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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