A pastor in the United States has apologised after he received backlash for rubbing saliva in his brother’s eyes during a sermon.
Mike Todd was trying to explain how difficult it is to trust Jesus by telling the story of Christ healing a blind man by rubbing mud and saliva in his eyes.
Despite Todd’s efforts to “make the story come alive”, many weren’t keen on the retelling of John 9:6.
Social media became abuzz with criticism, with many saying that the move was “tone deaf” due to the ongoing pandemic and the rapidly-spreading omicron variant.
The Tulsa preacher, who leads Transformation Church, took to Instagram to apologise for his actions in a bid to “validate people’s feelings”.
In the video apology, he describes his actions as “gross” and “disgusting”.
He said: "I just want to acknowledge what happened yesterday when the 'spit hit the fan'. I watched it back and it was disgusting. It was gross. I want to validate everybody's feelings. That was a distraction from what I was really trying to do. I was really trying to make the word come alive and for people to see the story, but yesterday it got a little too live and I own that.
“We wanna help people. We want people to see Jesus. We want people to feel loved. We want people who are desperate to be able to find hope and I am passionate about that — so much so that I try to do extreme things to help people get it and yesterday it crossed the line.”
The two-hour sermon is available to watch via YouTube.