Joel Osteen responds to backlash for not opening Houston megachurch

HOUSTON — As the nation’s fourth largest city sinks beneath the merciless wrath of one of the worst natural disasters to ever befall southeast Texas, reducing proud residents to discombobulated refugees from their own homes, the nation turns its fury toward the closed doors of the richest church in America: Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church near downtown Houston.

Osteen, pastor of the largest congregation in the United States, is being pummeled ceaselessly on social media, much the way Hurricane Harvey is wreaking unfathomable havoc on the Houston area, because Osteen has not opened the doors to his 17,000-seat megachurch to some of the thousands of people who had to flee their homes because of floods of historic proportions.


Instead, people are pointing to pedestrian platitudes Osteen has offered in the wake of the historic storm:

It doesn’t help assuage many people’s intense feelings against Osteen when they learn he is worth $50M and lives in this Hollywood-like palatial estate:


Osteen sent out an advisory to his congregation, informing them that the church would be closed on Saturday and Sunday (Sept. 1 and 2, 2017) due to the threat of floods.

The perpetually smiling pastor told followers on Twitter on Monday to lean on their faith.

“Jesus promises us peace that passes understanding,” he wrote. “That’s peace when it doesn’t make sense.” Osteen later added that the church remains “inaccessible due to severe flooding.”

Harvey has dumped over 30 inches of rain, leaving at least 300K people without power and roughly 30K displaced to temporary shelters. As of Monday evening, the harrowing hurricane has claimed at least seven lives.

But Osteen’s comforting words didn’t sit well with critics, who want to know why the doors to his 16,800-seat arena remain closed.

Some social media users were allegedly motivated enough to take photos of Osteen’s church to prove that it has not been impacted by Hurricane Harvey and could indeed take many of the flood victims in.

Other social media users took to using memes and quips to bash the pastor. To be sure, Bishop T.D. Jakes, who has a similar-sized megachurch three hours away in Dallas, is also taking some heat for allegedly standing on the sidelines as the ocean regurgitates millions of gallons of water onto this small area of the country.

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>When <a href=”https://twitter.com/JoelOsteen”>@JoelOsteen</a> has a gigantic church and 10 mil home in Houston but is only offering prayers to ppl affected by <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/Harvey?src=hash”>#Harvey</a> 🤔</p>&mdash; KL 🦋 (@kbarnie34) <a href=”https://twitter.com/kbarnie34/status/902245437423312896″>August 28, 2017</a></blockquote>
<script async src=”//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>

The church announced later Monday afternoon that it was partnering with Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian aid organization, to raise funds to support hurricane relief efforts.

Freelance reporter Ruth Graham posted on Twitter saying she had spoken to a Lakewood representative who said the church wouldn’t turn anyone away, the HuffPost reported.

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