Photo via @RightWingWatch/Twitter
September 24, 2021, 10:14 am
During a recent telethon fundraiser for notorious televangelist Kenneth Copeland and his megachurch, the preacher made sure to drop heavy hints that he needs his expensive and CO2-spitting private jet because otherwise, he would have to get the COVID-19 vaccine in order to fly. And he certainly can’t get the vaccine because he considers it to be “the Mark of the Beast,” a symbol warned about in the Bible’s final and wackiest chapter that signals a person belongs to the fabled Anti-Christ.
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This was not long after far-right pastor Jesse Duplantis bragged about his own private jet following complaints that the reason Jesus hasn’t returned to Earth is that people aren’t giving him and Copeland enough money.
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“The time has come for ministries, particularly traveling ministries, to have some other method of travel other than the airlines,” says Copeland. “You get into this situation, ‘we’re not gonna let you fly unless you’re vaccinated.’ Well, to me that’s the Mark of the Beast.”
The televangelist seems to suggest that he and his church don’t already own a private jet, when in fact it owns at least five, including one sold to Copeland by Tyler Perry and valued at $17.5 million. In 2009, the church came under scrutiny for these lavish expenses and Copeland’s personal jet, valued at $3.6 million, was denied tax-exempt status. The preacher has often defended his use of these jets over the years, as well as raising money to build private hangars for them, by comparing flying via commercial airline to something demonic.
“You can’t manage that today, in this dope-filled world, get in a long tube with a bunch of demons,” said Copeland to Duplantis in 2015 while speaking on the horrifying prospect of flying commercial.
Those demons, of course, would be the rest of us who can’t afford private jets.
At this point, Copeland has his own personal airport for all of his jets and yet still needs more from the pockets of his congregation, most of which will only get to fly in a private jet in their wildest dreams.
“I honestly believe this, that the reason why Jesus hasn’t come is because are not giving what God told him to give,” said Duplantis during the recent “Victorython” broadcast.
In the clip posted by Right Wing Watch, Duplantis goes on to boast about being a multi-millionaire and buying the workplace of and firing someone who complained about it, because “it felt good.” Then he started arguing that people could speed up the second coming, also known as the end of the world, by donating more money to them.
*First Published: September 24, 2021, 10:14 am
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