Right-wing pastor Shane Vaughn of Mississippi’s First Harvest Ministries, who credited Donald Trump with the COVID relief bill that not a single Republican voted for, has just decided that accepting reality is a sin and that his followers shouldn’t go along with it.
In a video posted last week, he didn’t even bother pretending climate change was a hoax. He just said anyone who accepts it is going to spent eternity in Hell.
“Climate change is not scientific,” Vaughn said. “It is a religion. It is an anti-Christ religion that has taken over the minds of the world. In today’s lesson, I’m going to prove to you from God’s word that it is a sin to believe in the ideology and the religion of climate change.”
“Satan has deceived the whole world,” he added. “If you believe that mankind is causing climate change, you’re deceived by Satan. Do you know that the American West is withering as I speak to you right now? California is withering. Have you seen the levels of the lakes there? Folks, wake up America! Return to your God. Submit to Yahweh. Obey his commandments. Keep his sabbath holy. Give him his tithe. Walk circumspectly before him. Oh, hallelujah.”
“God causes these conditions,” Vaughn continued. “He controls the rain, the droughts, the famines, the floods. Do you know why we want to believe that climate change does this? It gives us the power. You scientists from the pits of Hell, how dare you take from Yahweh the sovereign right over the weather that he alone claims and he alone controls, you demonic demons from the cesspools of the abyss of Hell!”
By his logic, accepting climate change is evil because it suggests we have any control over the environment when, in his delusional mind, only God has that kind of power.
But you could say that about anything and see how useless it is. Why work if God will provide? Why care for others if you believe God is looking out for them? Why bother with a safety belt when driving or a parachute while skydiving if God protects you? It just doesn’t make any sense.
Christians could easily argue — and many have — that if God gave us this world, it’s our responsibility to care for it, and that means mitigating our contribution to the climate crisis. It doesn’t have to be a lost cause, but the situation is dire precisely because some people wrongly think it’s out of our control, some people purposely spread misinformation, and because ignorant preachers like Vaughn encourage the worst kinds of behavior in the name of Jesus.
(via Right Wing Watch)
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