Tom posted about the church in Texas that had a measles outbreak. Here’s a little update:
[…] According to several reports, however, at least some congregants of Eagle Mountain were opting out of vaccinations — because church leader and televangelist Kenneth Copeland exhorted his followers to eschew them. In one 2010 webcast, Copeland describes immunizations as “criminal,” saying that “as parents, we need to be a whole lot more serious about this … in being aware of what is good and what isn’t, and you don’t take the word of the guy trying to give the shot.” He goes on to discuss a potential link between vaccinations and the growing rates of autism among American children.
Even though multiple media outlets have found that video, Copeland’s spokesman is denying that he’s anti-vaccine. The official pastor of the church where the sick children’s parents attended is Copeland’s daughter, Terri Copeland Pearsons. She issued this greasy non-denial denial:
“Some people think I am against immunizations, but that is not true,” the statement said. “Vaccinations help cut the mortality rate enormously. I believe it is wrong to be against vaccinations. The concerns we have had are primarily with very young children who have family history of autism and with bundling too many immunizations at one time. There is no indication of the autism connection with vaccinations in older children. Furthermore, the new MMR vaccination is without thimerosal (mercury), which has also been a concern to many.”
Copeland Senior, pictured above with his wife Gloria, preaches the prosperity gospel, and has been the target of an IRS investigation over use of the two private jets he flies out of Kenneth Copeland Airport near Fort Worth, Texas. Since no kids have died, this dust-up will probably be just a little bump in the road in Terri’s quest to continue the family scam.
Lavocat
That has got to be one of the creepier pictures I’ve seen in a while. Check out the dude’s eyes! Yup, that’s Satan.
prufrock
I hate, Hate, HATE the prosperity gospel. It’s the same shit John Calvin was preaching centuries ago, and it still smells as bad. If you’re rich, it’s because god loves you. If you’re poor, god hates you, you deserve it, and we don’t have to lift a finger to help you. How they reconcile this with the teachings of Jesus is just another example of the extreme compartmentalization of the authoritarian mind.
Schlemizel
When I was a teen I was pretty involved in church & even read the bible cover to cover in an attempt to better understand my faith. But I was a crappy magician as a hobby & one of the first cracks in my belief-base was seeing a faith healer performing magic about as well as I did but pretending it was healing people through God. I could have easily performed many of those miracles and I learned enough to have been able to pull of the ones I didn’t immediately recognize. I was appalled that people could be so easily misled and the amount of money going into the buckets being passed made me consider the life myself. If there really were a God people like those faith healers & the Copland family and so many more would surly suffer the 7 plagues every day for their entire life.
Emma
I really feel for the parents of autistic children. I can understand, as a parent, wanting to try any solution, any method, if it will heal your child. But the anti-vaccine people make me sick to my stomach. They not only put their own children at risk, but everyone else too.
And why did I have to wake up to photos of zombies?
SiubhanDuinne
@Lavocat: The woman’s smile is forced and her eyes look dead. My first vibe from her in this photo was that she really doesn’t want to be there. (And yeah, I get she’s complicit; I’m not trying to make excuses for her.)
MattF
We shouldn’t scoff. The great majority of con artists have lives involving frequent changes of address, fluctuating net asset value, and getting beaten up every now and then. These guys have homes, bank accounts and lives of luxury. They’re masters of their craft.
Mark S.
What is with their fucking eyes? I can barely look at that picture.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@SiubhanDuinne: It’s Serena Joy.
The photo actually gave me flashbacks to the Bakkers.
SiubhanDuinne
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Perfect. Great catch.
Ash Can
It’s no accident that so many of us are noticing their eyes. They’re smiling, but if you place a piece of paper over their faces so that only their eyes are visible, it’s very easy to envision them frowning and even snarling beneath the paper. These are hateful people who despise everyone “beneath” them, congregants and outsiders alike, and while they can try to cover it up with smiles, it shows through in their eyes.
MattF
@Ash Can: It’s the 27th take, they’re looking at the photographer and thinking “Get it right this time, or you’ll be gutted and dumped in the septic tank.” And it worked! Sort of.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@prufrock:
Actually, no. That grew later because of the uncertainty of the doctrine of election. Calvin held that it was not possible to know if you were among the elect.
As for Calvin’s opinion of the rich, from his Commentaries on The Second Epistle to the Corinthians:
MomSense
From the looks of them, it would seem they are not opposed to all types of injections, if you know what I mean.
