What would his sheep think? < /sarcasm
Posted on 08/06/2008 12:49:28 PM PDT by Gamecock
Can a crankiness land you in court? The case of Sandra Brown v. Victoria Osteen is the story of a chance encounter on an airplane that turned into a nasty legal battle.
Osteen is the wife of popular self-help author and television minister Joel Osteen, who heads the Lakewood Church, Houston's largest congregation. Brown is a flight attendant for Continental Airlines.
The lawsuit, filed in Harris County Civil Court in Houston, alleges that Victoria Osteen "shoved, grabbed and pulled the flight attendants." The suit goes on to claim that Osteen elbowed Brown, who was the flight manager, while allegedly trying to get into the cockpit of the airplane.
Brown's attorney, Reginald McKamie, contends that Osteen has a dark side that the trial will expose.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
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Suspect someone is looking for a payday.
I wish MEchell O would do something like this...
Don’t know which of my many prejudices should win out on this one.
Osteen gives me the creeps. He is the Reverand Ike what Pat Boone was to Little Richard.
I mean seriously, Christmas and Easter are kind of "the big show" in his line of work.............
Nah. Only in the Christian church.
Church of the Feel Good...
Dr. Charles Allen on Christmas morning at First Methodist in Houston .. early 80's. Best opening line I've ever heard to a sermon ...
He started with
As I was saying last year ...
Ha - that is classic!
I’m one of the few who neither bought or read his book.
I haven’t either.
My son and his family goes to one of these types of churches in the DFW area. I call it The Touchy Feelgood Social Club and church. I've only heard them talk about the kids sports program, VBS, carnival and the church's pre-school. Never heard them say one word about the tenets of the church itself.
Me three....heard him in an interview...not much substance there IMHO.
Never read it either. I’ve watched him (with pepto-bismol in hand) a few times. Kinda like Barney or a car crash. You don’t want to watch, but it’s such a travesty that you can’t turn away.
They are Christian Innoculation Centers. People go there to receive weekly vaccinations so they won’t come down with the real thing.
Ohhhh. Subtle shot!
Appy, in all fairness, our church isn’t exactly following the rules these days... or should I say my “former” church.
I’ve heard things about this woman, but I do not know her.
I know what I have heard Joel say about her and it seems he sugar coats her. For instance, they were walking in their neighborhood and she was really insistent they live in a big house like their neighbors. Eventually they did and he put it as “she had the faith to get us there”. I heard “She nagged me until I made sure my beauty queen wife got what she wanted”
Of course I was not there...
Victoria’s Secret as she claims: “Some say that I’m just a cranky B!ch....but I’m not cranky”!
I would imagine that most used car salesmen don't work on Xmas, so why should Osteen?
I guess that’s kind of like Obama saying he doesn’t give his girls Christmas gifts...... why would he? ;^)
We went to a bookstore where he was doing a signing. I was asked if I was there for the signing, and when I said no they looked at me as if I had 2 heads. I had no idea who he was.
LOL “Co-pastor” Barbie.
If it were down to their brand of Christianity® or Nothing, I’d pick Nothing.
You bring up the co-pastor thing - I don’t get that. It seems most televangelists have their wife included as a two-fer. You don’t see the President of any large corporation bringing along is wife as a co-president.... are these wives that full of themselves that they need to be included???
Name it and claim it baby! According to these knuckleheads Jesus was rich, rich, rich. They would call Paul out for his lack of faith for winding up in prison and getting his head loped off. Do a “jerico” march around your neighbors house and God will give it to ya....yeee haw! Send me some money and I’ll tell ya how it works.
I heard the Osteen thing described like this:
The traditional church was about not offending God;
The liberal church was about not offending your neighbor;
Osteen is about not offending your navel.
I wonder if she has been nagging him to purchase their own private jet so as to avoid all the hoi polloi when they want to fly off for a vacation. Like Ken Copeland, Joel should tell his congregation of the gullible that, “God told me He wants you all to buy me the latest Gulfsteam!”
All those big churches are scams as far as I’m concerned. I’m sure they help some in the community, but Crefflo Dollar, Joel Osteen, Ken Copeland, etc... live in luxery that most can only dream of.
They seem to ignore that part about the camel and needle.
If those guys earned their riches in an honest way that did not make merchandise of Christians or use the Gospel as means of gain, or if they inherited it, that would be fine.
Similar story from an Easter service. The priest welcomed the large crowd wishing a safe trip home for the out of town guests, then he said, “for those of you living in Lufkin, we do this EVERY Sunday!”
Absolutely! This flight attendants good fortune would likely fall inline with Joel's teachings on the "Prosperity Gospel" ... friends at his church tell me that Joel says we are to "demand the land" from God ... hmmm ... "demand?" not in my Bible.
I did manage to find a small non dom church about a half hour away from my home that made me feel at home the moment I stepped through the door....on my way to that church I pass a mega church that is the sized of a football stadium and I think they have shuttle buses in the parking lot with a back up on the freeway of cars waiting to get into the church...no thanks
Exactly. I have no problem with people getting rich. I do have a problem with people getting rich from selling Jesus. Salvation is not a product to be marketed like soap or deodorant. The Osteens should sell all that they have and give it to the poor.
The priest in our little parish will never be mistaken for a rich man. His opinion is that no congregation should be larger than five hundred members, because that number is around the maximum that a pastor can know personally.
Evangelical megachurches and cults-of-personality are a fad that won’t last, thank God.
Exactly. They got rich off of the business of the church and tax free I might add. How would you like to be rich enough to live in a literal mansion, private jets, numerous cars and not have to pay income tax? Sweet deal.
They pay income tax, as does every citizen with an income above a certain level.
The 501c(3) Religious tax exemption deals with the Church Corporation assets, not any of it's paid staff.
That's not to say that the Osteens don't have a bunch of accountants arranging for them to write off a large part of their income, but Mega-Church ministers are hardly unique in that behaviour.
The jet-in church’s name.
The cars- in church’s name.
Etc...
Tax exempt.
As they should be if the Church owns them. Not unique to ministers.
Funny, why weren't they using the Church Jet that day?
I was talking about mega churches in general.
Not if they structure things right. The salary would be taxable at normal rates, but not the housing allowance, the car allowance, the library allowance. I'm not sure how the cell phone allowance is treated.
For many pastors, half to 2/3 of the compensation is not taxable as income. And they can opt out of Social Security taxes.
In other words they pay taxes. They are not exempt. That was the point, and i am happy that you conceded it in that statement.
i am certainly no fan of mega churches. In the small city that i live in which is about 30 miles North of Pittsburgh, there are several churches. None could be classified as mega churches, but until the mid 1970's many of those churches had memberships of 1,200-1,500. Many of the larger denominational churches (and to this day many Catholic parishes in the Diocese of Pittsburgh) had memberships that would classify them as Mega churches by today's standards.
i think that it is more of an attitude that congregations such as Saddleback, or Willow Creek project than it is their raw numbers. Frankly, we don't need the pastor of some "successful" congregation telling me how i can increase my membership, and that i should increase the membership for (fill in the blank) reason. They need to remember that it is God who gives the increase, and some gardens are bigger than others.
The minister's job is to plant, weed, and water.
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