, find strength through adversity, live

to give, and choose to be happy. At the end of the book, Osteine asks the readers to

say the sinners prayer and become born again, but most of the book is

just a bunch of self-help advice wrapped up in Christian language. Some of it is just

naive or

God could be allowing you to suffer to draw you closer to him,

especially since the best time in our lives will not be during this

...