An evangelical megachurch pastor who operates in President Donald Trump’s backyard in South Florida is urging his congregation to show up anyway in defiance of warnings from health officials to stay home in order to slow down or prevent the spread of coronavirus.
Trump has repeatedly downplayed the threat posed by coronavirus, even once calling it a “hoax” and claiming that it’s less dangerous than the flu, a claim that has been thoroughly debunked by the statistics.
For instance, Trump has tried to compare the coronavirus to the H1N1 flu epidemic from 2009, but that flu only carried a mortality rate of .002 percent. The coronavirus mortality rate in the United States currently stands at around 1.75 percent, which is much higher.
But King Jesus International Ministry pastor Guillermo Maldonado, who once hosted an “Evangelicals for Trump” rally, is fully on board with Trump’s lies to the point that he is calling for his flock to attend services despite the risk and an emergency declaration by the city of Miami.
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“Do you believe God would bring his people to his house to be contagious with the virus? Of course not,” pastor Guillermo Maldonado shamed the congregation, according to the Miami Herald after seeing fewer people at the service than usual.
He then declared that his followers should risk death to attend church because they would be dying for Jesus. Seriously.
“This service is usually packed,” he continued. “So now they’re home in a cave afraid of the virus, that you want to transmit the virus. If we die, we die for Christ. If we live, we live for Christ, so what do you lose? Do you mean you call me irresponsible for bringing the people of God to the House of God where the power and the presence of God is?”
The better question is why does Maldonado want to sacrifice members of his flock on the altar during a pandemic? This virus is highly contagious and that’s why large gatherings are not a good idea.
It should be pointed out that fewer people in the pews means less money being placed in the collection plate, which means Maldonado’s lifestyle would take a hit.
Perhaps that’s why he appeared to threaten parishioners that if they don’t show up they won’t be cured by God.
“Come in and receive your healing, or stay home and miss out,” he wrote in a since-deleted Facebook post.
One of the other pastors at the church even admitted it.
“Now is not the time to hold back your giving, now is not the time to hold back your tithe, because if you do that, you could be like one of those who one day had, and now a few weeks later, a few days later, have nothing,” Pastor Frank Hechavarria said. “Your economy is not the economy of the world. You operate in a higher economy and the economy of the kingdom of God.”
People should be saving their money during this crisis instead of giving it away. But if Maldonado and Hechevarria didn’t fleece their flock they wouldn’t be able to put as much in their own bank accounts. It’s not the “Kingdom of God” people are funding. They are funding the lifestyles of their pastors and being made to believe that doing so will grant them God’s protection and blessing. It’s a racket, and a particularly dangerous one at that because of the crisis our country faces.
The public health is more important than enriching church leaders, and everyone would be wise and better off staying at home instead of risking infection or infecting others. Because the thing they stand to lose is their lives or the lives of those they love.
Featured image via screen capture
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