“Beware False Prophets!”

His friends all drive Porsches, but he made amends https://t.co/LKi44CWJiY

— George Conway🌻 (@gtconway3d) February 21, 2023

I have no love for Joel Osteen, but there isn’t a word of this that is even close to being true. Indeed, the thread reads like one on my local NextDoor: a farrago of ignorance. 

Lakewood Church is in the old Summit building where the Rockets played basketball for years. Osteen now leases the building from the City of Houston for $1.00 per year.

— MaxSmart (@MaxSmart25) February 20, 2023

No. Lakewood bought the Compaq Center 20 years ago. And no, Osteen doesn't pay himself $54 million a year out of the church.

Joel Osteen owns the Lakewood Church, and the church itself is not taxed, I heard he sunk $100,000,000 into renovations about 20 yrs ago, I guess the place is gigantic. You are right about he pays taxes on his sermon fees when he goes to other churches.

— Michael Cleere (@mikecleere) February 20, 2023

The church doesn’t generate nearly that kind of money.

I do like the “I heard” portion of that. If Osteen spent that much, he grossly overspent. The construction cost of the building in 2021 dollars is $165 million. And pastors pay income tax on their income. The idea they don’t, or only do when they “go to other churches” (which are not obligated to pay; it’s an honorarium of usually a minimal amount), is just farcical. (And when does Osteen preach in other churches?) So is this:

Those donations that are given to the church, that money goes directly to Joel, the government leaves that alone, and he doesn’t have to declare it.

— Michael Cleere (@mikecleere) February 20, 2023

This is purely ignorant drivel. This is the ignorance of a man who has no clue how the tax system works, but imagines it screws only him and leaves everybody else alone.  That's a form of narcicissm:  everybody gets away with it but me!

Even Snopes says Osteen's net worth is estimated at between $40 million and $100 million, and most of his income is from book sales (as Osteen himself says) (that bit above about the garage full of exotic cars is bullshit, too). At $54 million a year, his net worth by now would be closer to Elon Musk's. And it isn't; not nearly.

Osteen is a businessman, and his business is selling a very weak form of Christianity that mostly sells self-satisfaction.  Lakewood is the extreme example of the Church of Meaning and Belonging.  There is no sacrifice involved at all, just the satisfaction that God wants you to get rich.  To be fair, I don't know too many Christian denominations or preachers who preach "Damn you, rich!  You already have your consolation!"  But even those churches are more known for their charity than Osteen's church.  Lakewood is not known as a paragon of charity, let me put it that way.

I had one random and all but chance encounter with his church when I was in active ministry and his church was near a public housing unit the local UCC churches own and operate here in Houston.  Mr. Osteen's church, under his father, had been regular donors of turkeys at Thanksgiving (or was it Christmas?) to the residents of the units.  Sometime after Mr. Osteen took over for his deceased father the church decided the residents should drive to the church to get the turkeys, rather than await delivery.  This most couldn't do, as they didn't have cars or were working when the church was willing to hand out the birds; so the local UCC churches had to take up the slack.  It wasn't long after that Mr. Osteen moved operations to downtown Houston, and all hope of turkey charity from Mr. Osteen's congregation for the residents of the housing unit stopped together, as the poet put it.

If you want to know what I think of him, my opinions have been expressed freely around here, though not recently; but those opinions haven't really changed.  This kind of claptrap, however, especially when its repeated credulously by people who should be more skeptical of such outlandish claims, is just annoying.  Especially when it's used to claim all churches are money pits who collect coin without paying any taxes, and revel in their wealth because of their status as charities.  What can I say?  That kind of stupid just annoys the shit out of me.