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Joel Osteen, Houston’s televangelist, pushed back against accusations that he closed off his 606,000-square-foot megachurch amid a flooding crisis that has displaced thousands of residents in the event of hurricane Harvey.
Osteen was criticized on social media and was accused of keeping his church closed during a time of need. The preacher has come out to say that the church also was flooded and it wasn’t safe to harbor victims.
The idea that we wouldn’t receive people, we’ve been here in this community for 60 years,” Osteen told Chris Cuomo today on CNN’s “New Day” adding that: “We’ve always been open.How this notion got started, that we’re not a shelter and we’re not taking people in is a false narrative.
After several people posted videos on Twitter appearing to show Lakewood Church relatively unscathed, a swarm of Twitter users began questioning why it was staying vacant.
“Houston’s Joel Osteen has a net worth over $50m and a church that holds 16,800 but this is all he’s offering,” Mark Elliott of the Economic Mobility Corporation tweeted in reference to Osteen’s tweet extending prayers.
Singer Travis Garland tweeted that he was “deeply disappointed” by Osteen’s actions.
But Osteen said he never saw any of the criticism, and implied that those outside of Texas might not realize exactly what’s going on in Houston.
“The main thing is social media doesn’t run our lives. We run our ministry, we do what we were called to do, and, hey, everybody that’s making a difference is going to have critics,” Osteen said.
He added that if given a “re-do,” he probably wouldn’t have been able to open Lakewood’s doors any sooner.
“I mean, think of the story if we housed a whole bunch of evacuees and the building flooded,” Osteen said. “That wouldn’t have been a good story.”
Check out: Churches Open Doors to those Affected by Hurricane Harvey
There is absolutely no good explanation why Osteen did NOT OPEN the church to fellow Texans in need of shelter!!! Where did the money come from to build it?
Parishioners and Texans! Why should he be allowed all of his luxuries when others have lost everything?
He surely owes an explanation to God and church members! Greedy TV evangelist! SHAME ON YOU!
Bingo!! You wright, his explanation very poor, and I guess false, because he did not show pictures of the church damages from hurricane! Is very sad, that mostly all churches, who are created in the name of Jesus, are just a source of making a few wealthy, buried of luxury things in their lives, just because they started the business, but don’t realize that who give the money are the people who still believing that they need to go to church to be save. If Jesus will come to visit those church today, he will vomit, he will be nauseated.