As the new year begins, it’s time to look at one of the most amazing and spectacularly daffy practices within evangelicalism: Prophecy. It’s one of those dealbreakers within Christianity. It shows there’s nothing supernatural or divine at the religion’s heart. But evangelicals in particular can’t help themselves. They love prophecy, and they love prophets! So today, let’s look at the kinds of prophecy and the current trends around it.
(This post and its audio ‘cast first went live on Patreon on 1/6/2026. They’re both available now!)
SITUATION REPORT: A prophet incites murder
I was watching a video the other day as I cooked—and it ties into our topic today!
In this case, Pastor Jerry Rollins positioned himself as a prophet of Yahweh. Using borrowed divine authority, he demanded various things of his small-town Kansas congregation. In turn, they saw their pastor as a conduit of their god, channeling divine desires and commands through him. But Rollins used that power to gratify his own desires.
It’s a great grift, if one can convince enough people that one is really channeling a god. It obviously provided a nice, cushy life for Jerry Rollins and his family—though very quickly his true nature shone through the divine façade. Using these supposedly-divine prophecies, he convinced a single mother and her brother to murder her babydaddy in 1992. In fact, one newspaper report from the time tells us that authorities indicted eleven people in all, all members of Rollins’ little Pentecostal church, though most escaped charges. Rollins himself didn’t get in much trouble for inciting the murder, but the babymama and her brother caught huge sentences. (The mom just got paroled. Her brother, the actual gunman, was paroled back in 2019.)
This case reminds us that Christians have a tough time dealing with the concept of prophecy. According to most of their beliefs, prophecy not only can but does happen all the time. Their god loves to dabble in his followers’ lives, according to almost all of them! But some of them know how fraught the practice can be, and how often things go disastrously poorly for those taking it too seriously.
Unfortunately, that leaves a lot who believe in prophecy in at least one form. So today, let me guide you through some different kinds of prophecy.
Type One: The specific one
The first and most obvious type of prophecy is the specific one. This one predicts an event that will take place on a particular date. These prophecies can be downright spectacular in nature, impressing normies like almost nothing else.
Most of us can likely remember various Endtimes and Rapture prophecies in recent years. Harold Camping’s infamous 2011 Rapture prediction went viral, but it wasn’t his first (or his last) such prediction. I myself joined Pentecostalism after hearing about the “88 Reasons” Rapture prediction. More recently, we had John Hagee’s “Blood Moons” Endtimes prophecy in the mid-2010s and last year’s September prophecy.
But these aren’t the only types of specific prophecy. Before American presidential elections, often self-styled prophets predict who’ll win. In 2020, so many of them wrongly predicted Donald Trump would win that a bunch of evangelicals decided it was high time to issue some “Prophetic Standards!” (But because nobody can claim ultimate authority in evangelicalism, nobody noticed or cared.)
The “Prophetic Standards” didn’t do anything to rein in the grifters. Instead, public ridicule may have accomplished what Jesus couldn’t manage to get done. So-called prophets still try to get away with specific prophecies, but Christians themselves are examining specific prophecies (like this piece about Chris Reed’s utter failure as a prophet) more closely than I’ve seen them do in the past.
Type Two: The vague word from the Lord
This second type is by far the more popular form of prophecy. In this one, the prophet doesn’t say anything specific at all. It takes two forms:
- A vague message for the flocks to keep the faith and keep Jesusin’ as hard as they can cuz the boss is coming back Any Day Now™
- Vaguely prediction-ish glimpses of the future, either gloriously victorious or grimly terrifying
As a good example, here are the so-called prophecies of Jeremiah Johnson for 2025, who rose to prominence after predicting that Trump would win in 2016.
- Yahweh is totally sending various kinds of angels to protect various people and countries.
- “A spirit of accusation and assassination” seeks to sabotage Israel.
- “Holiness preachers are going to rise in 2025 like never before,” bringing about a new terror of Yahweh’s judgment against hypocritical church leaders.
None are specific. None can be tested. I mean, how could anyone test for the presence of angels? Or if “a spirit” of any kind, much less specifically a “accusation and assassination?” And even so, is it really that hard to predict that Israel might face the odd assassination or two during an intense conflict?
