Running Wild: Hulk Hogan, God, and the Coronavirus

“While feeding on an unclean beast alone may seem like a trivial act, it is arguably symbolic of mankind’s time-honored bastardization of the natural order.”

On April 6th, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) hall of famer Terry Gene Bollea (aka Hulk Hogan) controversially claimed that the Coronavirus (COVID-19) is a punishment from God. With COVID-19 running wild, The Hulkster took to social media to suggest that—rather than spending our time developing a vaccine—we should instead use this period of enforced isolation for personal revival and to focus on Jesus.

No stranger to preaching the Word, the All-American found fame in the 1980s and 1990s teaching his young Hulkamaniacs that if you “say your prayers and take your vitamins, you will never go wrong.” But as technology has evolved and as old habits die hard, Hogan now finds himself routinely posting his evangelical messages to a much wider audience. After taking to Instagram, where he has over 1.5 million followers—just 2.2 billion short of the Lord himself—Hogan supported his thesis by comparing the current pandemic to the plagues of Egypt:

“In three short months just like He did with the plagues of Egypt, God has taken away everything we worship. God said: ‘You want to worship athletes, I will shut down the stadiums. You want to worship musicians, I will shut down Civic Centres. You want to worship actors, I will shut down theatres. You want to worship money, I will shut down the economy and collapse the stock market.’”