Florida megachurch pastor advised his congregants not to receive a COVID-19 vaccine

A prominent Florida megachurch pastor has advised his congregants not to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, urging them to “believe in divine immunity” instead.

Guillermo Maldonado, founding pastor of the Miami-based King Jesus International Ministry and a loyal supporter of President Donald Trump, shared already debunked claims from the pulpit on Sunday about the vaccine altering DNA and being used to track people down.

The Pentecostal preacher imbued those conspiracy theories with religious significance by connecting them to his beliefs about the end of the world. Pointing to verses from the Bible’s Book of Revelation, Maldonado suggested that the coronavirus vaccine would help lay the groundwork for the coming of the Antichrist.

“Do not [take] the vaccine. Believe in the blood of Jesus. Believe in divine immunity,” Maldonado said in a bilingual sermon that was translated live and streamed on Facebook.

He also claimed God had warned him about a “satanic global agenda” that is trying to establish one worldwide religion and bring the Christian church under governmental control ― an idea that echoes decades-old conspiracy theories about a global elite secretly working to create a “new world order.”

“They want to stop President Trump because he’s against that agenda,” Maldonado said.

King Jesus International Ministry did not respond to HuffPost’s request for clarification.

The Miami megachurch is where the Trump campaign launched its “Evangelicals for Trump” coalition in January. The church reportedly received between $2 million and $5 million in forgivable loans under federal rescue legislation designed to help small businesses during the coronaviruspandemic.

Maldonado has become something of a celebrity preacher in certain Latinx evangelical circles, in large part because of his televangelism and his books. King Jesus International Ministry is believed to be one of the largest Hispanic churches in the country, attracting thousands to its services in pre-pandemic times. Its network is boosted by several affiliated congregations around the country ― and by the over 800,000 people who follow Maldonado on Facebook.

Members of Maldonado’s church will likely be influenced by his anti-vaccine teachings, according to Lloyd D. Barba, an assistant professor of religion at Amherst College and an expert on Latinx Christian communities.

“When a preacher with his stature mixes conspiracy theory with end time speculation and claims to have heard directly from God on social-political matters, it becomes exceedingly difficult for the faithful in the pews to discern between what is scripture, social commentary, political fantasy, and outright conspiracy,” Barba told HuffPost. “In fact, the parsing out of those elements is discouraged.”

President Donald Trump embraces Guillermo Maldonado during a rally of evangelical supporters at the King Jesus International Ministry church in Miami on Jan. 3, 2020. (Photo: AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

In March, as local authorities across the country started to call for shutdowns to combat COVID-19, Maldonado faced backlash for suggesting that truly faithful believers wouldn’t be afraid to attend church in person.

The preacher’s more recent anti-vaccine statements reflect beliefs that aren’t necessarily fringe in Latinx evangelical communities, Barba said. Maldonado is part of the New Apostolic Reformation, a global movement of Pentecostal leaders who see themselves as a “remnant” destined to guide the world in the end times by advancing the establishment of the kingdom of God. The leaders seek to wield social and political influence to accomplish that.

Bible verses about the “mark of the beast,” which Maldonado pointed to in his Sunday sermon, warn Christians about a future where the Antichrist takes over the world economy and prevents people who don’t have that mark from buying or selling food. Some Pentecostals have long speculated that the mark of the beast would appear on earth as a vaccine or microchip designed for human implantation.

These beliefs prompt Christians like Maldonado to see compulsory public health measures as evidence of a scheme to advance a “one-world” government that will set the stage for Christian persecution during the end times.

Maldonado’s latest sermon fell shy of saying that the vaccine will be the way that the mark of the beast is administered, Barba said, but the preacher was alluding to such a possibility.

“Christians are supposed to do all they can to resist the mark of the beast (whenever that happens) and by extension should also resist any harbingers of it. That’s exactly what this vaccine symbolizes for Maldonado,” Barba said.

Faith leaders, including Maldonado (far left), pray over Trump during an "Evangelicals for Trump" coalition launch at King Jesus International Ministry on Jan. 3, 2020. (Photo: AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Maldonado’s approach to COVID-19 is also shaped by the prosperity gospel, a teaching that is “massively popular” among Latinx Pentecostals, Barba said. The prosperity gospel suggests that wealth and good health are signs of God’s favor. There’s an emphasis on divine healing and God’s constant protection ― even during a pandemic that has disproportionately impacted Latinx communities.

The coronavirus has proved to be a “pressure point” for this strain of evangelical belief, Barba said.

“The fact that they have not been able to control the pandemic in their own churches and in this country challenges the teachings of divine healing and control over the ‘evil’ elements in this world such as the virus,” he said.