We can see the same thing from another pastor, Leslie Chua. He writes the vaguest bullshit I’ve seen in ages: Yahweh will “bless” his people, he will give back what Satan stole, and he will totally “vindicate” them. That last one claims that “those who malign you will eat humble pie,” which strikes me as extremely smug and gloaty-sounding. But don’t worry! In the same post, he writes that Yahweh totally confirmed these prophecies’ validity! (As he writes, “How uncanny is that?” How indeed!)
This form of prophecy isn’t new, of course. In a 1977 writeup of a Charismatic meetup in Kansas City, we can find tons of vague prophecies thoughtfully compiled on page 10 of their PDF. A Charismatic church is one that practices “spiritual gifts,” especially speaking in tongues—baby-babble that practitioners believe is a legitimate language or at least a “prayer language” understandable only to Yahweh. Prophecy is one of those gifts, so it often shows up alongside speaking in tongues.
But not a single one of those Kansas City prophecies amounts to more than “keep Jesusing really hard!”
Sidebar: Vague prophecies translated from glossolalia
There’s one form of vague prophecy that’s so cringe-inducing that your entire spine will leave your body when you hear about it.
For this form of prophecy, we need a really wrought-up congregant or two, an intense church service, and a pastor willing to let the drama unfold. At some point in the intense church service, a congregant will stand up and begin loudly speaking in tongues. Everyone else will quiet down and go very still, because Yahweh might be talking through that person. It’s a momentous occasion, this “word from the Lord,” and they hunger to hear what it means.
When the babbler finishes, they sit down. Their work is (probably) done. Now, someone must “translate” the babble for the congregation. This part is vitally important. To be a legitimate “word from the Lord,” it must be translated. Otherwise, it’s demonic. But this means someone has to stand up and loudly decipher what the babble meant. That’s a tough ask for a crowd of authoritarian followers, who avoid taking such social risks. (And that feature of evangelical psychology will come up again in just a minute here.)
Usually, someone does stand up and decipher it. If nobody does, the pastor usually will. Sometimes, the person who babbled also translates, but it’s really begrudging. When I was Pentecostal, I never encountered a prophecy without a translation.
But those translations were always so disappointing. They were always vague rah-rah messages like “take heart, Jesus loves you!” and “don’t give up now! The Rapture is right around the corner!” Here’s one such outburst and the “translation” of it, from 2022:
This is exactly what I’m talking about: an outburst in babbling that interrupts the sermon, and then a “translation” that is a simple call to keep Jesusing. It’s just as uncomfortable to experience as it is to watch, too, I promise you. At least in this case, someone jumped up immediately with the translation.
Type Three: Obviously self-serving ones
All forms of prophecy are self-serving, but one kind is more so than others. In this common variant, a pastor uses borrowed divine authority to order congregants to do stuff for him that they wouldn’t normally do. Typically, he wants more of their money than they’re comfortable giving.
In October 2025, a pastor, Todd Hall, claimed Yahweh had told him via prophecy that he (Yahweh) wanted to “make a multi-multi-millionaire out of someone, but they have to sow $10,000.”
This demand-via-prophecy isn’t rare at all. A few years ago, someone on Quora claimed their pastor incessantly demanded money for his prophecies. And a couple weeks ago, someone on Reddit claimed a “prophet” said Yahweh wanted $1000 from each member of the congregation.
If you’re wondering if these “prophets” demand more than money, of course they do. One 2019 story relates how David Taylor ran what some victims called a “slave labor cult” that preyed in particular on vulnerable women. One of them described the lavish gifts Taylor gave her, then his prophecy of revenge: if she exposed his behavior, she’d get cancer. Eventually, Taylor and one of his staff caught federal charges.
In the case that began our topic today, Jerry Rollins set himself up as “God’s prophet during these later days.” Using his borrowed authority, according to a 2002 court document, Rollins ranted from the pulpit about his town being evil, Kansas itself being evil, and various people he didn’t like being evil.
There are likely thousands of similar but smaller-scale stories unfolding every day across the US.
The internet has more or less destroyed Christian prophecy
In past years, false prophets could get away with a lot more than they can nowadays. Most of them run small-scale grifts, like that Kansas pastor, so they only get exposed if they get really out of hand. But some coast very far indeed on their own personal charisma.
