“How can you go to church and pray when you’re wearing a mask? Do you think God can hear your prayers through a mask?”

Televangelist Jim Bakker

Thoughts and prayers are as effectual as farts and belches in fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

Preachers, pundits and politicians are wasting their time imploring the Almighty to end the plague.

Influencers would be well-advised to appeal to the better angels of human beings and not the benevolence of the Supreme Being if we are to win the battle against COVID.

Mask up! Get vaccinated! Social distance! Avoid Crowds! These are simple actions that we can take to once and for all end the pandemic.

Jim Bakker has less faith in the power of the Almighty than a backslidden believer; he thinks a mask can prevent an omnipotent and omniscient from hearing prayers.

Of course, Bakker is an evangelical showman who makes a Hollywood production out of praying: Yelling his entreaties at the cameras in hopes of eliciting donations and showing off his virtuoso as a prayer warrior.

I’d rather suffer through a root canal than listen to Bakker, but if I were at public building where he was on TV preaching his tomfoolery, I would take off my mask and use it to stuff my ears.