Joel Osteen’s being mocked on Twitter after refusing to open the doors of his church to Hurricane Harvey victims.
Joel Osteen, 54, opened the doors to his massive Lakewood Church in Houston on August 29, providing shelter for thousands of evacuees escaping the flooding from Hurricane Harvey. The gesture might be too little, too late, though. Osteen took several days after the hurricane started to turn the 16,000 seat church into a shelter, citing flooding on the ground floor. A lot of people believe that he only opened up because of the immediate public backlash. Whether or not that’s true, Osteen’s getting a lot of heat for his delayed response to the hurricane. The pastor has made an estimated $40 million off the church, and people want to know why he didn’ t do something — anything — sooner!
Osteen argued on August 28 that the church was never actually closed; they were just dealing with flooding issues before receiving evacuees. That didn’ t really hold up with his critics, who posted photos of the church looking perfectly fine! A Lakewood representative released a statement saying that the church is now coordinating with the city of Houston “as a collection site for distributing supplies to area shelters.” People aren’ t impressed with Osteen’s actions because they feel that he only started helping because he was pressured by public response. They criticized him on Twitter for his massive wealth made off the church, and questioned his Christianity. They felt that it was the exact opposite of “the Christian thing to do” to ignore the less fortunate in their time of need:
HollywoodLifers, our hearts are with the victims of Hurricane Harvey. If you want to help out, here’s a list of resources.
