Anonymous wrote:On top of the hurricane debacle where a mattress salesman was infinitely more Christ-like to fellow Houston citizens, Osteen drives a $325K Ferrari, but his church received $4M in PPP loans.

Tax dollars for a church that doesn’t pay taxes.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. So there are some accusations being leveled against Osteen that he is a “prosperity gospel” preacher. I have watched quite a few of his sermons and none of them have that message as far as I can see.

If you have a link to any heretical messages by Ostend I would watch them. I think Osteen gets lumped in with prosperity gospel preachers because he does talk about faith leading to “prosperity” but he isn’t really talking about material wealth, he is talking about inner peace, peace in your relationships, being able to cope with crisis and solve problems through faith. And yes, a lot of people’s problems are material like job loss and being unable to pay the bills. These are the things people deal with in day to day life.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. So there are some accusations being leveled against Osteen that he is a “prosperity gospel” preacher. I have watched quite a few of his sermons and none of them have that message as far as I can see.

If you have a link to any heretical messages by Ostend I would watch them. I think Osteen gets lumped in with prosperity gospel preachers because he does talk about faith leading to “prosperity” but he isn’t really talking about material wealth, he is talking about inner peace, peace in your relationships, being able to cope with crisis and solve problems through faith. And yes, a lot of people’s problems are material like job loss and being unable to pay the bills. These are the things people deal with in day to day life.

In his latest book, Next Level Thinking, Osteen writes: “If you do your part, God will do His. He will promote you; He’ll give you increase.” Osteen writes from experience. The television broadcasts on which Lakewood spends tens of millions each year provide a lucrative platform for his books and a rolling investment in his global brand. He is reported to have received a $13m advance on his second book, Become A Better You, which came out in 2007. He has written several since then.

When I asked Don Iloff, Lakewood’s spokesman and Joel’s brother-in-law, how Osteen’s riches squared with Christian theology, he laughed. “Poverty isn’t a qualification for heaven,” he said. “Look at how wealthy Abraham was.” Iloff pointed out that all royalties from Osteen’s books that are sold at Lakewood’s bookshop, or from its website, go to the church.

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Anonymous wrote:OP here. This whole controversy surrounding the hurricane seemed SO manufactured...

Definitely manufactured outrage. Anyone with any experience with storm relief or similar activities knows that you can't just "open your doors." Creating, staffing, supplying and maintaining a shelter is a massive undertaking, and without the infrastructure and expertise for doing so, it could have been a disaster itself. Just what happened to the Superdome after Katrina. Aside from the storm damage itself, that place became a crime infested cesspool overnight. The church was right to direct people to existing shelters operated by FEMA, Red Cross, and other organizations that know what they are doing. The shelters in Houston were never full; there was no need for Lakewood to have turned itself into a shelter at the time.

Here's what's interesting: after reading the back and forth in this thread I tried to figure out what the truth was, and Snopes shows that the Church's official position is that they never closed their doors. Yes, he did tweet that the Church was "inaccessible due to floods" and told people to go to shelters, and then people posted a bunch of pictures showing no flooding at the church, and then other people posted pictures of flooding (near the area, but not at the church itself).

Apparently since in the back of their head they were going to serve as (unannounced) overflow once the shelters hit capacity, their doors were always open metaphorically, even though they were locked in reality. So it's fun to watch people defending him by contradicting the church's official position - saying "you can't open the doors" and "they were totally flooded, it's not safe" when the Church says "we were never closed" and "we were going to take in anyone from the overflow."

I'm not defending anything. I'm just saying it is logistically unreasonable to expect them to have opened a shelter. They were never claiming to be a shelter and never denying that they weren't, until people started leveling accusations towards them. Whether there was or wasn't water around the church is irrelevant. If there weren't beds, food, water, adequate sanitation, staff, etc., it was never going to be a shelter. No one was in any imminent danger anyway, and there were plenty of shelters available. Therefore, manufactured outrage.

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Anonymous wrote:The Osteens fly on private jets, live in a ginormous mansion due to the “charitable” donations of people who car hardly afford their own bills. My all accounts, Victoria Osteen, by all reports, is not a kind person.

Says who? My church is supported largely by the wealthiest parishioners. I suspect his is probably similar.

Of course the wealthiest are the best parishioners, but all the pennies from the rest add up to a lot, too. Joel ain’t picky.

People aren't allowed free will with their money? Which is it - "pennies" or "people who can hardly afford their own bills?"

Do you even understand what you’re asking? Because it makes no sense.

Yes, I'm asking for someone to back up all these claims that Joel Osteen is living lavishly on the backs of poor people. There are no accusations of this anywhere. You can find a number of examples of TV preachers indicted for fraud of all kinds, but he isn't one of them.

+1

Honestly the detractors don't seem that bright 😐

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Anonymous wrote:The Osteens fly on private jets, live in a ginormous mansion due to the “charitable” donations of people who car hardly afford their own bills. My all accounts, Victoria Osteen, by all reports, is not a kind person.

Says who? My church is supported largely by the wealthiest parishioners. I suspect his is probably similar.

Of course the wealthiest are the best parishioners, but all the pennies from the rest add up to a lot, too. Joel ain’t picky.

People aren't allowed free will with their money? Which is it - "pennies" or "people who can hardly afford their own bills?"

Do you even understand what you’re asking? Because it makes no sense.

Yes, I'm asking for someone to back up all these claims that Joel Osteen is living lavishly on the backs of poor people. There are no accusations of this anywhere. You can find a number of examples of TV preachers indicted for fraud of all kinds, but he isn't one of them.

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Anonymous wrote:The Osteens fly on private jets, live in a ginormous mansion due to the “charitable” donations of people who car hardly afford their own bills. My all accounts, Victoria Osteen, by all reports, is not a kind person.

Says who? My church is supported largely by the wealthiest parishioners. I suspect his is probably similar.

Of course the wealthiest are the best parishioners, but all the pennies from the rest add up to a lot, too. Joel ain’t picky.

People aren't allowed free will with their money? Which is it - "pennies" or "people who can hardly afford their own bills?"

Do you even understand what you’re asking? Because it makes no sense.

Yes, I'm asking for someone to back up all these claims that Joel Osteen is living lavishly on the backs of poor people. There are no accusations of this anywhere. You can find a number of examples of TV preachers indicted for fraud of all kinds, but he isn't one of them.

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Anonymous wrote:The Osteens fly on private jets, live in a ginormous mansion due to the “charitable” donations of people who car hardly afford their own bills. My all accounts, Victoria Osteen, by all reports, is not a kind person.

Says who? My church is supported largely by the wealthiest parishioners. I suspect his is probably similar.

Of course the wealthiest are the best parishioners, but all the pennies from the rest add up to a lot, too. Joel ain’t picky.

People aren't allowed free will with their money? Which is it - "pennies" or "people who can hardly afford their own bills?"

Do you even understand what you’re asking? Because it makes no sense.