Earlier this year, Ted Cruz’s father and primary presidential campaign surrogate, Rafael, spoke at televangelist Kenneth Copeland’s church in Texas, where the controversial prosperity gospel preacher declared that Ted Cruz has been anointed by God to be the next president.

Copeland, who believes that he can destroy the Ebola virus by speaking in tongues, introduced the elder Cruz by asserting that “I believe, with all my heart, that his son is called and anointed to be the next president of the United States.”

After Cruz spoke for an hour, delivering his standard presentation urging Christians to vote in order to beat back secularism and take control of this nation, Copeland asked him to recount how the Holy Spirit had descended upon a Cruz family prayer session and convinced Ted to seek the presidency, which Rafael took as a sign that “God has raised him up for such a time as this.”

Then, several church elders gathered around Cruz in order to lay hands upon him and pray while Eagle Mountain International Church senior pastor George Pearsons proclaimed that “we are in the midst right now of the new birth of this nation.”

“There’s a new birth, right now, for America,” Pearsons declared, “and it’s taking place right before our eyes. And we will not set apart our responsibility and our duty to do what God has called us to do; we say, ‘Yes, Lord, Yes, we will do exactly what You have called us to do’ and we receive the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the outpouring of the Spirit over Washington, D.C. We see Congress praying, we see them seeking God, we see prayer coming back into our schools, we see the Bible coming back into our schools, we see abortion being turned around, we see this nation being completely restored, completely delivered, for it is a time the new birth of our nation and we’re seeing it right before our eyes, now, in Jesus’ name.”