Courtesy Gloria Copeland:<\/p>\n
An evangelical minister who advised President Donald Trump’s campaign sparked an uproar Tuesday by suggesting that Christian faith makes people immune from the flu.<\/p>\n
Texas minister Gloria Copeland, who sat on the Trump campaign\u2019s\u00a0evangelical executive advisory board<\/a>, denied the country is in the midst of a severe flu outbreak in a\u00a0Facebook video<\/a>\u00a0that went viral because, “Jesus himself is our flu shot. He redeemed us from the curse of the flu.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\n\n\n“We have a duck season, a deer season, but we don\u2019t have a flu season and don\u2019t receive it when someone threatens you with \u2018everybody is getting the flu,'” Copeland added. “We\u2019ve already had our shot: He bore our sicknesses and carried our diseases. That\u2019s what we stand on. And by his stripes we are healed.”<\/p>\n
Public health experts immediately panned the remarks while some other members of the evangelical board distanced themselves from the comments. [Politico<\/strong><\/a>]<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Which reminds me of all the various religious beliefs supposedly immunizing their, uh, believers from various real world consequences. When you’re living with a make-believe supernatural being, sometimes you just gotta have some tangible evidence that the supernatural being exists. Still, it’s hard to explain all those dead warriors who believed their religion would protect them from bullets.<\/p>\n
And it sure hurts when you run face-first into that pane of glass you just proclaimed wasn’t there. The sad thing? Gloria’s done this before:<\/p>\n
Back in 2013, the Texas megachurch run by televangelist Kenneth Copeland, a\u00a0member<\/a>\u00a0of President Trump\u2019s faith advisory council who recently became the proud owner of a Jesus-provided\u00a0private plane<\/a>, was at\u00a0the center<\/a>\u00a0of a\u00a0measles outbreak<\/a>\u00a0that was attributed to the church\u2019s belief that congregants\u00a0can forego vaccines because\u00a0Jesus\u00a0will\u00a0protect\u00a0them\u00a0from illness. [Right Wing Watch<\/strong><\/a>]<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The only thing she learned was that you \u00a0have to deny the scientific statistics<\/em> when they come a-callin’. The next step is to suggest that everyone who does fall ill isn’t really a Christian. In the silty, sterile lake of these tinny religious zealots, that’ll cause a real ruckus.<\/p>\n
[h\/t Steve Benen on Maddowblog<\/strong><\/em><\/a>]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Courtesy Gloria Copeland: An evangelical minister who advised President Donald Trump’s campaign sparked an uproar Tuesday by suggesting that Christian faith makes people immune from the flu. Texas minister Gloria Copeland, who sat on the Trump campaign\u2019s\u00a0evangelical executive advisory board, denied the country is in the midst of a severe \u2026 Continue reading