Update (8/30/17): Joel Osteen made the rounds on the network morning shows Wednesday to further address questions about Lakewood Church's response to Harvey. He joined CBS This Morning to explain why the church initially just served as a "distribution center," rather than a shelter:

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He added he's not that concerned with his Twitter critics:

And later, he offered a barrage of reasons on the TODAY show for the delay in opening up as a shelter:

The original post is below.

Harvey has spawned tales of heroism and self-sacrifice as the Houston area deals with an incomprehensible volume of rain and flooding. But, of course, there's always the possibility of the opposite. Megachurch pastor Joel Osteen came under fire on social media when initial reports held that his Lakewood Church, a 16,800-seat arena formerly home to the Houston Rockets, had shuttered its doors to those in need. Osteen, his detractors maintained, thought he could get away with just tweeting about the storm:

As his Twitter tormentors reminded him, Osteen has made a fortune on the backs of a flock he's promised to shepherd to worldly success and extra-worldly paradise. The good preacher is apparently worth upwards of $50 million, and after a long day of evangelizing, he puts his feet up in a $10.5 million house—just like Jesus said he should. Some did not forget this.

Others just called Osteen's general inaction a betrayal of the Christian values he's known to espouse:

The church's first response was to hop on Facebook and explain that the church was "inaccessible" due to flooding.

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But Houstonians immediately did some reporting from the scene and found that there was no observable flooding outside the church:

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Osteen then upped his damage control game, releasing an additional statement:

"We have never closed our doors. We will continue to be a distribution center for those in need. We are prepared to house people once shelters reach capacity. Lakewood will be a value to the community in the aftermath of this storm in helping our fellow citizens rebuild their lives."

Lakewood Church and some Osteen followers mounted a simultaneous initiative to prove the inside of the church had experienced flooding.

And it does now appear that Lakewood is preparing to accept Harvey victims when other shelters reach capacity:

So, depending on where you stand, maybe this was just a communications mix-up. Maybe Team Osteen really did think the arena was inaccessible—though they got inside the church pretty quickly to take pictures of what they claimed was water damage inside. And maybe Lakewood really did always plan to be a "distribution center" that would ultimately take on displaced people in desperate need of refuge. Or, you know, maybe it took a public shaming for an obscenely rich pastor to help people in need.

For some background on the cadre of preachers to which Osteen belongs, here's John Oliver:

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Jack Holmes
Senior Staff Writer

Jack Holmes is a senior staff writer at Esquire, where he covers politics and sports. He also hosts Unapocalypse, a show about solutions to the climate crisis.