Trump-supporting Florida fundamentalist preacher endangers congregation’s lives

As Brazilian extreme right president Jair Bolsonaro wants churches to stay open, endangering to kill religious people by coronavirus contagion; and Bolsonaro’s United States colleague Donald Trump wanted the churches to be full on Easter Sunday, 12 April; a Trump-supporting megachurch boss in Florida did not wait for Easter. Like the ‘Reverend’ Jerry Falwell Jr. reopened his fundamentalist Liberty University for financial profit. Now, Liberty University students have coronavirus.

This 18 March 2020 video from the USA says about itself:

Conservative Pastors Encourage Congregants to Dismiss COVID-19 | NowThis

‘We’re raising up revivalists, not pansies’ — This evangelist pastor slammed social distancing, encouraging his congregants to shake hands during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In US news and current events today, Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne called the coronavirus a ‘phantom plague’ made to scare people into getting vaccines that will kill them. He also encouraged his congregants to shake hands amid the coronavirus pandemic because they’re not ‘pansies’.

An NBC/WSJ poll found Republicans were taking coronavirus less seriously. Only 30% said they were likely to avoid public gatherings compared to 61% of Democrats polled between March 11-13.

Guillermo Maldonado, a megachurch pastor & self-proclaimed apostle, also urged his congregants to attend mass, mocking those who are afraid of getting the coronavirus.

The [Roman Catholic] Archdioceses of New York, Seattle, Chicago cancelled all masses until further notice.

Howard-Browne, who was born in South Africa and built the River into a megachurch with 4,000 members, is a prominent evangelical who prayed in the Oval Office with Trump in 2017. In recent days the Pentecostal preacher has made controversial remarks and floated conspiratorial theories about the coronavirus. … Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne said he wouldn’t close the doors of his Tampa, Florida, megachurch until the End Times begin. The police weren’t willing to wait that long: here.

Announcing the arrest of Dr. Ronald Howard-Browne, Pastor of The River at Tampa Bay Church, who intentionally and repeatedly disregarded state and local public health orders, which put his congregation and our community in danger. pic.twitter.com/1gERVdzyIp

— Chad Chronister (@ChadChronister) March 30, 2020

The ‘Reverend’ was released 40 minutes later.

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