On Monday, the media caught hold of a story that made national waves: Pastor Joel Osteen, the televangelist prosperity gospel advocate, had closed the doors of his megachurch to victims of Hurricane Harvey. As Paul Bois of The Daily Wire reported:
As the hurricane ravaged its way across Houston this weekend, Osteen announced that his megachurch – Lakewood Church near downtown Houston – will not be holding services on Saturday and Sunday. As Monday hit, Osteen asked his fellow Texans to lean on Christ for comfort. “Due to the weather impact of Hurricane Harvey and concern for the safety of our members, all Lakewood Church worship services for this weekend, Saturday, August 26th and Sunday, August 27th have been cancelled,” read the church’s announcement. “Jesus promises us peace that passes understanding,” he wrote. “That’s peace when it doesn’t make sense.”
Late on Monday evening, the church announced that it would open its doors and provide air mattresses to those seeking shelter. Osteen did open his church in previous storms, and the church distributed pictures showing that parts of the premises had been flooded.
Nonetheless, the criticism poured in. A good deal of the criticism came from those with particular animus at Osteen’s religious viewpoint: prosperity gospel suggests that God is a sort of gumball machine, and that if you obey God, you will prosper financially and physically. Osteen himself lives in a mega-mansion, and he’s been heavily criticized for preaching that giving charity will earn you more money, that following God’s rules will cause God to bless you financially. In 2005, he wrote, “God wants us to prosper financially, to have plenty of money, to fulfill the destiny He has laid out for us.”
Thanks to that preaching, a lot of Christians were willing to pile on Osteen over the church issue — it seemed like just another manifestation of selfishness instead of Christianity. But that seems unfair given what we know about the situation at Lakewood Church — it’s absolutely unclear that Osteen meant to bar people out of some sort of misplaced greed.
Osteen’s situation does demonstrate the tightrope that religious leaders walk. They are held to a higher standard, and they should be. Osteen’s under suspicion for profiting from the Bible, from selling a corrupted, material vision of the gospels. He should have known that his religious perspective is perceived by many as a form of payoff scheme, and that he has a responsibility to push public charity as often as possible. The pictures of his $10 million estate juxtaposed to the pictures of his shut-up made-over sports arena juxtaposed to the pictures of people simply attempting to escape their flooded houses made for some ugly imagery. Representing God means taking on additional responsibilities in terms of the image you put forth; Osteen knew that, and he didn’t do enough.