Joel Osteen the prosperity preacher from Houston has just moved up from his $2m mansion to a $10m mansion. Here’s the news.Posted on 08/28/2013 11:39:15 AM PDT by Brian Kopp DPM
Joel Osteen the prosperity preacher from Houston has just moved up from his $2m mansion to a $10m mansion. Here’s the news.
This is one of the things that tickle me about American Protestantism. These are the folks who have traditionally beat the Catholics with a big stick about the Pope living in a palace surrounded by rich art works.
The other thing is the way Protestants will beat up on Catholics for having a highly exalted infallible leader who is treated like a celebrity. Duh. The problem with them is not that they don’t have a Pope, but that they have 30,000 popes. Every pastor a pope, and Pope Osteen is just one among many.
So Pope Francis lives in a modest suite in a functional hostel while Pope Joel lives in a palace in Houston. Even when the popes lived in the apostolic palace they only lived in a comparatively modest apartment in the palace, and all that art? It’s history and heritage. He doesn’t own it. It belongs to the world–witness the crowds who come and go talking of Michelangelo.
But who am I to judge? They say Joel Osteen makes all his loot from sale of his books and calendars and self help T-shirts. He’s welcome to it I guess, and who knows, he might live like a prince of the Church on a fraction of his takings. He might give 90% of his wealth to the poor. So live and let live and let God be the judge.
But when it comes to appearances, when it comes to the one who seems to live the life of apostolic simplicity– Pope Francis wins.
For that matter, he wins with the gospel he’s preaching too. The American prosperity gospel is a false gospel. It’s no surprise that Osteen’s church doesn’t have a cross in it. Neither does the gospel he’s preaching.
Just thought…are there any photoshoppers out there who can send me a pic of Osteen being carried around in the sedia gestatoria?
Hogwash. I enjoy Joel. Light years better than the pastors that have been in my church who told me to send money to Idi Amin and made me go to marriage classes to teach me not about marriage but how I should back the equal rights amendment.
I also enjoyed Eugene Scott. Made mrs p6 watch him while she was in labor with our second child. Actually it was the only program on the hospital TV that late at night, lol!
Call me when he installs gold plated doors in his house.
Just the lumpy ones.
You haven’t been paying a lot of attention there.
All I will say is this.
If you do not think that within the Vatican there are treasures worth HUNDREDS if not THOUSANDS of Millions of dollars you need to buy a clue...............
Catholics probably don’t send him very much money or buy a whole lot of his books. I suspect Buddhists don’t either, or Moslems or...
What constitutes a "Protestant" to you, arthurus? Is it simply anyone not Catholic, nor Buddhist, nor Moslem?
The guy just looks sleazy. Billy Graham as far as I know never took a salary higher than $100,000 per year which was modest in comparison with CEO’s running similar sized enterprises.
And all I will say is this.
There are 1 billion Catholics in the world.
The assets of the Vatican are estimated at $1 billion.
Harvard's endowment is $32 billion.
The Vatican's administrative staff is smaller than that of the University of Notre Dame.
Ok, forget pedophiles. How about Father Korapi? He had plenty of followers and still turned out to be a rotten egg. Should we hold him up as an exemplar of Catholic clergymen? Or would you say that is cherry picking a bad example that is not representative of the group?
Yep. Thanks for pointing this out. I have yet to see any anti-Catholics recognize these simple facts, and how preposterous the whole “Vatican wealth” line of attack is.
If you go back in time five seconds before he went rogue, that answer is assuredly YES.
Ain't irony grand?
How did they come up with that figure, and what is the total estimated wealth of the Catholic church? What did they estimate the Sistine Chapel art at, and who is the they that came up with a figure that so many sources and economists dispute and that strikes many people as laughable?
Nice try. But hey when you can’t win on merit you might as well deflect.
Another question, would a prudent billionaire be eager or hesitant to purchase the total assets of the Vatican for 1 billion dollars thinking purely of financial investment?
The monetary value of the Vatican and Catholic Churches around the world are FAR in excess of $1 billion.
Just the real estate of the Vatican is worth a $1 billion. Some articles put the Vaticans value at $10-$15 billion.
And is that billionaire willing to sell shares to co-investors?
Isn't that way outdated, isn't that 10-15 billion dollar figure from a Time magazine article from 1965 for instance?
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,833509,00.html
Dunno, there are a ton of articles and they all give different amounts.
I don’t know what the value is, but I feel very comfortable saying its more than $1 billion.
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