Megachurch pastor Josh Howerton has responded to criticism over the excessive use of surveillance security measures in his church buildings, saying his church’s goal is to be “the safest place in Texas when we gather for worship.”
Howerton is the senior pastor of Lakepointe Church, a 30,000-member multi-campus congregation in Rockwall, Texas. Nathan Apffel of The Religion Business recently called out Howerton on social media, noting the supposed hypocrisy of his “pro-America, pro-freedom, pro-free expression” stance while denouncing the government’s use of mass surveillance.
“What we’ve uncovered inside Josh’s megachurch runs antithetical to everything he and the Blaze preach. Lakepointe leverages a cutting edge AI powered security and surveillance system called Coram. The website states their technology quote, identifies bad actors. You can search, flag and track license plates. You can enforce compliance and search video feeds instantly. Coram’s facial recognition can quote, in real time identify persons of interest and track them.”
Apffel agrees that “public institutions, schools, churches, or businesses should have professional security protocols in place” (editor’s note: all of which are clients of Coram), but that Lakepointe reportedly has 400 cameras and questions that level of monitoring.
“Who at Lakepointe decides who these bad actors are? Who decides to what extent the technology is used to quote, enforce compliance of congregants? And who sees these video feeds?
He concludes by suggesting there is some inconsistency between having these cameras and opposing mass surveillance in a free society, noting, “What I just described is a perfect example of single-source authoritarian socialism while they preach freedom.”
The response to the critique has been overwhelmingly negative, however, with the majority of commenters pulling apart the incongruence of the concerns.
Howerton agrees.
Responding to the critique, he points out that they have many cameras because they have hundreds of thousands of feet to cover across multiple buildings and properties, and that many of the people complaining about churches needing to be safe are the same people grumbling about the extent they go to ensure they actually are.
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10 responses to “Megachurch Pastor Josh Howerton Defends Use of ‘400 AI-powered Surveillance Cameras’”
That church could just put a large sighn out! Visiors not welcome . would be a lot cheaper and they would only hsve to deal with their own sinners comming.
The problem is that some of the preemptive, preventative measures cross the line into presumption of guilt. At which point it becomes a matter of bearing false witness and making false accusation. If cameras are just recording for defensive purposes and as a deterrent, then that’s fine. But when the systems start flagging “persons of interest”, particularly using worldly standards that are not defined by God, that’s when you run into trouble. If the pharisees had such systems, tracking that threatening “person of interest” named Jesus, according to their worldly “commandments of men” and “traditions of men”, would’ve overloaded the servers and melted down the processors. Same goes for the Apostles. You talk about “persons of interest”, they were persons of interest. Right? We must never set aside what God says is right and wrong. And fear is not an excuse. Trust in the Lord is absolutely critical. It is key. Without it, one will head down the wrong path and do wrong, guaranteed.
The argument about whether or not it is private property does have some merit. But I’d also advise those who defaulted to that argument to stop and consider the fact that the only real major difference between communism and fascism is who owns the property on paper. I wouldn’t be too quick to fall back on that private property argument. As Christians our focus must be on what God says is right and wrong regardless of whether or not it is private or public. His standards are not dependent on such factors. His standards don’t change just because something is private or public. We would do well to remember this.
[…] Megachurch Pastor Josh Howerton Defends Use of ‘400 AI-powered Surveillance Cameras’ […]
Makes me happy i live where i live .I can drive a hundred miles and be the only car on the state rd. No traffic lights either .nearest ones are over 50 miles away.
Must be part of their beliefs security cameras and cops Human stuff ,can keep them safe. In my bible it most certainly says God is the one that brings calamity . So i doubt all that going to help them much, if God decides to do that.
Why lutheran pastors think its important for lutherans to know that God is the one that brings us calamity. Simply because we know that we know our fate is in Gods Good hands .Not the devil his evil hand who wants, disater to befall us to destroy our saving faith in Jesus. If were brought up knowing why its God that brings disaster on us . for our Good to bring us home ,or to be there for others who at the time are facing it. and the other good reasons scripture tells us. We can face tommorow much more easly thsn the ones eho dont know that Jesus lives as the hymn says. May be some one moderator will See this and read his bible to see if it so. if not my writing still benefits me ..Because i see in reading my bible daily other places that remind of this too.
WELS IN THE NEWS – WELS. …….. Just is news from secular news orgs about Wels. you can find that on your browser .. Secular or some baptist/pentecostal type news organizations would be the ones who would write articles where the public finds out the bad things one of our Lutheran church congregations or pastors or other christian pastor or priest or their congregations did. … ..
On reddit the ones that hate wels lutherans Churchs that honestly are familar with us , are former wels members that have homosexual or transsexual wants or agendas and dont like to be told thats sin. Yet they seem ok with wels saying murder is sinful. or getting drunk is sinful or all the other things scripture also says is sinful. ive gotten drunk and done other wrong things that scripture and wels churchs says is wrong . .i think thats what a church is suppose to do step on your toes a little . by saying your wrong rather than loving you all the way to hell . but its no fun being told its sin at the time when your having fun doing wrong things
So much ado over nothing. This fallen world is full of godless, evil people intent on harming others. More cameras, please.
[…] If you knew your pastor (and church staff) could monitor your every move, would you still attend? What would you do? According to Baptist News Global, such use of artificial intelligence could be described as “a sacralized dystopia.” Howerton, however, had a much different take and view on the issue. He responded that these surveillance security measures haven’t been created to form a new society or cause strife, but to make Lakepoint Church “the safest place in Texas when we gather for worship” (Protestia). […]