“Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.”
There was a church in Mexico that foretold the imminent end of the world and the congregation worked themselves into a frenzy. When it didn't happen they of course had to come to terms with it. They decided that they must be very close to God for him to single them out and trick them that way.
That's, uhm, special. The usual retort...
Mr. Strang reflected on this question in a series of interviews last month.
He mused, âGod has plans and purposes we donât understand.â
This spring, the media mogul Stephen E. Strang made an unusual apology to readers in the pages of his glossy magazine.
Mr. Strang presides over a multimillion-dollar Pentecostal publishing empire, Charisma Media, which includes a daily news site, podcasts, a mobile app and blockbuster books. At 70, he is a C.E.O., publisher and seasoned author in his own right. Despite all that, Mr. Strang worried something had gone awry.
âIâve never been a prophet,â he wrote in a pleading March editorâs note. âBut there were a number of prophets who were very certain that Trump would be elected.â
This had not come to pass. Mr. Strang continued, âI hope that youâll give me the grace â and Charisma Media the grace â of missing this, in a manner of speaking.â
Over the past five years, he had hitched his professional fate to the Trump presidency, in a particularly cosmic way: promoting, almost daily, the claim that Trumpâs rise to power was predestined by God. Interviewed in Mr. Strangâs various platforms, a rotating cast of religious leaders spoke with mystic authority on this subject.
Where secular pundits were blindsided by Mr. Trumpâs 2016 victory, the prophets of Charisma had been right. And they predicted another sweeping victory for Mr. Trump in 2020. For Mr. Strang, the last year presented the following question: When you are in the business of prophecy, what do you do when prophecy fails? (...)
There was a church in Mexico that foretold the imminent end of the world and the congregation worked themselves into a frenzy. When it didn't happen they of course had to come to terms with it. They decided that they must be very close to God for him to single them out and trick them that way.
This spring, the media mogul Stephen E. Strang made an unusual apology to readers in the pages of his glossy magazine.
Mr. Strang presides over a multimillion-dollar Pentecostal publishing empire, Charisma Media, which includes a daily news site, podcasts, a mobile app and blockbuster books. At 70, he is a C.E.O., publisher and seasoned author in his own right. Despite all that, Mr. Strang worried something had gone awry.
âIâve never been a prophet,â he wrote in a pleading March editorâs note. âBut there were a number of prophets who were very certain that Trump would be elected.â
This had not come to pass. Mr. Strang continued, âI hope that youâll give me the grace â and Charisma Media the grace â of missing this, in a manner of speaking.â
Over the past five years, he had hitched his professional fate to the Trump presidency, in a particularly cosmic way: promoting, almost daily, the claim that Trumpâs rise to power was predestined by God. Interviewed in Mr. Strangâs various platforms, a rotating cast of religious leaders spoke with mystic authority on this subject.
Where secular pundits were blindsided by Mr. Trumpâs 2016 victory, the prophets of Charisma had been right. And they predicted another sweeping victory for Mr. Trump in 2020. For Mr. Strang, the last year presented the following question: When you are in the business of prophecy, what do you do when prophecy fails? (...)
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has joined forces with televangelist Jim Bakker for a 3-day telethon filled with election conspiracy theories and pleas for pillow purchases.
The telethon kickoff was aired Tuesday on KOZL, a station in Spingfield, Missouri.
"Mike is going to be with us for three days," Bakker announced. "It's a very unusual event to have a telethon."
The televangelist complained that "the enemy" had seized his bank accounts. He said that he needed the public to buy Lindell's Bible-themed pillows "just to stay alive." (...)
When Crisann Holmesâs employer announced last month that it would require all employees to be vaccinated against Covid-19 by Nov. 1, she knew she had to find a way out.
She signed a petition to ask the company to relax its mandate. She joined an informal protest, skipping work with other dissenting employees at the mental health care system where she has worked for two years. And she attempted a solution that many across the country are now exploring: a religious exemption.
âMy freedom and my childrenâs freedom and childrenâs childrenâs freedom are at stake,â said Ms. Holmes, who lives in Indiana. In August, she submitted an exemption request she wrote herself, bolstered by her own Bible study and language from sources online. Some vaccines were developed using fetal cell lines from aborted fetuses, she wrote, citing a remote connection to a practice she finds abhorrent. She quoted a passage from the New Testament: âLet us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit.â (...)
For many skeptics, resistance tends to be based not on formal teachings from an established faith leader, but an ad hoc blend of online conspiracies and misinformation, conservative media and conversations with like-minded friends and family members.
âPeople who have already made up their minds are now looking for ways to continue to exempt themselves from the Covid vaccine,â said Joshua Williams, a pediatrician and assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado. (...)
