Entertainment

Anti-vax televangelist Marcus Lamb dies of COVID: ‘A spiritual attack’

Marcus Lamb, a Texas televangelist who frequently railed against COVID-19 vaccine mandates on his show, has died several weeks after contracting the virus. He was 64.

Lamb’s Daystar Television Network confirmed the outspoken Christian pundit’s passing Tuesday on its official Twitter account.

“It’s with a heavy heart we announce that Marcus Lamb, president and founder of Daystar Television Network, went home to be with the Lord this morning,” the network wrote. “The family asks that their privacy be respected as they grieve this difficult loss. Please continue to lift them up in prayer.”

The news comes just weeks after Lamb’s son Jonathan, who filled in for his father on the Nov. 23 Daystar episode, dubbed his dad’s battle with COVID “a spiritual attack from the enemy,” Religion News Service reported.

“As much as my parents have gone on here to kind of inform everyone about everything going on to the pandemic and some of the ways to treat COVID — there’s no doubt that the enemy is not happy about that,” Lamb’s son fumed. “And he’s doing everything he can to take down my Dad.”

Lamb was the co-founder and CEO of the Texas-based, conservative Christian Daystar Television Network. His wife, Joni Lamb, had previously pleaded with his viewers: “Pray specifically for his lungs to clear the COVID pneumonia and pray for his oxygen level to continue to be strong and to go up, so that we can wean him off of oxygen and bring him home.” Facebook

Elsewhere in the episode, Jonathan’s mom, Joni Lamb, called into the show from her ailing husband’s hospital bedside, and beseeched viewers to offer up a prayer for his lungs, NBC reported.

“With this thing, it’s kind of like riding a roller coaster,” she lamented. “It’s like, you’ll just be up and everything’s great, and then you have a little lull, and then you come down low and then you come back up, but from everybody that I talk to — I think that’s the pattern.”

Marcus Lamb, a Texas televangelist who frequently railed against COVID-19 vaccine mandates on his show, has died several weeks after contracting the virus. Daystar

The stricken spouse continued, “We can really feel the prayers of the people. Pray specifically for his lungs to clear the COVID pneumonia and pray for his oxygen level to continue to be strong and to go up, so that we can wean him off of oxygen and bring him home.”

Launched by Lamb in 1997, Daystar came under fire recently for airing a series of broadcasts featuring staunch lockdown and vaccine opponents.

Marcus Lamb and his wife, Joni Lamb, frequently espoused anti-vax views on the network. Daystar

In July 2020, the network ran an hourlong special on “censorship” during the pandemic featuring America’s Frontline Doctors, a group that frequently touts hydroxychloroquine and other debunked alternative COVID-19 treatments.

Other anti-vaxxer guests have included Sherri Tenpenny, Del Bigtree and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose family denounced his views in May 2019, Religion News reported. The latter was recently booted from Instagram for disseminating misinformation about the COVID-19 jab.

During one episode with Bigtree and Kennedy, Lamb defended his efforts at encouraging people to do their own research on coronavirus immunization.

People wait in line at a walk-up vaccination site in Washington, DC, on Nov. 29, 2021. AFP via Getty Images

“Why are we doing this?” the Christian TV host declared. “Because God loves people and we love people.”

Lamb added, “And you know that the Devil can take people out before they fulfill destiny and purpose — that’s what he wants to do, because he hates God. So the only way he could get back at God is trying to attack God’s children.”

Lamb is one of several prominent anti-vax broadcasters to have died of COVID in recent months after neglecting to get a coronavirus inoculation. Others have included Florida-based WNDB radio host Marc Bernier, Tennessee radio host Phil Valentine, and New York City’s own Dick Farrel, also known as “the other Rush Limbaugh,” who went viral for calling Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a “power-tripping lying freak” while on air at multiple radio stations.