Category Archives: Religion

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, October 12, 2020: 

When Pastor Mike McClure of San Jose’s Calvary Chapel agreed to open his church on Pentecost Sunday (May 31), he joined with more than 3,000 other churches defying California Governor Gavin Newsom’s shutdown orders. He said, “We’re called to be together. Man doesn’t have the right to close the doors. God doesn’t want us to isolate ourselves. All of us need to be in the sanctuary.”

And then he added a warning to Newsom:

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, October 1, 2020: 

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a Christian non-profit law firm, sued Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring on Tuesday over a new law adding “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as protected categories in the state’s Human Rights Act. The simple addition of those fluid, subjective, and amorphous terms jeopardizes Christian ministries’ ability to, among other things, hire employees who support those ministries.

This lawsuit was predicted by Victoria Cobb, president of The Family Foundation just days after Virginia Governor Ralph Northam signed it into law:

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, September 14, 2020:  

When the senior pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, John MacArthur, opened services on Sunday, he said:

The question has come up a number of times about why Grace Church does not just comply with the orders that have been laid down for churches, and I thought it might be helpful to give you a list of the things that are required of us as a church, so that you understand how utterly impossible that would be.

He then ran through the list of restrictions Los Angeles County Health Officer Buntu Davis placed on the church in order for it to be able to hold services. It was a long list, and MacArthur was interrupted several times with laughter from his congregation.

Before moving on to the service itself, MacArthur added: “Obviously, this is not constitutional, but more importantly, it goes against the will of the Lord of the church, Who calls us together.”

That is the core issue: whether the county can prohibit the church from holding services indoors, claiming the right to do so in the name of public health, or whether such an order exceeds the state’s authority in light of both the Federal and California constitutions.

And that is the issue that Mitchell Beckloff, the Superior Court Judge, skirted in his 22-page ruling against the church on Thursday.

He danced around it, claiming that his order against the church was merely a temporary restraining order and not a ruling on the merits:

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, August 31, 2020: 

In a staggering show of vindictiveness, Los Angeles County served notice this weekend on Pastor John MacArthur that it was canceling his church’s lease on County property. The land the church sits on belongs to the county, and they want it back. They also want revenge.

Four times the county has tried to shut down MacArthur’s Grace Community Church over its refusal to follow COVID edicts against indoor church services, and four times it has been rebuffed.

When Jenna Ellis, the lead attorney from the Thomas More Society  which is helping defend the church against the onslaught from the county, learned about it, she called it out for what it was: government tyranny through retaliation. Ellis remarked,

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, August 20, 2020:  

Pastor John MacArthur’s Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, isn’t the only mega-church defying Governor Gavin Newsom’s COVID-inspired edicts and mandates against worship services being held indoors.

Following Newsom’s edict on July 13 moving most of the state back to Phase 1 — a complete ban on businesses and churches from operating indoors — Greg Fairrington, pastor of Destiny Church in Rocklin, video-taped his response. He said,

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Sunday, August 9, 2020: 

Once officials from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health finished “investigating” Grace Church of Sun Valley, California, for holding in-person services in defiance of the state’s mandates limiting such services, they sent a “cease and desist” order to senior pastor John MacArthur. If he continues such defiance, and holds services in the future, he faces a daily fine of $1,000 or arrest.

He continues to hold such services, and a top-drawer coterie of high-powered attorneys are gathering around the church and its pastor to offer free legal assistance. Such assistance is likely to be needed, and soon.

One of the attorneys is constitutional lawyer Jenna Ellis, a senior fellow at the Falkirk Center for Faith & Liberty who provides legal counsel at the Alliance Defending Freedom. She is also the senior legal counsel to the Trump 2020 presidential campaign, has served on the president’s legal team during his impeachment trial, and is Trump’s personal counsel.

She can see what’s coming: a battle royal over the constitution. Ellis remarked:

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, August 4, 2020:

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said on Monday that officials from its Environmental Health division are “investigating and will be reaching out to the church leaders [at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley] to let them know they need to comply with the Health Officer’s Order” to discontinue singing at places of worship and limit indoor attendance to 25 percent of capacity or 100 people, whichever is lower.

Senior Pastor John MacArthur already knows about that order, and he isn’t obeying it.

On Friday, July 24, he let them, and the whole world, know why. In his “Biblical Case for the Church’s Duty to Remain Open,” he wrote: