By no means am I defending Mr. Osteen but I will retort on some of the points presented:
1) The dude makes money, lots of money. His church can seat like the population of Bangladesh (just kidding). No doubt he passes the plate. But, I’ve seen him several times and never heard him say during his sermons, “Give me money”. Of course, there is usually a commercial afterwards in which they try to sell you stuff, but I have never heard him mention giving money during a sermon. He also sells lots of books, of which I’ve even bought a few for my fundie relatives.
2) The God grants wishes/Book of Job paradox. We see this all the time where people say if you pray God will deliver: which has never been proven to consistently happen. What does happen is bad stuff happens to some and not others. What this becomes from the religious society perspective is that when bad things happen, it’s because people deserved it or were not faithful enough. You see this in urban legends about miracles. You see this in disasters. The funny (paradox) part of this, is when the truly faithful have something bad happen they dismiss it as “God has a plan” or some such nonsense, which Osteen is definitely a part of. However, once you get past that you reach the Taoist view that tomorrow may be better or it might not be, but whatever it is, it simply is. Joel just paints it as “It WILL be better (as long as you believe in God)”. For that, I partially agree with him: it may be better, or worse, or the same, but it’s not because you believe in the Bible.
3) I saw the interview where they pretty much put the thumbscrews to him to admit how he felt about homosexuality. No, I’m not blaming the media, he does truly feel this way, but it definitely seemed like he didn’t want to admit it out loud. But in that interview, he said he also doesn’t hate gays. He has that compassion viewpoint to save them, but he admitted he doesn’t hate them. The guy is full of love, even for those that in his perspective are sinners, which I think is actually refreshing in comparison to Phelps.
All in all, he is still a truly devout evangelist who thinks most of the people who post here will burn in eternal hellfire. He milks his congregation and viewers for a ton of cash, for which, like most televangelists, seems to spend a large amount on some damn fine suits. He thinks people not like him are sinners who will suffer God’s wrath if they don’t repent. But I still cannot disagree when he says things like “Be nice to others”, or “Listen to other’s problems if they are having a bad day”, or “Don’t worry, be happy”.