...you know something? ...I've got some people in my family who've spent a lot of time going to Lakewood Church...especially since Joel Osteen took over the pastorship after his father's death... ...(incidentally, I used to attend that church fairly regularly when Joel's father was alive...regularly for me, anyway...as a favor to my mother...and a lot of people were surprised that Joel became pastor...most of us expected it to become his brother Paul's job, because he was ministering there while Joel was off getting an MBA)... ...and I had a bit of a tiff with them about something like this (about not taking the opportunity to present god's message on the biggest stage with the most meaning)... ...Remember that big hurricane that hit Houston a few years ago (Harvey, was it?)? ...remember how much heat that Lakewood Church got for how it "responded" to that crisis? ...I remember telling my sister-in-law, who was as staunch a defender of Joel Osteen and her faith as you'd likely find, that Osteen and his church and congregation were the only ones to blame for how much flak people were giving them, for refusing to open their doors and shelter storm victims, for instance... ...they had no business being upset that Jim "Mattress Mac" McIngvale got national praise for sheltering storm victims in his business with no thought of the cost to his inventory...while Osteen and everybody else was waffling about...saying they wanted to wait for the state to give them directions on how to proceed and how they didn't want to break any local laws and they wanted to avoid any unnecessary damage to their property, and whatever other cowardly excuse they could come up with... ...the same type of excuses, had McIngvale made them if he'd kept people out of his store, would have made more sense because he was a private citizen... ...She stated, rightly, that Lakewood Church had done a lot of things for communities behind the scenes, that a lot of people didn't know about. And that's fine. Part of what Christian charity is, is supposed to be modesty. But that was the time to show everybody what you really cared about...people washed out of their homes and in trouble and in need of somewhere to shelter their families... ...and their response in that moment was worse than hypocritical or embarrassing. A church that had grown so big and powerful and wealthy couldn't do something like open its doors and shelter desperate people in trouble through no real fault of their own. You know what's really sad? Alot of those "Christians" in that poll wouldn't know what a lesson from their god looked like if he set bifocal glasses on their heads and told them to take a look at things through them. They all seem to think that "lessons from God" involve "punishing the wicked"...and the wicked is whoever they decide at the moment is deserving of calamity (mostly liberals or gays or foreigners or negroes or poor people, apparently)... ...I ain't no Christian. Or a theologian. But you know something? ...I'd lay a pretty safe bet that their god and his "lessons" might be more of the "help your neighbor" type... ...he did send his kid down here to explain all that to us, right? Oh. Yeah. Forgot. ...reminding people of that got him killed...silly me...
Appropriate but also an indicator of an equally sick God. She made some remark about regretting not doing Marvin Gaye. Old person wanting attention...newsfeed worthy material!
"Like"? Obama, not born in the United States. Good people on both sides. Stand back and stand by. Have you accepted Cheetos Jesus as your Lord and Savior? It's never too late.
