Christian prophet: Hurricane Michael was created by Democrats in “retaliation” for Kavanaugh confirmation

By Sky Palma
9 October 2018
(DeadState) – One of my greatest sources of unintentional comedy is Mark Taylor, otherwise known as the “Firefighter Prophet.” Among his bizarre prophecies and conspiracy theories is a recurring theme: that Democrats (and former President Obama) are using weather control technology to obstruct President Trump’s agenda.Earlier this month, Taylor claimed Hurricane Florence was created by liberals to cover up mass voter fraud in North Carolina. In June, he said liberals were planning to create hurricanes to suppress the midterm election turn out. Now, he’s saying that Hurricane Michael, which is currently bearing down on Florida, was artificially created by “scared” anti-Trump forces in “retaliation” for Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.“Does anyone else think it’s strange that Justice K is sworn in and we have a major hurricane inbound?” Taylor tweeted this Tuesday. “DS scared? They should be. Retaliation? Absolutely. We will not be intimidated! Warriors arise, time to go to work! You know what to do.”In past rants about weather conspiracies, Taylor resorts to a common target “chemtrail” conspiracists use to back up their claims, namely the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, or HAARP. But the now-defunct government program doesn’t have the ability to create hurricanes — or enact mind control, as Taylor and other *misinformed* people like him claim. According to the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, “HAARP is a group of high-frequency radio transmitters powered by four diesel tugboat generators and one from a locomotive. The transmitters send a focused beam of radio-wave energy into the aurora zone. There, that energy can stimulate a speck of the electrical sun-Earth connection about 100 miles above our heads.”Taylor is no smalltime fringe internet crackpot. The evangelical college Liberty University is making a movie about him, further legitimizing his religious quackery to gullible people. [more]

Christian Prophet: Hurricane Michael was created by Democrats in ‘retaliation’ for Kavanaugh’s confirmation

By Tara Isabella Burton
8 October 2018
(Vox) – I sat in an unmarked cinema hall in New York’s Union Square, listening to a group of people praying. We’d just finished watching a screening of The Trump Prophecy, the controversial hybrid docu-drama made in part by students and faculty at the conservative evangelical Liberty University. Images of American greatness — an American flag, an eagle — flickered across the screen. A white man in his 60s sang out verses from 2 Chronicles 7:14: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”They bowed their heads and thanked God that his anointed one, Donald Trump, was president. Just as the prophecy had foretold.Scenes like this took place in 1,200 cinemas across the country during a limited release of the film this month. The Trump Prophecy, which played on Tuesday and Thursday nights, has been advertised as an opportunity for prayer groups to come together in an expression of patriotism.The film — which dramatizes the memoir of a fireman who believes God told him that Donald Trump would one day be president with interviews with prominent evangelical figures about Trump’s greatness — is funded and produced by Charlotte-based ReelWorks Studios, a purveyor of Christian fare. However, Liberty University’s School of Cinematic Arts collaborated on the production and allowed film students the opportunity to participate.But The Trump Prophecy is more than a feel-good, low-budget movie. It’s the purest distillation of pro-Trump Christian nationalism: the insidious doctrine that implicitly links American patriotism and American exceptionalism with (white) evangelical Christianity.Everything about The Trump Prophecy — from its subject matter, to the way it’s shot, to the little details scattered through the movie’s (often interminable) scenes of domestic life — is designed not just to legitimize Donald Trump as a evangelical-approved president but to promulgate an even more wide-ranging — and dangerous — idea. The Trump Prophecy doesn’t just want you to believe that God approves of Donald Trump. It wants you to believe that submission to (conservative) political authority and submission to God are one and the same. In the film’s theology, resisting the authority of a sitting president — or, at least, this sitting president — is conflated with resisting God himself. [more]