Deborah Taylor is the fundamentalist leader of “a growing Army of Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors, Priests, Rabbis, committed Intercessors, Deliverance Ministers, and Mighty Prayer Warriors” at something called “Worship Word Warfare”, and an ardent fan of Donald Trump, to the extent that she sometimes seem to have trouble distinguishing Trump from Jesus himself. The goal of her ministry is “to encourage, edify, pray for, and intercede for YOU, as well as setting captives free from demonic possession and demonic oppression,” and they have ostensibly “witnessed many supernatural miracles, healing miracles, and debt cancellation,” not the least of which is the election of Donald Trump. Indeed, Taylor hosts a weekly “TRUMP TUESDAY PRAYER CONFERENCE CALLS,” where she and her followers “unite to intercede for our President, First Lady and First Family, our Vice President and his loved ones, our military, our law enforcement, our leaders and our nation.” One of the things that needs to be prayed away, is apparently a concerted effort by socialists to overthrow the government of the US in the name of “liberalism”.
According to Taylor, “prayers can literally prevent evil attacks” and “GOD ANSWERS EVERY PRAYER”, making prayer a powerful tool in the spiritual warfare people like her are engaged in. And make no mistake: the demons these people are fighting are real – not just metaphors.
She also offers dream interpretations, since dreams may be God “trying to warn you about something,” and she has herself “had many prophetic dreams that have come to pass and the Holy Spirit has explained the meanings to me, preventing calamities” – i.e. she interprets the dreams to signify precisely what she wants them to signify. She also offers prophecies underpinned by numerology (roughly: fortune cookies with accompanying Bible verses), though the prophecies are of course sufficiently vague to accommodate plausible deniability.
Diagnosis: Pretty standard from associates of the New Apostolic Reformation, but “standard” in this context means wild-eyed crazy. At least most of her recommendations and claims remain at the level of vague and wordy, but you should probably not listen to anything she says in any case.
What does debt cancellation have to do with supernatural miracles and healing miracles?
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DeleteIt's a pretty popular grift, though ("poverty is a disease and Jesus wants you to be rich").
ReplyDeleteIn practice, it works as follows: You take up a loan and send the minister the money. The minister will then try to pray away your debt. If it works, it is indeed a miracle.