Joel Osteen took a (mostly) richly deserved slagging this past week because of his ridiculous "response" to the Harvey mess in Houston.
A fellow goddie takes him to task (John Pavolovitz, Stuff That Needs To Be Said):
Dear Joel Osteen,
Over the past few days you’ve faced an unrelenting wave of Internet shaming, and you’ve experienced the wrath of millions of people who watched the week unfold and determined they were witnessing in you and your megachurch’s response to the hurricane—everything they believe is wrong about organized Christianity; its self-serving greed, its callousness, its tone-deafness in the face of a hurting multitude, its lack of something that looks like Jesus.
They questioned your initial silence and your closed doors.
They watched with disdain as local Mosques and furniture stores rushed to receive newly homeless victims while you waited.
They shook their heads at the conflicting stories of a flooded church and impassable roads.
They lamented you tweeting out that “God was still on his Throne,” while thousands of your neighbors were literally under water.
They saw your social media expressions of “thoughts and prayers” as hollow and disingenuous, knowing the stockpile of other resources at your disposal.
They witnessed with disgust what they deemed as your late and underwhelming act of kindness performed under duress.
They raged at your excuse that Houston didn’t ask you to receive victims—because (whether Christian or not) they realized that Jesus’ life was marked by an overflow of generosity and compassion and sacrifice that rarely required official invitation.
As a result of the pushback and condemnation you received, I imagine you feel like this has been a rough week. It hasn’t. You’ve had the week you probably should have had, all this considered. You’ve had the week that was coming long before rain ever started falling in Houston.
I kinda stepped in my own shit on Facebook a few days ago when I Share-Posted a meme from Occupy Democrats, that got debunked at Snopes:
It sounded about right to me - partly because it confirms my bias. So, as usual, I posted it with the caveat that some of those churches likely had good reasons for not responding.
I was thinking those reasons were all about the flooding, but there was also the point made by FEMA that I missed - sometimes, well-meaning efforts to help can end up making matters worse if they're not done properly.
There are stories about some neighborhood churches taking in the locals without having made adequate provisions for food water sanitation and security.
But none of that makes what Joel Osteen is doing (or not doing) OK.
I have practically no use for anybody who sells nothing as if it were something. Especially when they have a chance to substantiate their baloney in a real-world circumstance and still deliver nothing of substance.
