Dwight Adams|IndyStar
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Joel Osteen brought his show to Indianapolis recently.
The popular televangelist and his wife and co-pastor, Victoria, presented “A Night of Hope” on Aug.10 at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.
The Osteens reach millions of viewers through weekly televised services at Houston-based Lakewood Church, which has at least 40,000 members, as well as Joel's best-selling books, worship events and radio show.
They preach a positive, prosperity-based Christian message based on hope and emphasizingGod's love and generosity that appeals to many. However,controversy has followed in their footsteps.
Here's what we know:
How Joel Osteen got his start
Joel Osteen is one of six children of John Osteen, a former Southern Baptist pastor, who founded Lakewood Church in a converted feed store in 1959 and ran ituntil his death in 1999. John Osteen noticed his son's charisma early on, but Joel resisted his father's urgings to take the pulpit before relentingand preachinghis first sermon onJan.17, 1999.
Six days later, John Osteen died of a heart attack, and soon after Joel began preaching regularly. Within a year, he took over as senior pastor of Lakewood Church, which has since grown from 5,000to more than 40,000 members. He has risen to worldwide fame, including being named by Barbara Walters as one of her10 Most Fascinating People of 2006.
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How largeis Lakewood Church?
Lakewood Church is now the largest church in America with more than 50,000 members, according to ChristianPost.com. The 600,000-square-foot, 16,000-seat church is located in the former Compaq Center, where the NBA Rockets once played.
Joel Osteen's net worth and what he says about his wealth
Joel Osteen, who has a reportednet worth of more than $50 million,no longer accepts the $200,000 salary to which he's entitled as senior pastor of Lakewood Church.Instead, he earns his money from lucrative speaking engagements across the U.S. and sales from his 14 books, many of which have sold millions of copies and landed on the New York Times' Best Seller List. His first book, "Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential," quickly rose to No. 1, remained on the Self Help Best Seller list for more than two years and has sold more than 8 million copies.
The preacher with the megawatt smile also takes in an estimated$43 million a year in collections at his church, according to the Orlando Sentinel, and viewers send millions more by mail even though he doesn't ask for money during his broadcasts.
The Christian Post interviewed Osteen in 2013 and asked him why he didn't take a salary.
"Not everybody can do that, it's not practical," Osteen said. "But for us, it was important to me because I don't need to. And I think it's important to because being in the public eye, there's a lot of scrutiny, and people think, well, he's just doing it for money. This way I can say I don't do any of this for money. God has blessed us in other ways. It's really part of my message in that, you honor God and you stay faithful, you don't know where God's going to take you. I don't tell people that God's going to make them rich. But you don't know how God's going to bless you."
Osteen also spoke about his wealth and televangelists' sometimes-negative image to Oprah Winfrey in a 2012 interviewat his home with a grand piano in the background.
"I'm not asking for money on television. I don't try to be slick, I just try to be sincere.I just try to be who we are. You know it's a battle we have to fight. ... We just feel that this is God's blessings. We're big givers. We live what we preach. We've given millions of dollars. I don't think there's anything wrong with having a nice place to live and being blessed."
How much is Joel Osteen's house worth?
The Osteens bought a $10.5 million home in 2010 in a wealthy Houston suburb called River Oaks.The 17,000-square-foot home located on nearly two acres is reported to have six bedrooms and bathrooms, five fireplaces, three elevators, a guest house and an outdoor pool and pool house.
What is the prosperity gospel and whyis Joel Osteen criticized for it?
The prosperity gospel doesn't focus on hell or the negative effects of sin but promotesa sunnier message, choosing to insteadpreachthat God will reward his devout and generous followers witha healthy and financially prosperous life. It often links tithing — the practice of regularly giving part of one's earnings to the church — to a promise of prosperity.
According to his website, joelosteen.com, he believes that "as children of God, we are overcomers and more than conquerors and God intends for each of us to experience the abundant life he has in store for us."