Cappadonna
I know its very popular to use this as another example to bash religion on the Left, but let’s just remember all the hippies New Age weirdos who are pushing this non-vaccine bullshit on kids as well. Jenny McCarthy anyone?
With that said, as a religious person, I don’t have much use for a creep like Copeland, who’s “Name It and Claim It” and “Church as Entertainment” form of ministry has probably drove tons of people out of faith. Also, that dude wouldn’t know true Biblical literacy if Moses himself smacked him with the original 10 commandments.
The Tragically Flip
I really don’t understand how anyone could look at those two and not see the insincerity and deceit dripping off them.
How the fuck is anyone gullible enough to fall for this? I guess it’s no different than any outright cult, but fuck, do people have no kind of scam-dar?
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@The Tragically Flip: No, they don’t.
I’m looking for the recent report on the local news about a scammer who preyed on local Real True Christians. One of the people interviewed was in shock that he had been scammed. The guy said he only wanted to work with, and give the benefit of his expertise to, God’s People.
SiubhanDuinne
@Cappadonna:
Also sometimes known as “Blab It and Grab It.”
dp
It’s remarkable how many unaffiliated Protestant “churches” are actually just grifter family businesses.
The Red Pen
@prufrock:
If anything in the Bible about God’s justice against the false and evil is true, these guys are royally fucked.
If it’s not true, then I can still hope for the meteor.
Edit: Sister Rail Gun is correct that this doesn’t really go back to Calvin, but it is a relatively modern take on “the elect.” Calvin had his (scarce) merits; these people have none.
The Red Pen
@dp: And for those who prefer organized crime, there’s the Southern Baptist Convention.
Nicole
I used to be one of the anti-flu vaccine people, with the usual list of bullshit reasons why I didn’t get the vaccine- I never get flu anyway, it’s good for the immune system to have to fight off illness every so often, I know someone who got the vaccine and got flu anyway, blah blah blah. And then, after 17 years of not having the flu, I got the flu and rediscovered that when you have flu you want to die. I have made sure to get the vaccine every year since.
Anti-vaxxers aren’t going to accept that vaccines are safe and effective until their kids get sick (as is pointed out in the articles on this outbreak, as soon as they had an outbreak of measles, the church immediately started recommending vaccination). Unfortunately, while in my case I was the one who suffered from my idiocy, in the case of childhood vaccines, the idiots aren’t the ones who pay the price; their kids do. It makes me so mad. I have friends on all sides of the political spectrum who are anti-vaccine and I just don’t get it.
Shout-out to the medical profession- when my son was about 4 months old, I visited my dermatologist, whose office is in the same building as my GP. I hadn’t seen my GP for over a year- I’m not sure she knew I was pregnant. As soon as she saw my infant son she said to me, “Congratulations! Have you had your flu shot yet? Come with me.” Gave me the shot and never billed it as a visit. I love her. Anyone who thinks doctors push vaccinations for any reason other than concern over their patients’ health (or the health of their wee ones who are too young for some vaccines) is an idiot.
NotMax
Photo cropped so as not to show the cloven hooves?
Scammers in music: Pirelli’s Magical Elixir.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@dp: I generally assume they all are.
Here’s the link I was looking for. Scammer wouldn’t accept anyone but Christians as clients. When I heard that, I said “Well, he knew where the find the most gullible people in the area.”
rk
@Emma:
I got taken in by the anti measles vaccine scare. I was convinced by the fact that the “Lancet” (supposedly the gold standard for medical journals) published Annrew Wakefield’s paper linking measles vaccine to autism. I had the pediatrician separate out the MMR vaccine into three individual doses. It was a scary time for parents. My point is that I placed my trust in the truthfulness of a scientific journal and these parents are trusting their preachers. We are all vulnerable when our kids well being is at stake.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Also, Slacktivist on the cultivation of credulity in churches.
NotMax
@NotMax
Miracle, not Magical, in #22.
No idea why the fingers typed as they did.
Fingers: Devil bunny, banana banana.
Head: Now cut that out!
Scott S.
@Nicole: I don’t get flu vaccines ’cause I have some sort of slight allergy to eggs, and since they use eggs making the vaccine, my doctor won’t let me have one. I haven’t had the flu in years, and I’m really dreading whenever I finally catch it. :/
gbear
@Lavocat: The first thing I noticed is the carefully placed cup warmers with the electric cords hanging over the edge of the table. These guys are so addicted to ‘stuff’ that they have to include their small appliances in the photo.
