“Trump will be dead and gone before I am”

That’s a bold statement.

Speaking of U.S. Evangelicals, where are all the millionaire faith healers at?

Is Benny Hinn healing sick patients in Dallas/Ft Worth hospitals yet, the ones not too far from his multi-million dollar compound? He could use is private jet to reach COVID-19 hotspots with comfort and ease.

It doesn’t take a vision to see what effect a pandemic is going to have on an institution that depends heavily on weekly gatherings of people in a single place. FWIW I bailed my 401k out of the stock market three days before it plummeted 20% too, but I do not profess any special insights there either, just a failure to believe an all-time high stock market is compatible with pandemic conditions (a positions I still hold even after the market’s recent recovery).

We’ve already see a decline in the number of Americans who flock to the church in times of crisis. The Gulf War saw quite a bump in attendance, even if it was temporary, but 9/11 had much less of a sustained impact, and given the fact that people can’t attend church at all in this crisis, I suspect any bump in observance is being offset by the habituation of younger people to the idea of spending their Sundays without church (not to mention their observance of the continuing nonsense from the religious right), and that’s going to have a lasting effect over the years to come.

As for this pandemic is God’s way of telling people they should be scared of him, which seems to be a recurring claim you make, that’s just baloney. “Worship me or else I’m gonna kill your parents and grandparents!” is the message of a pathological tyrant, not a loving God, and if and when science provides the ultimate solution to the problem in the form of a vaccine or effective treatment/countermeasures, it will speak only to the impotence of such a message.

It doesn’t take a vision to see what effect a pandemic is going to have on an institution that depends heavily on weekly gatherings of people in a single place. FWIW I bailed my 401k out of the stock market three days before it plummeted 20% too, but I do not profess any special insights there either, just a failure to believe an all-time high stock market is compatible with pandemic conditions (a positions I still hold even after the market’s recent recovery).

We’ve already see a decline in the number of Americans who flock to the church in times of crisis. The Gulf War saw quite a bump in attendance, even if it was temporary, but 9/11 had much less of a sustained impact, and given the fact that people can’t attend church at all in this crisis, I suspect any bump in observance is being offset by the habituation of younger people to the idea of spending their Sundays without church (not to mention their observance of the continuing nonsense from the religious right), and that’s going to have a lasting effect over the years to come.

As for this pandemic is God’s way of telling people they should be scared of him, which seems to be a recurring claim you make, that’s just baloney. “Worship me or else I’m gonna kill your parents and grandparents!” is the message of a pathological tyrant, not a loving God, and if and when science provides the ultimate solution to the problem in the form of a vaccine or effective treatment/countermeasures, it will speak only to the impotence of such a message.