It seems everyone is looking for a cure for the dreaded Covid-19 coronavirus. Doctors, laboratories, and pharmaceutical companies around the world are working around the clock to find the key ingredient that will kill the microscopic disease. But, if we are to believe the claims of one advertisement now running on most cable TV channels, the answer is not Hydroxychloroquine as many believe, it is actually Dihydrogen Monoxide. That’s right, good old H2O! According to 73 year old TV preacher Peter Popoff, all you should need to do is order a free container of his Miracle Spring Water.
Maybe you have seen the testimonies of people who obtained the water and were healed of rashes, colds, and other ailments. Others testify that when they used the miracle water checks suddenly appeared in their mailboxes! All that being said, perhaps we would be wise to investigate a bit about Peter Popoff before diving into the water, so to speak.
I honestly don’t know what is in the “miracle water” or what spring it came from. It probably just came from Popoff’s kitchen faucet. Whatever, I doubt it possesses the powers it is advertised to hold. I do know that Peter Popoff is a proven fraud. In 1986, he was exposed by former illusionist, atheist skeptic, and psychic debunker, the “Amazing” James Randi on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Randi presented a videotape of one of Popoff’s supposed healing services. Popoff claimed he could, by divine inspiration, call people out of the audience who had ailments and pray for their healing. However, unknown to him, during one such service, Randi and an associate were able to intercept and record radio transmissions from Popoff’s wife. She was back stage feeding information to her husband into an ear piece he was wearing hidden by his long hair. She was reading from cards audience members had filled out prior to the service giving their names and detailing ailments which they hoped Popoff would heal. She was also caught using racial slurs to identify some individuals for Popoff to call out.
Since then, Popoff and his wife, Elizabeth, have gone bankrupt a few times, but somehow bounce back to do their chicanery all over again. One of his keynote teachings, as is common among the Word of Faith preachers, is that if you give a “seed offering” (to his ministry, of course) then God is obliged to multiply it many times over. Popoff tends to direct his appeals to people who can least afford it, promising them quick prosperity.
Now, I was no fan of James Randi. He was, after all a committed atheist and was no friend to Christians. Nonetheless, he did everyone a favor by exposing counterfeiters like Popoff, psychics like Uri Geller, and others who make fraudulent claims to supernatural abilities. In fact, that is the biggest problem with unscrupulous TV preachers like Popoff and his ilk (and there are a lot of them). They enable skeptics like Randi and others to paint all Christian ministers as fakes and scam artists. We see this reflected in the way Hollywood more often than not portrays Christians, and especially ministers, as sleazy charlatans.
So, then, why do we need to waste everybody’s time trying to find a vaccine or cure for Covid-19? Peter Popoff has the cure ready for us. We just need to get his Miracle Spring Water and we can empty the hospitals tomorrow!