How does joel osteen preach

His self-help books include lines such as this one from Your Best Life Now :. As they don't line up with the power of positivity, Osteen eschews negative topics such as hell, judgment, and sin in his sermons.

In the wake of the Hurricane Harvey tragedy, people are questioning whether his belief in destiny and the " prosperity gospel" influenced Osteen's delayed response to helping flood victims in Houston, where his Lakewood Church is located. As Hurricane Harvey ravaged his hometown and destroyed houses on Saturday, the televangelist and his co-pastor wife Victoria tweeted they were "praying for everyone affected by Hurricane Harvey.

On Sunday, Lakewood staff said on social media that the church was " inaccessible due to severe flooding. Under public pressure, Lakewood Church began operating as a large-scale shelter and supplies distribution hub on Tuesday.

But how does telling people to downplay their consciences tally with the New Testament? Osteen smiled awkwardly. I want to help people sleep at night. I thought, along with 10, others. Osteen knows his audience. We want fatted calves slaughtered in our honour. Osteen is more like Oprah Winfrey in a suit. He is not peddling the opium of the masses. It is more like therapy for a broken middle class. If God had a refrigerator, Osteen said, your picture would be on it. If He had a computer, your face would be the screensaver.

One man, a market day trader, had been to a Night of Hope in Cleveland. He packed his bags there and then and moved to Houston. He now attends Lakewood every day. Two years ago, in the midst of Hurricane Harvey, which pummelled the city, Osteen suffered a social-media backlash for having kept the doors of Lakewood closed.

The multi-storey megachurch sits on elevated ground next to a freeway. Yet it stayed shuttered to the tens of thousands of Houstonians washed out of their homes. That tweet got more than , likes. Lakewood was shamed into opening its doors. It took in several hundred people until the biblical-scale flood receded. But it left an impression that Lakewood was more of a corporation than a church. What did they think of that, I asked. His suburban Houston home has three elevators, a swimming pool and parking for 20 cars.

Osteen should be number one on that list. Everyone laughed. He became rich because he makes good investments. Everyone knows stories about profiteering televangelists. In the s, when the prosperity gospel was starting to become big business, Jim and Tammy Bakker were jailed for embezzling millions of dollars. He has put that skill to good use.

About the only book that Trump is known to have read from cover to cover is The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale, the grandfather of the prosperity gospel. It has sold five million copies since it was published in His message is that the more you give to God, the more he will give back in return.

The prosperity gospel is all about harvesting the seed. Poverty is a sign of godlessness. Every Sunday from the late s onwards, Fred Trump would take the family, including the young Donald, to hear his sermons.

He was the greatest guy. He could not have been more charming. Even then, however, Trump knew that any public association could damage Osteen. Though Osteen is politically conservative, he does not wear it on his sleeve.

In contrast to most southern preachers, he keeps his thoughts to himself on abortion and homosexuality. His congregation is racially diverse. When Barack Obama was president, he pulled Osteen aside after a White House prayer breakfast to be photographed together.

Wealthy people crave selfies with Osteen. Presidents may covet his blessing. But his business model is targeted at the struggling middle class. The America of neighbourhood churches and intimate congregations is as faded as the small towns of the s. Instead of listening to your preacher at his pulpit, you can download Osteen on to your iPad. Sociologists talk of an increasingly lonely society. More Americans live in single-owner residences than ever before. More have to drive longer distances to reach their place of work.

Just a few miles from Hershey, where Osteen was preaching, the town of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, is suffering a crisis of loneliness. Last year a record number of people were found dead in their homes, having decomposed for days or longer. Neighbours had not thought to check on them. It caused a pang of conscience in the area. The online nation turns its lonely eyes to Osteen. When Rollo was 13, he lost interest in God. That was the year his father died. Much of his childhood had been a boyish dream.

His father, a guitar player in an Elvis impersonation band, would tour the US and often bring the young Dustin along. Things were never the same. His dad became an alcoholic. Shortly afterwards, he moved out. Two years later, his father died. Although he is white, he fell in with the Houston chapter of the Bloods, an African-American gang that used to fight with the Crips, which was mostly Hispanic in his area.

The Bible says it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven, but one celebrity pastor does not seem terribly concerned with the warning. Joel Osteen , one of the wealthiest and most popular preachers in the US, has come under fire after evidence of his luxurious lifestyle was made public on social media. Users on Twitter lambasted the pastor, arguing his ownership of a Ferarri is a good argument for the government taxing churches.

That means either someone won a race or Joel Osteen took some of the money Jesus told him to give to the poor and went on another shopping spree," one user said. Prosperity theology is especially lucrative for pastors, as it pushes the idea that those who give money to God will be blessed with money themselves. In churches that teach that philosophy, giving money to God, of course, means giving money to the church leaders. That theology flies in the face of traditional Christian teaching, which promotes giving to the poor, being a good steward of one's resources, and sharing one's wealth with fellow Christians.

Many protestant groups have criticised Mr Osteen and prosperity theology.