Night before last Osteen continued his prime time tour promoting his new book. My cell phone rang at 1am from a friend who was rather incensed with the soundbyte that come at the very end of this segment on Larry King LIVE. Larry asks Joel the question if Mitt's Mormonism would keep him from voting for him. Osteen steered fine initially saying, that what he had read demonstrated that he was a man of character. But then Osteen veered into the unforgiveable - being a theological dufus:

"I've heard him (Mitt Romney) say that he believes in Jesus as his Savior, just like I do... I hadn't studied it deeply and maybe people don't agree with me..."

My friend who dialed me after I was in a deep sleep, called me the next day asking if I had seen it. He also wanted to know intensely if what Osteen said was in fact an endorsement of Mormonism.

On the technical side of things - the answer is yes. If Joel Osteen believes that he and Mitt worship the same "Jesus" then Osteen is a heretic and should never preach again at least certainly not in evangelical churches.

More LIKELY what happened was that he was careless. (He even fesses up to it by saying he hadn't "studied it carefully.")

Which in a very small snapshot demonstrates Osteen's problem start to finish. He's a nice guy, he gives great "power of positive thinking" pep talks. But for Heaven's sake - some one please recognize that he is either willfully negligent or completely incapable of understanding the his own theological beliefs - and as such should not be considered a Pastor in any sense of the word.

Nice guy, seems like a very good man - but a complete theological dufus.