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LA County could pay $400,000 settlement to church that fought COVID-19 mandates

Los Angeles County could soon settle a lawsuit against an evangelical church that defied a public health order barring indoor worship during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last August, the county sued Grace Community Church in Sun Valley for holding in-person, indoor services that drew thousands of unmasked congregants.

The church then countersued state, county and L.A. city leaders, alleging violations of constitutional rights including freedom of speech and religion.

On Tuesday, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors will vote on a settlement agreement that would pay the church $400,000 for legal fees, with the money coming from the county Department of Public Health’s budget.

Under the agreement, the state of California would also pay $400,000.

County officials declined to comment until the supervisors vote. If approved, the settlement resolves all legal actions between the county and the church.

An attorney for the church declined to comment because the settlement has not yet been approved.

At the beginning of the pandemic, Grace church’s pastor, the Rev. John MacArthur, was supportive of following coronavirus mandates, since he has preached for years about obeying government officials.

He told his followers that the church’s livestream was an opportunity to reach non-believers in other countries.

Last summer, he changed his message, saying there was no pandemic and the public health statistics were wrong, even as church members were falling ill and dying. It was all a government ploy to control Christians, he said.

The church has seen multiple coronavirus outbreaks, including in one adult fellowship group that met in person.

But that hasn’t stopped MacArthur from continuing to fight COVID-19 protocols. He recently started offering a form letter for members to claim a religious exemption if their employer requires COVID-19 vaccination.

In a recent letter to supporters of the John MacArthur Charitable Trust, which finances various Grace ministries, the pastor said the county had decided to drop all charges and pay the church’s legal fees.

He called this a “monumental victory for Grace Community Church.”

“We know that there is no circumstance that can cause the church to close,” he wrote in the letter. “The church is not only a building but is the bride of Christ and exists to proclaim the truth.”

Content syndicated from TheLibertyLoft.com with permission.

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3 Comments

  1. This article indicates that there was an out break and also resulted in the loss of life. I would love to know the source, that is not true. The only reality is that it has proven that the mass bureaucracy that has the power to make decisions like this, is so full of pride, that it could not admit that it made a mistake about the initial out come of this out break and narcissisticly used this situation to gain control over average citizens lifes and livelihood. Look around at how we have lost our freedom.

  2. This article uses a tactic which is common to discredited media. The requirement for the reporter is that anytime a conservative idea/principle is posited there must be a corresponding refutation, even if the refutation is absurd. For every sensible, traditional idea presented, someone or some group on the left has to be quoted to dispute it.
    In this article the author states that MacArthur changed his position from obedience to elected officials to resistance of this particular government policy, presumably based on his analysis of the government’s justification. That is fair enough. It may not bring to light all that can be said, but we get the idea.
    The comment “even as church members were falling ill and dying” is irresponsible. It is not reporting – it is editorializing. What the author sets up (and this is ubiquitous) is a conflation of the two ideas: John MacArthur’s ideas and the deaths of church members. The conclusion the author proposes is that MacArthur cannot be right if his people are dying. The logic is flawed but the effect is to establish a negative bias for MacArthur’s thinking. This is the same logic used again and again in most “reporting” and it is sickening. And, it only happens when conservative/traditional ideas are discussed. Somehow we have arrived at the notion that all ideas from the right need to be balanced by bad ideas from the left, but the same is never true for all the crazy notions from the left.

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