Before the internet, these charismatic grifters could operate freely. If someone found out too much, they could silence that person—or move away to start a new church! But now, people can ask faraway internet users if something sounds deeply sketchy, as we saw those two people doing on Quora and Reddit.
The sheer public ridicule that failed prophecies provoke on social media might be a big part of why Christian leaders don’t make super-specific ones much anymore. For example, Harold Camping got away with multiple failed predictions until he gave one for May 2011. Public mockery of that last one might have utterly broken the man; he had a stroke not long after the predicted Rapture date came and went. But he still trotted out one last prediction for October 2011 before going radio silent and dying in 2013.
His followers, however, reacted to his May 2011 failure with utter shock.
The social costs of pushing a false prophecy have risen
One guy who’d spent a ton of money to warn people of the May 2011 Rapture said that afterward, he’d been “mocked and scoffed and cursed at. [. . .] It’s like getting slapped in the face.” I bet it really was shocking for him to realize that nobody felt obligated to give him and his claims any deference.
Since the late 2010s, possibly because of increased public awareness and scrutiny, I’ve noticed a distinct downtick in specific, testable prophecies. When that Rapture date was predicted last year, some folks on social media had clearly never faced Rapture predictions before—they were utterly unprepared for the beastie. As a result, many appeared to have taken it seriously!
In a way, the age of grand specific prophecy was a simpler, more innocent time. It wasn’t as socially risky to support a prophecy that turned out to be false. Nor was it as risky to issue one. Pat Robertson’s spectacular failures occurred constantly—one of his last ones (in October 2020) was that “without question Trump is going to win the election,” and then an asteroid would hit the Earth a while later. Two months later and after the elections, he utterly ignored his previous prophecy as he advised Trump to accept his loss.
But Unca Pat couldn’t help himself: He still predicted Kamala Harris would win the next one. (Obviously, Harris did not win.)
Prophets’ response to failure
Generally, prophets craft their prophecies in such a way that no matter what happens, the prophecy can still count as valid. Through the magic of confirmation bias and simple after-the-fact rationalization, the flocks usually can move past a failed prophecy without too much trouble.
Meanwhile, the prophets involved betray no signs at all of shame over their failures. Instead, they just move ahead to the next predictions. But sometimes they feel obligated to explain their failures.
After Harold Camping’s dramatic May 2011 failure, for example, he had some interesting explanations for it:
First, Yahweh had decided to spare the Earth and its people for five months by postponing the Rapture until October 2011. Hooray! (I guess Yahweh decided in October to postpone it indefinitely.)
Second, the world did totally face a reckoning on May 21, 2011, but it was “spiritual” and not physical. It was “an invisible judgment day!” See, that’s the date that the people of Earth fell “under judgment.” So he was right after all! No need for his radio show to warn people about the Endtimes anymore, even, because it had already happened!
And if that compelling explanation failed to land, he added that his math might have been wonky.
With prophecy, Christians lower the bar till it’s in the Mariana Trench
It might sound completely ridiculous to outsiders, but Christians often accept these explanations. The Old Testament might suggest stoning false prophets, but even the super-hardline inerrancy crowd (who take the Bible as literally true and without errors) refuses to do anything about the wolves in their sheepfolds.
Nobody within evangelicalism has the power to hold false prophets accountable. As long as the flocks keep giving them money and attention, they’re going to keep issuing “prophecies.” They’re just being more careful now than they used to be. More outsiders’ eyes are on them, so they must be more careful than ever about how they phrase their “word from the Lord.”
What they’re not going to do is actually channel Yahweh. Instead, the flocks must be content with a god who somehow can’t communicate clearly at all and changes his mind constantly about what he wants to do. Seriously, some people’s standards for gods have dropped so far that no man-made vehicle can dive deep enough to reach them!
NEXT UP: Looking back at (and scoring) evangelicals’ 2025 predictions. See you soon! <3
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Endnote.
Here’s a vid of the aftermath of someone trying to do a “word from the Lord” before getting DENIED by a church that doesn’t buy into that bullshit. If I’m remembering correctly, it was a woman who caused the outburst. I can’t remember exactly what she said, but it didn’t strike me as anything but standard-issue for this type of sermon interruption. Just a normal human being needing some extra human connection and reassurance, expressed in an evangelical way.
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