Jim Bakker And Friends Think 3 Million Women Were Influenced By Demons

It should come as no surprise that the religious right was not too pleased with the Women’s March on Washington, and its sister marches around the nation. After all, they managed to convince most of their followers that such little things like respect for women don’t matter as much as ending abortion and rolling back marriage equality.

So when some three million people turned out around the country to protest Donald Trump’s misogyny, the fundies scrambled to explain it. To hear them talk, the only reason that many women could be out there was because of some sort of evil force. Well, it looks like the forces of evil were working overtime to bring all of those nasty women to Washington to protest against a man who thinks disrespecting women can be dismissed as locker room talk. To hear them talk, they were not only driven there by witchcraft, but by demons as well.

Jim Bakker devoted much of last week to discussing his trip to Washington for the inauguration with evangelist Billye Brim–best known as the longtime gal pal of Gloria Copeland, wife of prosperity gospel hawker Kenneth Copeland. People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch got a clip.

On his January 30 show, Bakker claimed that Trump’s inauguration was literally saturated with “the presence of God.” He claimed that the presence of God was still there as early as the wee hours of the morning. That stood in marked contrast to the next morning, as the Women’s March ramped up. Bakker’s wife, Lori, said that the atmosphere in Washington changed almost overnight. Brim harrumphed that was because the women there had been “driven by demons.”

The next day, Bakker talked more about what he saw when the Women’s March came to town. When he went down to the lobby of his hotel, he claimed to have sensed “the most evil spirit I have ever felt”–a marked contrast to 24 hours earlier, when dozens of ministers had been on hand for the inauguration. He wrung his hands at how many women were there dressed in pink and wearing pussy hats. He claimed to have done some research and had an idea what it meant, but said he couldn’t tell his audience what it meant because “it’s dirty, it’s filthy dirty.”

Later in that show, Brim said that what happened at the Women’s March was evidence that “we need to take authority over the darkness.” She’s planning a conference focusing on the authority of the believer in Washington for later this year, but is searching for a venue. She had a message for her Washington-area followers–they needed to use their “habitational authority” to “control those demons that were in those women!”

I had to watch both clips twice to believe what I was hearing. You mean to tell me that all of those marchers who stood up against a man who openly bragged about groping women and treating them like objects were doing so because they were being “driven by demons” and something “filthy dirty”? You mean to tell me that women who stood up against a man who thinks talking about women in this way was mere entertainment did so because they had demons in them? I can’t even.

Here’s a news flash, Jim and Billye. There were a good number of strong Christian women who were at those marches. Are you going to tell them that by standing up to Trump, they were letting demons control them? And are you willing to do so to their faces? If not, then you two need to apologize to every woman who was at that march. Otherwise, I can only assume that you are spewing this garbage only because you have bowed down to the Orange Calf.

Maybe we should let Bakker and Brim know what we think of their suggestion that these women marched against Trump because demons drove them to do so. Let Bakker have it on Facebook and on Twitter, and let Brim have it on Facebook and on Twitter.

I’d wondered how in the world the religious right could possibly stand by Trump even in the face of his debauched behavior. Well, now I have part of my answer. They think anyone who dared stand against him is only doing so because the forces of evil are making them do it.

(featured image courtesy Voice of America, part of public domain)

Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.