Televangelism has been accused of ensnaring the poor and weak, who canleast afford to give their scant resources away to the church, and it has faced criticism for linking faith to material compensation.The prosperity gospel, which was strongly associated withdisgraced 1980s-era televangelists such as Jimmy Swaggart and Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, has been called "an aberrant theology" by Christianity Today.
One liberal Christian magazine, The Christian Century, also has accused Osteen of neutering the Bible into "digestible categories of self-help and self-improvement." But Osteen's mother, Dodie Osteen, has responded to the criticism by saying:"We don't preach the gospel sad, we preach it glad."
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Why do people like Joel Osteen?
Osteen's charisma andhis message appeals to a lot of people, including celebrities. He and his wife, Victoria, pack tens of thousands of fans into stadiums around the country with their "A Night of Hope" events, like the one coming to Indianapolis. He comes across in television interviews and broadcasts of his church services as a seemingly genuine, occasionally earnestand always enthusiastic friend, even if he sometimes seemsmore like a motivational speaker than a preacher. His church celebrates a diverse congregationdrawingfrom a variety of socio-economic and racial backgrounds. Each week, more than 7 million viewers watch his church service.
What did Joel Osteen's church doduring Hurricane Harvey?
In late August 2017, Osteen was criticized on social media after it was said that his church turned away people seeking shelter from Hurricane Harvey, a devastating storm thatkilled 89 people, caused $126.3 billion in damage and displaced more than 30,000 people.
After aFacebook post by the church saying that it was "inaccessible due to severe flooding," the church soon after announcedplans to act as a collection site for Houston-area shelters. "We know the need is great. That much is clear," a church statement said. "We do not yet know all the ways we can help."It later announced that it was receiving people and distributing supplies to the needy.
"How this notion got started that we're not a shelter and we're not taking people in is a false narrative," Osteen said in an emotional video that he released during the controversy. "We always wanted to take people in. Our doors were open. The church has always been open."
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What is Joel Osteen'sstance on homosexuality?
Joel Osteen has generally tried to avoid making public statements about gay marriage or homosexuality.
However, during an interview on "Larry King Now" in January 2014, King asked Osteen whathis views were on homosexuality.
Osteen responded:“The same that they’ve been. I believe that scripture says that it’s a sin, but I always follow that up by saying you know what, we’re not against anybody.”
But King pressed Osteen for more explanation about his position, asking “If you're calling it a sin, how couldit be a sin if we don’t know what causes it? You don’t know why you’re a heterosexual.”
“There’s a lot of things Larry that I don’t understand,so I just don’t want to preach on it, preach about it. It only comes up during the interviews,” Osteen said.
King then asked him:“Does gay marriage annoy you?”
Osteen responded, “It doesn’t annoy me. From a scripturalpoint of view, Idon't think it's, you know, what my faith would teach, but it doesn’t annoy me.”
How did Joel and Victoria Osteen meet?
Victoria Osteen worked at her mother's jewelry store while attending college and in 1985, she is said to have first met Joel when he came into the store to buy a new watch battery, according to a feature story aboutVictoria and her book "Love Your Life" in Houston Lifestyles & Homes. They married in 1987 and have two children,Jonathan and Alexandra, who work alongside their parents in ministry at Lakewood Church.
Wherewere they educated?
Osteen graduated in 1981 from Humble High School in Humble, Texas, a suburb of Houston. He went on to study broadcast communications at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Okla., founded by its namesake, an earlytelevangelist. However, Osteen did not graduate and does not have a divinity degree, either.
Victoria (Iloff) Osteen was bornin Huntsvillle, Ala., where her father,Donald Iloff, was amathematicianfor General Electric working on GE's Saturn rocket project team, led by German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun. She moved with her family to Houston at the age of two, where her mother, Georgine Iloff, taught Sunday school and her father was a deacon of the Church of Christ. Victoria studied psychology at the University of Houston, but didn't graduate.
Call IndyStar digital producer Dwight Adams at 317-444-6532. Follow him on Twitter: @hdwightadams.
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