Should Churches Violate Shutdown Orders? The Answer Is More Complicated Than You Might Imagine.

[GURPS]

First, some of the churches violating orders not to meet hold to what's called the Prosperity Gospel. Such churches teach that if you have enough faith or pay enough in tithes (often called seed money), God will do what you want, whether it's good health, wealth, or job success. God is like a vending machine, according to this theology, able to be manipulated into doing our bidding if we have sufficient faith (and drop enough money in the offering plate). These churches not only take advantage of vulnerable people, robbing them of both money and hope, but they're also heretical, selectively using scripture to create a distorted and damaging image of God. Costi Hinn, nephew of TV prosperity preacher Benny Hinn, documented in his book and in interviews the theatrics and outright fraud employed by his uncle and other false teachers. (I wrote more about it here.)

What happens when you cross the prosperity gospel with a global pandemic like the Chinese flu? This, courtesy of Howard-Browne:

This should be a time of supernatural sustenance, where what you have in your hand will multiply. And every day there will be multiplications. You look at your toilet paper and you think I'm going to run out of toilet paper, but you have another roll where that one was and you don't know how did that even take place. Are the toilet paper rolls getting together and having families now? What is taking place? When you look again, there's still enough. You think you're going to run out but when you look again there's still enough. That's supernatural sustenance.

https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/pasto...ing-florida-shutdown-order-whos-in-the-right/



False Prophets

 

[GURPS]

A fourth group believes that the Bible commands Christians to meet in person and that streaming services do not meet that requirement. While I have not heard of any churches defying the orders for this reason, I've heard discussions among pastors and other Christians who are grappling with how to balance scriptural mandates:

• "And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near" (Hebrews 10:24-25).
• "But when the Pharisees heard that [Jesus] had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 'Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?' And he said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets'" (Matthew 22:34-39).
• "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment" (Romans 13:1-2). [Emphases added]

 

[vraiblonde]

Good for them To me it has nothing to do with "supernatural" and everything to do with our freedom as Americans.

I think everyone should violate the fascist shutdown orders and those who want to cower in their homes can do so.