Miami-Dade County, where King Jesus International Ministry is based, has seen more than 240,000 COVID-19 cases and nearly 4,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus tracker.

The Florida Department of Health has recorded over 1 million coronavirus cases ― the third-highest case count in the country. More than 19,000 Floridians have died from the virus.

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

Related...

Florida Megachurch Cancels Services Amid Coronavirus Outbreak [UPDATE]

Supreme Court Orders Review Of California's Coronavirus Restrictions For Churches

Associate Pastor Of Church That Defied California COVID-19 Regulations Has Died

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

Op Ed: THIS IS GREAT! A megachurch super spreader kill thousands of MAGAts,  This asshole has 800,000 Twitter followers who will probably follow Maldonado's lies and not get the vaccine. There will be COVID-19 hot spots all over Trumpistan for many years to come. The Surge is a Purge!  

Thanksgiving travel will make current Covid surge worse

WASHINGTON — Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government's leading infectious disease expert, warned that the travel-heavy Thanksgiving holiday could make the current surge in Covid-19 cases even worse as the nation heads into December.

Appearing on NBC News' “Meet the Press” Sunday, Fauci said that public health officials “tried to get the word out for people, as difficult as it is, to really not have large gatherings” during the holiday due to concerns that the celebrations could exacerbate the coronavirus spread.

What we expect, unfortunately, as we go for the next couple of weeks into December, is that we might see a surge superimposed on the surge we are already in,” he said.

“I don’t want to frighten people except to say it’s not too late at all for us to do something about this,” he added, urging Americans to be careful when they travel back home and upon arriving, and to take proven steps like social distancing and wearing masks.

It can sometimes take two weeks for infected people to develop symptoms, and asymptomatic people can spread the virus without knowing they have it. So Fauci said the “dynamics of an outbreak” show a three-to-five-week lag between serious mitigation efforts and the actual curbing of infection rates.

While the first wave of vaccinations could start in America within a matter of weeks, Fauci said that, for now, “we are going to have to make decisions as a nation, state, city and family that we are in a very difficult time, and we’re going to have to do the kinds of restrictions of things we would have liked to have done, particularly in this holiday season, because we’re entering into what’s really a precarious situation.”

Covid-19 cases and deaths in the U.S. have been accelerating in recent weeks. There have been more than 4 million cases and 35,000 deaths attributed to the virus in the month of November alone. Overall, America has had 13.3 million coronavirus cases and 267,000 deaths attributable to the virus, according to an NBC News analysis.

Despite a mid-November warning from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention encouraging Americans not to travel during Thanksgiving, air travel broke pandemic records, with 6.8 million people traveling through airports in the seven days ahead of the holiday.

The already accelerating caseload, combined with the potential for another surge of cases, comes as hospitals across the country are sounding the alarm about overloading the system’s capacity.

Fauci said that he is concerned about the nation’s hospitals, noting that he received calls last night from colleagues across the country “pleading for advice” amid the “significant stresses on the hospital and health care delivery systems.”

While he explicitly said he was not calling for a national lockdown, Fauci said at the local level, Americans could “blunt” the surge’s effects on the hospital system by taking mitigation steps “short of locking down so we don’t precipitate the necessity of locking down.”

The surge in cases comes amid promising news about a coronavirus vaccine, with both public health officials and the federal government planning to begin the first wave of vaccinations in December. Fauci said that while the “exact” recommendations for scheduling groups to receive vaccinations have not been finalized, “health care workers are going to be among” those first in line for the vaccines.

He pointed to the country’s success in distributing annual flu vaccines as “the reason we should feel more confident” about the ability to send the needed vaccine across America.

“The part about 300 million doses getting shipped is going to get taken care of by people who know how to do that,” he said. "The part at the distal end, namely, getting it into people’s arms, is going to be more challenging than a regular flu season, it would be foolish to deny that. But I think it’s going to be able to get done because the local people have done that in the past. Hopefully, they’ll get the resources to help them to do that.”

OpEd: Americans know what the right thing to do is.They know traveling to get togethers is foolish, selfish and dangerous but they do it anyway. Let those fuckers get sick and die. Insurance companies should refuse to pay for their treatment. The surge is a purge! 

More From NBC Universal:

• Fauci warns Thanksgiving travel could make current Covid surge worse
• Top scientist seen as architect of Iran's nuclear weapons program assassinated
• When he leaves office, can ex-President Trump be trusted with America's national security secrets?

Last updated: November 30, 2020, 00:41 GMT

 United States

Coronavirus Cases:

13,747,671

Deaths:

273,072