I'm back, and I brought adulterous pastors with me
Sorry—I stepped out for a quick smoke and to bet on the horses. I promised your mother I would be back, didn’t I?
Anyways, let’s talk about cults.
My opinion, which holds no weight because I am not a meaningful person, is that mega-churches and cults fall within the same circle of the Venn diagram. What makes a mega-church cult-adjacent? A figurehead that claims direct access to God (which can be achieved only through himself), an excess of power and wealth that trickle up, and the complete financial, physical, and emotional surrender of followers.
All of these are embodied in the work and word of David E. Taylor, “apostle” of Joshua Media Ministries International. His claim to fame is that he has face-to-face conversations with Jesus. Not in a spiritual sense. Like Jesus actually comes over to his house. Jesus rides his Prius to Michigan, to talk to a man with this hairline.
You can talk to Jesus, too, but ONLY if you buy his book Face-to-face Appearances from Jesus: The Ultimate Intimacy. David also claims to have predicted the September 11 Trade Center attack and the crash of the stock market, but he conveniently disclosed these visions after the fact. This man is for sure a 10 on the enneagram scale, which is zodiac signs for Christianity.
According to David, the world is ending, but he’s going to stop it July 10-11, 2020 at the Amway Arena in Orlando. We’re too witchy and too gay, so God is going to let Russia destroy us. If there is any truth to this, it is absolutely that the end of times begins in Florida.
Apocalyptic messaging aside, the Joshua Media Ministries website is a fucking mess. Unnecessary links. Gradients. BREAKING NEWS photoshopped over an image of a cloud. This website is being held hostage by 2001. This website murdered Doll Palace and took all its pixels. The Krassenstein brothers walked so that this website could run.
This website registers as chaotic evil.
This hasn’t stopped parishioners from donating millions of dollars, cars, and even houses.
What is the purpose of those spare homes? It’s certainly not to house staff, who reportedly sleep at the church in tents and work 11-hour shifts, spamming anyone on Facebook who liked a post from Billy Graham, Joel Osteen, or other similarly beguiling men with veneers. These Facebook messages are written to make the recipient feel as though they were sought out by divine intervention, to invite them to support the JMMI machine.
Photo courtesy of Chris Sorensen, former member of JMMI. Sourced from The News Herald.
Behind the worship and the hallelujahs, there were reports of physical assaults. The police were routinely called to do wellness checks. On November 5th of 2017, a man collapsed while attending a prayer group. When police and firefighters arrived, they saw “a group of people chanting and singing” and “touching and pressing down on the body.” The police were told that when people pray at JMMI, they often “faint under the light of God,” and that “God (would) wake him up soon.” Reader, he was dead.
In his manifesto for women, David outlines just how women can help: by submitting to men. And by selling out the Amway Arena in Orlando, where he’s going to save the world. It’s rife with the misogyny we all know and expect, but my favorite part is that women worked with Satan to remove prayer from school.
It was a woman who got prayer out of schools. Satan got her to get prayer out of schools.
I’m proud of us for that!
Speaking of women, David reportedly cheated on his wife with women in the parish.
"I remember the time a husband found out that his wife and my ex-husband were sleeping together and I literally sat at the table with this husband and my ex-husband and I lied for my ex-husband to pretend and act like that did not happen. I was so far gone with whatever he told me to do," she said.
He later went on to date Vicki Yohe, a woman he considered his “spiritual daughter.” He bought his daughter/lover Louboutins, a fur coat, and a Jaguar sedan with money from the JMMI accounts.
“He said God just spoke to him to bless me with a car,” she said. “So that money for my car actually came from Joshua Media Ministries. Absolutely. He says that. He doesn't deny that. He says, ‘Yes, our ministry blesses other ministries with vehicles sometimes.’
According to Vicki, David used his power and “closeness” to Jesus to prey on women. When she told him she was going to expose him, he said he would use intimate photos of her as revenge.
“He told me if I went public, I would get cancer,” she said. “He puts all these curses on people. … When you first get with him, he asks you for naked pictures, inappropriate pictures. ... If you even think about getting mad or you want to break up, (or) if you expose him, he's going to send those pictures out.”
Now, I may already be on the USPS Priority Mail list to Hell, but even I have the sense to know that revenge porn is illegal, immoral, and definitely not something Jesus would approve of. I think when David’s hairline ran away, it took his morality with it.
In closing, fuck this guy, fuck his Michael Jackson cosplay, and fuck his homophobic mega-church.
Sources
https://www.christianpost.com/news/ex-wife-david-e-taylor-multiple-affairs-pregnant-before-marriage.html
https://churchleaders.com/news/347857-pastor-is-abusive-and-running-a-cult-report-charges.html
http://www.thenewsherald.com/news/pastor-accused-of-running-his-multimillion-dollar-taylor-church-as/article_c6fbaad0-4b68-11e9-ad86-df5f32aa1199.html
One more picture, for your enjoyment. MAGNIFICENT!!!!!