Lux Lucet

One Church’s Heroic Battle with the Covid Tyrants     

Many of us have read accounts of churches refusing to go along with the lawless government orders and suffering persecution for obeying God rather than men.  John MacArthur’s Grace Community Church is perhaps the best-known example.  But it’s not the only case.

I recently was made aware of another California church that went through something very much like MacArthur’s church.  In a Substack article, author David Zweig recounted the struggles Calvary Chapel in San Jose, CA had with Santa Clara County, run by some of the nation’s most zealous lockdowners. 

I highly recommend all Christians read Zweig’s article titled “When a Renegade Church and a Zealous County Health Department Collide.”  For it serves as a cautionary tale of the type of persecution Christians can suffer, even right here in America, when they seek to obey God rather than men.  But more than that, it’s also an example of God’s faithfulness to his people when they obey him and refuse in any way to be terrorized by their enemies.

Like many congregations, Calvary Chapel in San Jose initially went along with the lockdown orders.  Christians are law-abiding people and are not the sort to go out of the way to cause trouble.  So while one could argue that the church should never have closed its doors, it’s understandable that a Bible-believing congregation would make an attempt to abide by the law.  But by May, the church and its pastor had had enough.  According to Zweig’s article, on May 24, 2020 pastor Mike McClure announced that the church would reopen the following week and would not close again. 

This put the church on a collision course with Santa Clara County, leading to two lawsuits one in federal court and one in state court.  Both are still pending.  One outcome of the church’s obedience to God is that it has been slapped with more than $2 million in fines. But as bad as the fines are, the surveillance of the church by local government officials is at least as disturbing.  As Zweig put it, there was, “a multi-faceted surveillance program of the church and its members breathtaking in scope and reminiscent of totalitarian regimes…the spy operation included stakeouts, forced in-person monitoring of prayer groups and other intimate activities, and tracking the cellular mobility data of churchgoers. 

Covid, it would seem, brought out the inner fascist in the case of some Santa Clara County officials. 

One of the most disappointing facts recounted in Zweig’s article was the willingness of a neighboring church to allow the county’s Business Compliance Unit “to set up camp” on its property to spy on Calvary Chapel.  “Enforcement officers, often working in pairs, conducted dozens of stakeouts, spying on Calvary staff and members by peering at them through a chainlink fence from the adjacent property.” This occurred after Calvary Chapel had barred the Unit from its premises in August 2020 after enforcement officers had attended a church service and “left to write up a Notice of Violation for masking, gathering, singing (gasp!), and distancing violations.”  God forbid Christians should get together and sing “Amazing Grace” on Sunday morning.  Why, you’re gonna kill grandma!!

Closing

On May 11, 2023, a little over six weeks from now, the public health emergency related to Covid-19 will come to an end.  This is a good opportunity for Christians to reflect on the events of the past 3 years and their responses to them.  What were some things we got wrong?  What did we do right?  How can we be more faithful the next time we’re faced with government overreach and tyranny supposedly in the service of some public good?

This is wise counsel under any circumstances, but perhaps especially under today’s circumstances.  For the people who brought us the Covid scamdemic are still in power and most likely planning their next move.  They still control the government, the universities, the schools, and the legacy and social media. 

Very obviously, there are any number of potential flashpoints that could set off another round of tyranny here in America as well as around the world.  The war in Ukraine, economic collapse, climate lockdowns, political unrest, a new plandemic, and the LGBT agenda.  All these and perhaps other engineered emergencies we haven’t thought of could soon face us. 

But whatever comes our way, Christians have the written Word of God and the right Man on their side to face it.  Let us, therefore, not face the future in fear, but in faith.  For as he himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”   

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