Megachurch pastor Joel Osteen was expected in court on Wednesday to attend the hearing of the hecklers who harassed him during a sermon last summer.
The Houston Chronicle reports the trial began earlier this week, and Osteen’s lawyers have filed a motion to keep him out of the court.
“They argue in court records that Osteen was too far from the disruption to see it and that the subpoena is just another way to harass the pastor,” according to the report.
Last summer, six hecklers walked through Lakewood Church, yelling, “Joel Osteen, you’re a liar!”
The men are members of the Church of Wells, whose manifesto reads:
In this hour of general apostasy – when the brethren of our Lord (on every hand) are committing themselves in unholy unions with infidels, when the table of the Lord is turned into the table of devils and the temple of God to a house of idols, when pastors, churches and professors define (and approve of) salvation and church behavior different from the book of Acts and the epistles of the New Testament, when there is more leaven in the church than there is sincerity and truth, when the faithful are scattered upon the desolate hills of hopelessness as sheep without a shepherd, when the wicked lift their unholy hands in our assemblies to praise a holy God, and no one thinks twice, no one considers their way – in this hour, I say, it is meet for those whom God has risen up as salt and light, so to salt the corruptions of their generation, and to turn the lights on in that great bedroom of adulteries (i.e. the professing church), if perhaps God would be pleased indeed to stem the tide, seal the breach, and resurrect His standard of righteousness which has long lain without a Church to bear it.
The six were charged with verbal assault. Their lawyer intends to put Osteen on the stand if given the chance.
“At the end of the day, what these guys did was go to a church and quote Scripture,” said defense attorney Jon Stephenson. “We don’t believe that’s a criminal act. … What one person might call a disruption, the other person might call that (what) God is telling them to do.”
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