Joel Osteen

I really can't claim to be particularly religious.  Yet, I don't have anything against it.  To the contrary, I think it generally does more good than harm.  When I was younger though, I considered myself to be atheist.  But I had something of a change of heart.  Let's say if I were to categorize myself, I'd say at this point in my life that I am a non denominational non churchgoing Christian.  For some people, I might as well had said that I was an atheist again.

Anyway, this is a Sunday, which is a day set aside for church.  As I mentioned, I don't go to church.  Why not?  Church tended to bug me.  What the preachers said tended to annoy me.  Why put up with that?  But sometimes, I'll watch some of these preachers on TV.

I thought about this lately, that if there were a church that I'd go to, it might well be Lakewood.  Not that it is a superior church.  It's just that I watched Joel Osteen's sermons on TV a few times and he doesn't bug me.

The thought did occur to me that some religious folks would say that you need to be bugged a little.  You know, about sin and all that.   When I was young, this talk of sin did bug me, but as I got older, that stopped. But then some other thing did bug me.  I won't go into that here, though.  Generally speaking, just about anybody, if they talk enough, will say something that bugs me.  It so happens that in this interview, Joel Osteen did say a few things that bugged me.   I won't say what it was.  If you are a reader here, you might be able to guess.

But I don't agree with his critics all the time either.  His critics can be annoying as well.  Just goes to show you. If you open you mouth often enough, you are going to bug somebody sometime.

After reading the above linked article, my opinion of Lakewood Church and Joel Osteen remains more positive than negative.  But I don't think I'll be going to church anytime soon.