Twitter savages Houston megachurch pastor Osteen for closing the church to flood victims

Joe Depaolo
Mediaite
Mon, 28 Aug 2017 14:46 UTC

Houston-based celebrity pastor Joel Osteen is coming under fire on Twitter for not opening up the doors to his Church for storm victims to take shelter.

Osteen - pastor at Houston's Lakewood Church - has kept the doors closed even though pictures on Twitter appear to show that the Church escaped the brunt of the storm. Lakewood Church - which was formerly an NBA arena called The Summit, home to the Houston Rockets - holds 16,800 people.

Comment: For some perspective on the size of the facility:

Here is a sampling of the reaction on Twitter:

Comment: As thousands were rescued from the rising floodwaters in Houston, many churches, community centers and schools opened their doors to offer temporary shelter to survivors, while other local houses of worship organized volunteer teams to help with relief efforts. Osteen, however announced the arena was inaccessible "due to flooding", offering prayers for those in need rather than shelter.

UPDATE - August 29th: On Tuesday, after a huge public outcry, Osteen opened the church to flooding evacuees. Osteen's excuse for not opening the church prior to this:

"You know, we work with the city all the time," Osteen said about the lead-up to the storm. "At that time the city was asking us to use city shelters, Harris county shelters and then when they got filled up that's when we said, 'Hey, you need more room, Lakewood would love to help out.'"

"We were blessed to not have flooding here but we're also very precautious about... before we put a bunch of people in here, let's make sure that everything is safe," Osteen said.