Throughout the pandemic, there has been an abundance of both flavors of magical thinking: the explicitly magical and the pseudoscientific. Many evangelical preachers have drawn on the Christian repertoire of miracles. The televangelist Kenneth Copeland performed a televised exorcism, calling out at the virus: ”I blow the wind of God on you. You are destroyed forever, and you’ll never be back. Thank you, God.” Copeland also told his followers at home that they could be cured of COVID-19 by touching their TV screens.
The story of Bishop Gerald Glenn, founder and pastor of New Deliverance Evangelistic Church in Virginia, is more tragic. Glenn defied Virginia guidelines about in-person worship services, telling his congregation, “I firmly believe that God is larger than this dreaded virus,” and saying he would continue to preach “unless I’m in jail or in the hospital.” He later died of COVID-19. Four family members, including his wife, also contracted the virus.
A Pew Research Center poll found that 25 percent of Americans reported that COVID-19 had intensified their faith. Only 2 percent said the pandemic had weakened their faith.
Magical thinking of the pseudoscience variety has also been on full display. Although credentialed scientists have been very clear that there is currently no cure or vaccine for COVID-19, a number of companies and television personalities have fraudulently promoted esoteric knowledge that they say will protect those in the know.
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