The Co-Creator of 'Rick and Morty' Proved How Ridiculous Joel Osteen's Prayer Line Is

Justin Roiland of 'Rick and Morty' acted as Rick to find out more about Joel Osteen's prayer line but what he discovered was pretty weird.

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The controversy surrounding Joel Osteen and Lakewood, his Houston mega-church, is still making waves. Even though Osteen has categorically denied claims that he purposefully turned people away from taking shelter inside his church while Hurricane Harvey swept through Houston and destroyed everything in its path, many have not let up in criticizing Osteen for his delayed humanitarian response. Which is why Justin Roiland, co-creator of Rick and Morty just hilariously prank called the church on the latest episode of the H3 Podcast.

Roiland called the church’s prayer line armed with his best drunk Rick voice with the intention of getting through to Osteen himself, but instead spoke to a woman who presumably fields prayer line calls all day.

“I have a prayer I need to get off my chest,” Roiland begins. “I just was curious about Joel Osteen and I just wanted to pray for him. Is he around right now?”

“How does it work, the prayer line?” Roiland continues. “I have lots of money right now. I have 83,897 dollars right now for Joel Osteen and I’m ready to pray. Let’s pray together.”

The woman on the other end seems slightly confused at the call, but she also makes no effort to explain the prayer line to Roiland (and honestly I’d like an explanation too), and instead starts speaking gibberish. “Are you speaking in tongues?” Roiland asks. The lady then begins repeating the slightly ominous phrase “the blood of Jesus,” before diving again into speaking in tongues.

Roiland begins mimicking her, speaking in his own form of tongues, and, amazingly, she begins laughing at him. “I just made you laugh at your own ridiculousness,” Roiland says. Soon after that, the call goes on hold and that’s the last we hear of Osteen’s prayer line.

Before you start thinking this whole thing was just a silly PR stunt, Roiland was actually on the show to help out with H3’s efforts to raise money to donate to Hurricane Harvey victims. That single show raised over $120,000, which was donated to Direct Relief.

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