Pastor Mike Todd Smeared Three Wads of Spit on Brother's Face... Because Jesus
The Oklahoma church leader known for his publicity stunts disgusted the entire internet.
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Pastors love illustrating their sermons with powerful visuals. They can often be cheesy or expensive, sure, but if the goal is to make sure the congregation never forgets your message, a good illustration can do the trick.
No one said those illustrations had to be uplifting, though.
And on Sunday, Pastor Michael Todd of Transformation Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma gave perhaps the most disgusting sermon illustration you’ll ever see.
Let me set you up for this: Mike Todd wanted to tell his congregation that they might be going through a rough patch right now and questioning God. But you should never question God, he wanted to teach them. God might degrade you. God might spit on you. But God always had your best interests at heart no matter how things appear on the outside.
To illustrate that point, he brought his brother Brentom Todd on stage. Michael Todd then proceeded to spit giant wads of saliva into his own palm three separate times… before smearing it all on his brother’s face. You can watch the entire disgusting thing starting at the 39:10 mark of the official video… or just watch this clip that made the rounds on Twitter all day:
… The vision [God is] about to give you, it might get nasty.
[Smears saliva on Brent’s face. Audience groans.]
And do you — do you hear and see the responses of the people? What I'm telling you is how you just reacted, is how the people in your life will react when God is doing what it takes for the miracle.
Nothing like subjecting yourself to public humiliation to hammer home the point that God is always on your side…
The spitting doesn’t even make sense here. Michael Todd justified it all by saying this is what Jesus did to heal a blind man. But that’s not even what the Bible says! In John 9, Jesus spits on the ground in order to create mud — and he puts that mud on the man’s eyes. Michael Todd, who apparently hasn’t read that chapter, skipped the most important step…
Also: He isn’t Jesus. So what the hell is he doing?
Also: WE’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A GODDAMN PANDEMIC.
Also: I have many question about how they do baptisms in this church.
If the goal of that display was to bring people closer to God, it backfired, at least based on the reactions online when people saw the clip:
By the way, as explained by the conservative Christian website Protestia, this is hardly Todd’s first time doing something outlandish for attention:
… Michael Todd is known for crowd surfing during his church’s worship service and spending a lot of money. In the last two years he’s given away $3,500,000 in houses, cash, and cars, spent $65,000 to buy 168 pairs of shoes, gave $600,000 away in “reparations” and purchased a real estate complex for over $20,000,000, and then another for $35,000,000.
There was also the time he said domestic violence wasn’t a good reason to end a marriage.
Honestly, it’s kind of amazing that despite all these Oprah-like publicity stunts, Michael Todd may forever be known as the weird pastor who smeared his spit on another guy’s face.
I suppose if he showed God "showering" gold upon a person would be, um, rather X-rated.
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"God might degrade you. God might spit on you. But God always had your best interests at heart no matter how things appear on the outside."
Any survivor of an abusive relationship will recognize this. God needs to go to jail for domestic violence.