what do we do with selfish people who go out of their way to risk causing deaths during a pandemic?
Ok, I hate to admit this, but this person is from my present home state. Governor Edwards has declared an emergency situation with the Covid-19. The declaration is for the protection of the health and saving of the lives for the people in this state. A lot of other states have been wise and shown that they care about their people by following that same stance. The fact is that if we were to continue living as we did before, we would in essence be killing, or running a very good chance of killing, each other.
Now a Louisiana pastor at a Pentecostal church called “Life Tabernacle Church” decided to put lives at risk by disobeying the ban and having not one, but two services where there were huge numbers of people in attendance. One was on March 23 for a Thursday Service and one was Palm Sunday. At the Palm Sunday service, he had buses bring in up to 2000 people.
When asked why he did this, knowing about the ban, his answer was that “true Christians don’t mind dying because of Church”. Really? So attending a service is more important than their lives? Ok, so maybe for them it is. But their getting able to get together 2000 strong, and get the virus and spread it all over the place is not worth my dying, nor the death of any of my loved ones.
Since the option was there for zoom or a recording and streaming the service, I have to suspect that the point was that he simply didn’t want anybody to tell him what to do. Likely money is at the bottom of the entire decision making process. He even made the point that “using the internet” wouldn’t do it or America wouldn’t have spend billions building churches.
No, America wouldn’t have spend billions building churches if they were, in many cases almost exclusively, money making schemes. There is no reason for that much expenditure which tells me that Mr Spell is more concerned with getting huge numbers of people into the church so they can give lots of money. In addition, I do realize, however, that the Pentecostal denominations feed off emotions, and their whole structure is built on a level of emotionality that I personally would consider extravagant. I understand that they do not, and they have the right to their expression and mode of worship, just as I have the right to a more orderly style.
What I have to wonder about these people is since when is the death of those around them in their personal lives expendable so that they can get together for one or two more emotion driven “worship” experiences. When in the end, their next door neighbor or the old man at the nursing home that they want to go visit, dies because of their refusal to adhere to the medically mandated guidelines, how are they going to feel. Or, are they really going to self-isolate except for that church service.
Almost every Tuesday for the last 5 or 6 years, I have delivered food to HIV patients. It is my volunteer work and I value it highly. However, due to this pandemic, I have been relieved of that task. I am glad. I would like to think that I would excuse myself even if they had not indicated that the leaders of the program were going to relieve the volunteers, but who knows at this point.
Whenever there is a disease going around, my concern is equally devided between escaping it myself and avoiding passing it on to others. I fail to get why a pastor who proclaims to believe in the value of humanity, and who wants to “preach the gospel” in order to save souls, would then turn around and endanger not only his own flock but the surrounding community.
Mr Spell is facing 6 charges of refusal to take the health measures the governor has decided is what is needed to save lives. He is facing a potential of 6 months in jail and 500.00 fine for each of those charges. I doubt a court would actually sentence him but they might make him pay the fine. Personally, I hate to see it come to that, but selfishness on that level is a very horrible reflection on both humanity and “the American Christian” community in my opinion.
But then, Mr Spell probably reaped a lot of money during the collections at those two services, maybe he can be required to share some of that with those fighting against the Covid-19 since he has contributed to the problem.
