When It Comes to COVID, Do the Opposite of What These Pastors Tell You
Let's leave the science to the experts.
A California pastor hosted a mass beach baptism of nearly a thousand maskless, non-socially distanced people, disregarding the CDC’s warning that he may be ushering them into heaven sooner than later. This wasn’t Pastor Jack Hibbs’ first time making the news with a facepalm-y pandemic-related headline, either.
It’s like playing a game of Where’s Waldo trying to find a mask in this video.
Apparently California pastors have gone off the rails, because we’re not done talking about them yet. Pastor John MacArthur of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley has pulled a Reductio ad Hitlerum on his own state governor, Gavin Newsom. MacArthur paints the Hitler comparison by claiming Newson is using “false science of this virus … to affect the political change [he] wants to see.” False science? I always thought that looked more like, don’t know, turning water into wine or the dead returning to life, rather than a virus that has killed nearly 7 million people in under a year.
If they won’t believe the science, they should take it from one of their own. This Idaho pastor carried on with services and deemed himself a “no-masker” until his pride crash landed him in the ICU with a case of COVID-19.
Let’s check in where the air is a bit more clear and pastors only have the pandemic to stress them out. Like Pastor Muns in Michigan, who blames the rough summer for why he “caved” and emailed a female journalist calling her a “bitter little Asian” and suggested her clitoris be cut off. Spoiler: he didn’t actually apologize in the “apology” letter he was forced to write after being publicly outed.
It may be about time politicians start paying attention to the religiously unaffiliated. The “Nones” have just nudged their way into one of the largest voting demographics in the US, alongside Catholics and Evangelical Christians - making them nearly as important to Democratic nominees as Evangelicals are to Republicans. I don’t suppose Joe Biden is reading this, but if so: we understand religious pandering is still a necessary part of campaigning to win, unfortunately. But it wouldn’t hurt to wink at us every now and then.
And what happens when Democrats lose and the pendulum swings conservative? You get a governor who appoints conservative activist judges, like Judge Jamie Grosshans, to the Florida Supreme Court. Grosshans lied on her application, trying to cover a history that proves her inability to rule without bias on matters such as abortion, LGBTQ rights, and church/state separation. This appointment is more of a disappointment.
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