Right-wing pastor E.W. Jackson interviewed religious-right activist Dr. Steve Hotze on his “The Awakening” radio program yesterday so his audience could hear from a “medical professional who also has a Christian worldview” about how best to respond to the current COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak.

Hotze, a long-time radical anti-LGBTQ activist in Texas, told Jackson’s listeners that they simply need to follow God’s instruction to keep their bodies healthy, which will give them a strong immune system that will prevent them from even contracting the disease.

Hotze said that despite recommendations to avoid personal contact to prevent the spread of the disease, “I shake every hand that I can because I want my immune system to be challenged every day so it builds strong health.”

“Am I crazy, or are they crazy?” Hotze asked, rhetorically. “Could I be right, and Harvard and all these CDC guys be wrong? Yeah, because they’re all conventional. They don’t talk about how you can keep yourself from getting sick … Why don’t you just not get it [the coronavirus]? Why don’t you just stay healthy?”

“What about claiming the verse, ‘Let no evil befall me, nor any plague enter my tent’? Psalm 91. Hedge your angels around us to guard us and protect us, to keep us from slamming our foot against the rock. Let us tread upon the lion and the cobra,” Hotze continued. “I look upon the coronavirus—it’s just a lion and a cobra. We’re going to tread upon the lion and the cobra. The young lion and the serpent, we’re going to trample down. In trouble, God is going to hear us because we love him, we call on his name. He’s going to exalt us. He’s going to give us a long healthful life. God has made promises to us that we ought to be claiming as Christians.”