Joel Osteen abdication prankster ‘ready for battle’ — if the Lakewood Church megachurch pastor decides to sue him over Internet hoax
‘I feel too blessed, that life is too short to let things like this get you down,’ says Osteen.
JESSICA KOURKOUNIS/AP
Joel Osteen says he is "really not angry" at the man who perpetrated an Internet hoax that proclaimed the leader of Houston's Lakewood Church had become an atheist.
So far, Joel Osteen seems prepared to turn the other cheek.
The target of an elaborate internet hoax that tricked many people into believing that the charismatic leader of Lakewood Church had forsaken his Christian faith, Osteen refused to say whether he planned to take legal action against those responsible.
“You know, I’m really not angry. I don’t feel like a victim,” Osteen told ABC News. “I feel too blessed, that life is too short to let things like this get you down.”
In a coordinated April fool’s prank, a man who has so far remained anonymous launched a fake Osteen website, Twitter account, and YouTube video that detailed the megachurch pastor’s alleged abdication as the head of his Houston Texas ministry, as well as his conversion to atheism.
“I believe now that the Bible is a fallible, flawed, highly inconsistent history book that has been altered hundreds of times,” the false Osteen wrote in a statement posted to the website. “There is zero evidence the Bible is the holy word of God. In fact, there is zero evidence ‘God’ even exists.”
JOELOSTENMINISTRIES.COM
The target of an elaborate internet hoax that tricked many people into believing that the charismatic leader of Lakewood Church had forsaken his Christian faith, Osteen refused to say whether he planned to take legal action against those responsible for the online hoax.
The man behind the prank said it cost $12 and took just a few hours to put together, and that the point of the joke was “to stage, for a moment, a plausible scenario of his hypothetical resignation,” as well as “to somehow appear on The Daily Show so I can make one of my good friends jealous."
Still, the man said he is well aware that his efforts could invite a lawsuit.
"I could end up being in a lot of trouble," the prankster said in an email to NPR News, "but I am prepared and I have excellent legal counsel ready for battle."
With more than 20 bestselling books, and a church whose congregants number upwards of 45,000, Osteen says he is not letting the prank darken his outlook on life.
“You can’t stop everything from happening, but you can choose to say, ‘God, it’s in your hands’. I’m going to move forward. I’m going stay full of joy and I’m going enjoy this day,” Osteen told ABC.
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