Pastor Rick Joyner, Who Said the U.S. Was Defeating COVID with Prayer, Has COVID

Back in March, right-wing pastor Rick Joyner, the head of MorningStar Ministries, claimed that the United States and South Korea had the lowest COVID-19 death rates in the world because those two countries “are the two strongest nations in prayer.”

That wasn’t true… but that’s what he said.

Since that time, South Korea has seen a grand total of 468 COVID deaths while the U.S. (“We’re #1”) has topped 236,000 deaths.

Prayer obviously isn’t the problem. (Give at least some credit to people who pray who tipped the 2016 election in favor of an ignorant buffoon and his Republican supporters.)

But Joyner’s basic premise was that prayer was a way to defeat the virus.

That’s going to be shocking to (*checks notes*) Rick Joyner, who just tested positive for COVID.

We would like to thank all those who are offering their prayers of intercession for this upcoming election and for all the friends of MorningStar who are also praying for Rick as he was diagnosed with Covid-19. Rick has always been a champion and an overcomer. We are confident Rick will completely recover soon and has stated that he has been feeling better. We want our supporters to know that Rick is being watched over by his wife and medical professionals on an hourly basis and is improving. Thank you for your prayers and we are confident that Rick will have a full recovery. We would like to especially ask for all of our friends to please restrain the urge to contact his family at this time, as it distracts them from the focused attention of caring for Rick. We are looking forward to keeping in communication as Rick’s health improves.

I hope he gets better because I’m not a monster. This virus isn’t a joke, or a hoax, or something that can easily be overcome with some magical drug. There’s no safe vaccine just yet. But I hope that when he’s back on his feet, he recognizes how people like him led others to make riskier decisions that perpetuated the pandemic.

I’m especially curious how he may have caught it, and if it happened at a Christian event where precautions were ignored. No word on that just yet. But his church just held a Sunday service yesterday where people crowded into an indoor space with no social distancing and no masks.

(Thanks to Kyle for the link)