On Saturday, April 25th, Joel Osteen will appear at Yankee Stadium for “a historic night of hope and celebration.”

While the Yankees have had a hard time filling the infield seats, I doubt that will be the case with Joel Osteen. (Of course, Joel isn’t charging $2500 a pop so that should help considerably.) In fact, seats are reasonably priced at $15 plus a $4 fee. I just tried to order tickets from Ticketmaster and the best seats available were in section 311 — the second tier from the top. (Maybe the Yankees could learn something about marketing from Joel.)

It seems the Night of Hope is a tour that is replacing the former book tours. In addition to New York, there are nights (with Joel AND Victoria) schedule in Columbus and Minneapolis.

I’m all for creating hope and finding anything to celebrate in these hard times. I have to wonder, though, about how the prosperity preaching that Joel is famous for is faring during these economically depressed times. Is this waking people up to the ineffectiveness of wishful thinking or is it making them cling more desperately?

The Pew Forum came out with a new study showing that the recession has not led to increased church attendance overall.

I thought this finding was counterintuitive. People tend to turn to faith in times of crisis. It would be interesting to know if there have been increases in certain segments of the faith community. Does anyone know if that’s been done?

Yesterday, the Trinity Church in New York City twittered (tweeted?) the stations of the cross. This is the first time the Passion Play has been “performed” via Twitter. To check it out for yourself, go to http://twitter.com/twspassionplay.

I have to admit to not being a fan of Twitter because the only thing I ever thought it would be useful for is PR people who need to reach lots of people on a deadline. I have to say, however, this is a particularly interesting use of the medium. The Passion Play tells a story over a specified period of time, and the church wants people to think about Christ for that sustained period of time. The medium allows continuing interest and anticipation in a way other presentations of this story might not. Bravo to Trinity.

There was a book review last week in the Financial Times for a book called God is Back. It is written by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, who have written several other books together.

While I have not yet read the book, the basic premise does not appear to be new at all though the review makes it appear that way. The authors are economists and they look at religion through that lens suggesting that the way Americans practice their faith — with church and state as separate entities — is what allows it to thrive. I and many others before me have said the same thing. What is new is that the authors suggest that around the world, religion is growing based on this model rather than the European one where secularism has marginalized faith.

There is also a Fox News site has a good review of the book.

Excuse me for not posting of late, but I’ve been busy working on the new book. I have lots to catch up on and will do so over the next week or so. In the meantime, I wanted to alert you to Joel Osteen’s web cast, which is happening in just a few hours.

Joel and Victoria will also be on Larry King tonight (Rick Warren was on last night which I’m sure you can find on the CNN web site).

Makes a lot of sense since hard times are leading folks to turn to faith, at least according to Pew. More on that soon.