The megachurch pastor in Tampa, Florida has decided to stop holding services during the pandemic after his arrest earlier this week. But he’s not doing it because of the Coronavirus, but rather to protect his flock from a tyrannical government:
DAILY BEAST – “I actually have no choice at this juncture but to shut the church down this Sunday,” Rodney Howard-Browne of The River at Tampa Bay said on his livestream call-in show.
“I have to do this to protect the congregation—not from the virus but from a tyrannical government.”
Howard-Browne—who just two weeks ago declared the church would “never close”—was charged with two misdemeanors on Monday after he failed to heed warnings by the Hillsborough County sheriff.
Howard-Browne kept his followers guessing for two days about whether he would risk re-arrest by inviting them to pack into the church, where he claims he installed machines to prevent them from being infected.
But on his Wednesday show, he finally revealed that he had shut down the building on Monday and would not reopen it, saying he didn’t want church staff or members to be arrested and floating the insane idea that an outsider infected with coronavirus might show up to a service and try to make his faithful sick.
“I’m not caving,” said Howard-Browne, who is free on $500 bail.
Howard-Browne said earlier this week that he believes “the World Health Organization has come in and is using a pandemic to take over not just America, but the whole of the world.”
Yeah, I don’t think that’s true. But I do think plenty of politicians, groups, and governments will try and take advantage of the unfolding economic crisis in order to push their leftist agendas, so we do have to be weary of that.
I would note that since Howard-Browne’s mega-church services last week, there does seem to be more coronavirus cases being reported in Hillsborough county, where his church resides:
The last bar represents yesterday, April 1st, and you can see it spiked up to 53. Two days before that it had spiked up to 50. I’m not saying this is because of Howard-Browne’s church because I can’t see the specific case data. I’m just suggesting it as a possibility given his services were held last Sunday, March 29th. When we reported his arrest on Tuesday, Hillsborough County had 253 cases. Two days later they have 362.
I think it’s a good thing he’s cancelling services. For whatever reason he uses to justify it, he’s finally doing the right thing.