Houston megachurch pastor Joel Osteen on Wednesday defended his church’s decision to not initially open its doors to people affected by the devastation of Hurricane Harvey, which dumped record rain on the region.
When the hurricane made landfall over the weekend, the church was closed due to flooding, but online critics expressed frustration with the church and Osteen. Many posted photos that showed very little standing water in the church parking lot.
Houston's @indivisible_usa is acquainted with @JoelOsteen's Lakewood Church. They took these pics about an hour ago w/ commentary. pic.twitter.com/YTWrD9UG1z
— Charles Clymer?️? (@cmclymer) August 28, 2017
Some criticized Osteen for his decision, given the size of the church and the fact that many other places of worship opened their doors to victims.
Osteen opened Lakewood Church as a shelter on Tuesday and told CBS News that the doors had always been open.
“The city asked us to be a distribution center. … The city runs the shelters, they asked for a distribution center. … We could’ve been a shelter from day one if they needed that,” Osteen said.
“The city asked us to be a distribution center…we’re taking in supplies that we can feed the different shelters around town,” Osteen says pic.twitter.com/aJ2jn3ylyf
— CBS News (@CBSNews) August 30, 2017
He appeared on CNN and said when the storm first came inland there was significant flooding at the church and it would have been a safety risk to house people there.
“We have floodgates right behind me to the right. It was within a foot of that. So, there was a safety issue for the first day or two,” he said. “We’ve been in this community for 60 years. Tropical storm Allison, we housed 3,000 people. We’ve always been open. There’s a big shelter four miles away, the city shelter that has all the dormitories. Once they filled up, people came here. So how this notion got started that we’re not a shelter and not taking people in was a false narrative.”
Joel Osteen responds: “The church has always been open… There was a time… when [the church] was flooded.” https://t.co/ddfzo3oXyb pic.twitter.com/QYtINnELNk
— CNN (@CNN) August 30, 2017
