A self-styled Christian "prophet" who embraced Donald Trump and his first bid for the presidency in 2016 while claiming God was speaking to him has been outed by his pastor brother as a fake.
Prior to the 2020 presidential election North Carolina pastor Jeremiah Johnson told his flock that the former president would waltz to a second term because God had ordained it. After Trump lost, and following the Jan 6 insurrection, Johnson posted a video to his popular Facebook page and confessed "I was wrong" before shuttering his ministry.
At the time he stated, "I believe that it is a tremendous mistake to take the next four years to argue and debate and cause division and grow more prideful talking about how we think the election was taken from Donald Trump. I actually believe we need to take the next four years and humble ourselves."
However, as the Washington Post is reporting, Johnson started up another ministry and his brother Josiah has now called him out as a fake while insisting Jeremiah has been cribbing his predictions and claims from others including himself.
As the Post's Danielle Paquette wrote, Josiah Johnson wrote to his own 5,000 followers, "What if you found out that your favorite prophet or pastor wasn’t sexually abusing anyone but INSTEAD they were completely and totally fabricating their dreams, visions, and prophetic words?”
According to the Post, Jeremiah's pastorship exploded in popularity with his leaning into politics and his admiration for the New York real estate developer's first foray into running for office.
"Holy forecasts about Trump soon took off like a 'prophetic meme,' religion scholar Matthew D. Taylor pointed out, and Politico would describe Jeremiah as a 'wunderkind' who had helped seed the idea among the religious right that the Lord was backing Trump," Pacquette explained before writing that Josiah began to became disturbed by what he was reading and hearing.
"At the time, though, Josiah remembers recognizing his brother’s words from somewhere else. They both followed Kim Clement, another self-professed seer from South Africa," the report states before explaining Josiah heard his brother steal his own words during a 2018 sermon.
"He recalls freezing when Jeremiah predicted a forthcoming cleansing, according to footage of the event — 'a boom in the upper room.' A boom in the upper room? Nights earlier, when Josiah couldn’t sleep, he’d jotted down a poem called 'the boom in the upper room.' He can’t find a copy of it today, he said, but he’d been so proud of the verses, he’d shared them with Jeremiah," the report states with Josiah claiming he confronted his brother and texted him, "Jerry … Jenn [Josiah's wife] was really upset when you took my message ‘the boom in the upper room’ that I shared with you and released it as your own.'
“Just seems really shady bro and unappreciated by us,” he continued to which his brother replied in texts shared with the Post, "Josiah, I have been as gracious to you as I can, I got you your job. Don’t forget that. You shouldn’t be offended. You should feel tremendously blessed.”
The report adds a Christian blogger later accused Jeremiah of plagiarizing another pastor by sharing side-by-side Facebook screenshots of comments made upon the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
According to the Post, the father of the two, also a pastor has asked Josiah to delete his his "false prophet” accusations, writing, "It’s an embarrassment to me and our whole family."
"But his brother’s reputation seemed shinier than ever," wrote Paquette.
You can read more here.
