River of Love leader thinks COVID vaccine is ‘platform for mark of the Beast’

The evangelical pastor Gordon-John Manché has claimed government restrictions against the unvaccinated are part of a global conspiracy that is heralding “the mark of the Beast” – or allegiance to the antichrist.

He was speaking in an interview on TVM’s Carter Jirraporta, but it was a notion he had already advanced back in September 2020 during one of his sermons, saying the ‘mark’ consigned people to Hell.

“I am preparing you,” he had said in 2020, “I will take no vaccination, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. I have already been vaccinated by the blood of Christ, the Holy Spirit, God’s word.”

Controversial as an American-style evangelist who has defended ‘ex gay’ campaigners and believing that Donald Trump was “breaking the build-up to the new world order”, Manché is an opponent of mandatory vaccination.

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“If you make vaccination mandatory, or prevent those who do not get vaccinated from attending restaurants or travelling, then a fearsome, alarming, historic, global event is happening – the mark of the Beast,” Manché said on TVM in November 2021.

“The vaccine is not the Beast,” he said, referring to the COVID-19 vaccine. “In the Bible, the Beast is a governing structure... a union of countries governing under the influence of the antichrist.”

Manché claimed these countries would force people to be ‘marked’ and swear fealty to the antichrist. “Am I alarmed? The way things are going, it looks like that’s the direction things are going. The platform with which it will happen is already here: you have vaccines and boosters, that keep people dependent for their security on what man is saying.”

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He also claimed that those who do not accept the ‘mark’ will have their liberty threatened. “The spirit of the antichrist has long been here, and the Beast is forming, and the antichrist’s movement is growing. We are nearing end-times... God will bring upon us plagues. If ours is the generation that will witness Christ’s second coming, then I would not be surprised that this is a plague from God. I think we are very close... that our generation will witness the second coming. Jesus will take back His people, protecting them from the plagues on the world... such as viruses.”

Manché had already claimed in September 2020, that retailers forcing cashless payments due to coronavirus transmission on paper money, were also a prelude to a ‘marker’ or ‘chip’ that will represent the “mark of the Beast”.