Their faces were just too plastic to be of interest.
tofudog
She mentions in her denial that the “new” MMR is now without thimerosal, but it has been since 2000! Has she been encouraging her congregants to get immunized since 2000?
SatanicPanic
@MomSense: Like ones that go in your face?
Elizabelle
Save for the handholding, they look like Fox News anchors.
Chris
@dp:
@The Red Pen:
Pikers. The Roman Catholic Church operates globally on at least a billion marks and it’s been at it for two thousand years. Top that.
bemused
@Lavocat:
Most televangelists look like wax museum figures to me.
chopper
lol, this is stupid.
uh, the MMR has never had thimerosal. it would kill the attenuated virus.
drkrick
@NotMax:
They had that surgery, too.
The Red Pen
@Chris:
XENU!!!!!!!!!!
I got nothing.
Gus diZerega
Reptilians?
Mnemosyne
@Scott S.:
Your best protection in that case is frequent handwashing and herd immunity, so make sure to encourage everyone around you to get their flu shot for your own protection.
One of the nastiest arguments I ever had here was with a poster whose daughter had a weak immune system that was not able to handle vaccinations, so therefore she thought it should be up to parents whether or not to vaccinate. Of course, anyone who’s even heard of herd immunity knows that this is exactly ass-backwards and that the only protection that child has is if everyone else around her is vaccinated.
Villago Delenda Est
Mammon worshiping heretics. Stone them. Then burn them. Then draw and quarter them.
Keith P.
It can’t be a coincidence that the guy looks like David Miscavige.
MomSense
@SatanicPanic:
They have that “botox stare”!
DFH no.6
Other than the negative effects on innocents due to the anti-vaccine bullshit promulgated by grifters like this, I give them major props.
They run their scams much like the King and the Duke in Huckleberry Finn (which shows you how long this has been a prominent feature in American culture) only updated for modern times and a whole lot more successfully, because Republican Jesus.
So the deluded rubes send them some of their scarce and hard-earned dollars, and the grifters live like royalty. Ain’t America great? Fuck yeah!
And to Cappadonna’s point about leftwing hippies pulling this same shit regarding vaccines, two things:
First, the hippies doing this aren’t running some scam that enriches them, they’re doing this stupid anti-vaccine thing because they ignorantly don’t trust “The Man’s” medical science (not being holistic or natural or some dumb bullshit).
Second, by numbers and by overall influence any such New Age hippie-types pale in comparison to rightwing religious people who eschew and generally speak ill of modern science and medicine of all types (including but not limited at all to anti-vaccination nonsense).
So sorry, it’s mostly rightwing religious people and their asinine belief systems that are the problem here. By a long shot. “The Left” (whoever they are) has every right to bash the religious and their fucked-up religion here. Too bad if that irks you, Cappadonna.
“Devil (or zombie) eyed wax museum figure Fox News anchors”. Perfect description.
Yatsuno
@Scott S.: They culture the attenuated virus in eggs, so a slight amount is also present in the vaccine. There are some out there that are cultured without eggs, but you have to check around for it.
jonas
@prufrock: I think you’re confusing Calvinism with Weber’s famous Protestant Ethic theory. Calvin actually preached a rather powerful social gospel that most American evangelicals would find anathema today (which is why they’re not Congregationalists or Presbyterians — the two mainline/liberal Calvinist denominations). Under Calvin, the city of Geneva introduced some of Europe’s first public welfare schemes. Of course church attendance was also mandatory, and you could be fined or imprisoned for gambling or cursing, but there was a pretty good safety net for the city’s poor.
jonas
Copeland Senior, pictured above with his wife Gloria, preaches the prosperity gospel, and has been the target of an IRS investigation over use of the two private jets he flies out of Kenneth Copeland Airport near Fort Worth, Texas.
Well, the Prosperity Gospel worked for them! Just set up a religious broadcast program and get people to send you money. Besides, interpreted allegorically, the Bible verses about Jesus ascending to heaven and walking on water could be about private jets and yachts, so it’s all good.
Mike in NC
Why are there still televangelists in 2013? I thought they went the way of the dinosaurs after the scandals of the 1980s.
