Kanye West spoke at Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church this morning. Lakewood Church streamed the service live through its website and Facebook page. You can watch the embedded stream from Facebook here.
At one point, West broke into a passionate defense of Osteen against some in the Christian community who criticize his emphasis on positivity and prosperity. His remarks came in the middle of a section in which West was opining about the U.S. as a Christian nation.
“They’re attempting to take prayer out of schools,” West says. “When you remove the fear and love of God, you create the fear and love of everything else. … Reinstate the fear and love of God, and eliminate the fear and love of everything else. That slight difference of wording, I got that from Joel. Because there’s a lot of people in the Christian community that try to give Joel a hard time, because when you turn on the radio, he keeps on showing you how good God is. God is not the enemy. God is not the negative part. God is not just a perception of fire and brimstone. God is love. He’s the greatest. He’s glory. God is family. God is friendship. God is prosperity. Keep our eye on the sparrow. Keep your eye on the beauty and the love and the grace of God, the grace that allows us to be here today with all of our sins. We know that when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we know that we will be granted eternal life.”
“When you’ve got Kanye defending you, you’ve made it, man,” Osteen joked.
The service also featured a musical performance by Tauren Wells.
