AP-September 26, 2019
Reverend Warren Murrey of the American Faith Coalition held a press conference this morning outside the organization's headquarters in Atlanta in which he read from a release that the recent epidemic known as Sudden Adult Death Syndrome has been a manifestation of "divine wrath".
"We at the American Faith Coalition have prayed on this for months and consulted Biblical scholars worldwide. We have looked closely at the SADS dead of the last several months; we have investigated them and their lives. We have looked at prophecy and at our modern culture and have, with the guidance of the Creator, concluded that SADS was the very real manifestation of holy anger with the human race that has, in recent years, become an increasingly non-fruitful and non-multiplying race. The very first divine commandment unto us was to procreate and to people the planet with our kind, and individuals and couples...married or not...have increasingly decided in these last ten years to be childless. They have decided to live their lives without the joys and responsibilities of parenthood and that has not gone unnoticed by our Creator. The AFCo is able and willing to provide details today that prove that each and every so-called victims of SADS was a man or woman that had never had a child. This was an affront against our Creator and the divine will. And so, these people were punished as a sign to us. And, hallelujah, we have heard the call and in the Creator's mercy we have been spared. The plague is over and we are able to dust ourselves off and walk into the Promised Land."
Mr. Murrey's remarks were rebutted by the Center for Inquiry, a secular humanist organization headed by director Henry Banks. In a statement released by the Center, Mr. Banks derided AFCo's announcement. "Once again, religious organizations are closing down avenues of discussion and research by claiming that recent events are the work of some supernatural being. That the American Faith Coalition is actually placing the blame on the victims of the tragic SADS epidemic for their own deaths is unconscionable and beyond the pale. What is needed at this crucial time is more compassion and scientific research, not hate and intolerance and superstition."
AFCo has not yet released the details promised in their press conference verifying their claims citing trouble with their website, but members of the organization have started demonizing the victims of SADS on blogs all across the Internet. At the time this article was written, more than fifteen such websites could be found after a cursory search.