You could not make this shit up
Televangelist: Don’t Bother Getting a Flu Shot Since Jesus Got One For All Of Us
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.I don't think preachers (or most sheeple) literally believe their own BS. A lot of these pronouncements come from the constant pressure to come up with provocative and entertaining blather for sometimes several weekly sermons. Pastors live or die by whether their parishoners find them boring and uninspiring. These guys have to keep hurling these "idea boulders" into the metaphorical lake, making lots of frothy waves, on a regular basis. The result is crazy talk like this. I doubt in any given church of 1000 people that more than zero listeners would actually not get their flu shots unless they never intended to for other reasons. For most, this is just another shitty argument for not inconveniencing themselves for the time and/or $$ to make it happen.
mordant
Level 8
Jan 23, 2019
0
"I doubt in any given church of 1000 people that more than zero listeners would actually not get their flu shots unless they never intended to for other reasons."
Sadly history is not on your side on this, polio was almost completely wiped out in the 1980s, until evangelical churches began preaching that vaccines interfered with the will of god, leading to simultaneous outbreaks in the USA, South America Africa and Europe. I took another 15 years to get the disease back under control and it was only last year that Polio was declared as eradicated.
People do listen to insane proclamations like this, church opposition to condoms is why AIDS is still not under control in Africa, why over population is still out of control in many poverty stricken areas who still believe God Will Provide, even when it obviously does not.
@LenHazell53 Points taken. It may be that I'm not up to speed on how far the evangelical world has deteriorated in these regards. I can say that in my day (1980s and before), this sort of thing was confined to the charismatic / pentecostal / televangelist wing and it did not seem to impact people as much as one would think. I was not personally acquainted with anyone who curtailed medical treatments on religious advice. The only examples I actually saw was a distrust of mental health care, the feeling being that mental problems including depression were caused by neglecting your spiritual life and that Real Christians did not have personal problems. And I was never sure how much of this was due to the church and how much of it was cultural.
@mordant
Excellent analysis.
My own mother got mixed up with the charismatic movement and stopped wearing her glasses after a "healing".
it was honestly like something from a Monty Python sketch as she staggered about bumping in to things and falling over them, until my father threatened to divorce her if she did not put her glasses back on.
At which point she burst in to tears lamenting that her faith was so weak as to undo her "blessing".
Those crazies drive me to distraction.
I’m from the Charlotte area, so Jim Bakker was a local presence in my youth; he and Tammy Faye took credit for starting ‘xtian broadcasting’ and people like Copeland. It’s hard to believe he’s right back to grifting on TV after serving federal time for fraud.
CarolinaGirl60
Level 8
Jan 22, 2019
1
I think my favourite is a U Tube video I saw of a female televangelist pacing about in one of those new megachurches in front of thousands of semi hysterical followers saying " God created the universe and he loves me". Pass the sick bag please ?.
@Moravian Selfish and self-centered, right?! I’ve heard xtians pray for some bizarre things: for their husband to shoot a deer, to be rich, the fall of enemies, and even—no lie—for a bowel movement. Though I kind of get that last one, I guess, lol. That was a patient I had in home health, poor thing.
And if by coincidence they get their wish: more proof of how much god loves them.
@CarolinaGirl60 well they are certainly full of shit so that figures.
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