Billy Dilly
@drkrick: think that this what the Orcs look like before the transformation.
boatboy_srq
@Elizabelle: Fauxnews is just another kind of TV preaching, with Mammon more overtly revered. Other than that it’s the same old scam.
@DFH no.6: I think you just described how the Invisible Hand of the Free Market can be the ugliest thing on the planet. And it fits in perfectly for the sort of zero-sum socioeconomics these volk practice.
Question: I can recall a time when “TV Preacher” was right up there with snake-oil salesman, sweepstakes promoter and carnival barker as among The People Not To Trust. And that wasn’t really all that long ago. What has changed in society that these cretins are suddenly acceptable, respectable and deemed authorities?
zombie rotten mcdonald
You don’t take the word of your DOCTOR? what the what now?
No, you’re supposed to take the word of a jumped-up snake-oil preacher with fake degrees whose only consistent belief is that Jesus Needs Money, so send it on in.
what monsters these folks are, and I say that as a zombie.
LanceThruster
Thank you, God, for making me atheist.
StringOnAStick
OK, so I tried the “hold a piece of paper over their faces and just look at their eyes” thing. The guy on the left has the kind of eyes that make psychiatrists nervous, and the blonde on the right looks medicated with some heavy psychotropic stuff. The ‘lean-in’ body language is what they’ve learned looks sincere, but unless you’ve already bought into the cult, it clearly telegraphs as completely predatory.
The Red Pen
@boatboy_srq:
The people who would shake their fist and say, “In my day, we went to tent revivals! We didn’t watch no fancy tee-vee preacher on the Satan box!” are all dead and replaced by people who grew up with
the Satan boxTV. The new old generation is the one that sends you missives about Obama being a sekrit Muslim from their AOL email.SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
The handholding is weird, too. He has both of his paws covering her dainty fingerettes in a power gesture (on top of an open Bible, yet). There’s nothing either loving or egalitarian about it.
The Red Pen
@SiubhanDuinne:
They have to cover up the text of the Bible in case they notice what it actually says.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@The Red Pen: I grew up fundie, going to tent revivals and mocking TV (and radio) preachers, and I’m not old enough to remember MLK.
People have been trying to answer that question for years, especially walkaways and throwaways. There’s been a lot of documentation of the steeplejacking process that transformed the Southern Baptists, but I don’t know how much effort has gone into understanding what makes people vulnerable to it.
Lee
FYI there was an article in the Dallas Morning News a couple of days ago that had one of the health care providers for the sick kids coming down with measles.
So the death count might not stay zero.
They are also recommending that everyone get their second measles booster for those of us that only have 1.
Nicole
@Scott S.: People like you, who genuinely can’t tolerate the vaccine are another reason people like me, who can, should get it. All about the herd immunity.
terraformer
Indeed, that senior Copeland fellow is, to me, Exhibit “A” of the kind of Religious “look” that says both “Join me, and be part of my flock,” at which point his face and demeanor becomes spiritual and golden, and you will be showered with praise and welcomed into the realm of believers, but at the same time says “I am studying you to see if you’re smart enough to see through my bullshit,” at which point his face becomes accusatory and belligerent, and you will face anger and dismissal, along with the questions of “you’re a searcher?” and such that makes me dislike these people even more.
You see that look – the faraway look with fire behind the eyes ready to ponce at any disbelief – often, especially in the Baptist south. If you’re one of them, you’re “in”, but if not, you’re definitely “out”, and are semi-politely shunned. I’ve seen it a million times. But this guy epitomizes that kind of look.
fuckwit
@terraformer: That’s one sociopathic-looking motherfucker. Damn. Scary.
fuckwit
@SiubhanDuinne: She looks like Laura Bush. And Nancy Reagan too IIRC, but not quite as bad as Bush. That wooden, obviously-fake smile that is more like a grimace.
Glocksman
@boatboy_srq:
That’s a good question.
I’m 46 and I have never trusted TV preachers.
Even as a little kid, they all came across as mainly interested in the $$$, and not the gospels.
Hell, even Charlie Daniels called it in the lyrics to Long Haired Country Boy.
Shit, the reason I disliked Bill Clinton on first hearing him speak was that his accent and style was so reminiscent of the Snake Oil salesmen on CBN.
Ajaye
Oh give ’em a break. Clearly it’s Botox making their faces look so weird.