“A shocking daylight raid of a church service attended by many elderly congregants” featured cops “issu[ing] a whopping $500 fine to every person who refused to leave.” Worse, this persecution “didn’t happen in New York or California, but right in the middle of the Bible Belt — Greenville, Mississippi.” It also gave the lie to the State’s claims that it’s simply protecting us from bubonic plague–sorry, C-virus: the service was a “drive-in” one, “where worshipers were isolated in their own cars and listened to the sermon on the radio.” 

Cheer the utterly courageous, defiant pastor with me: “I told them to get some more tickets ready because we will be preaching Sunday morning and Sunday night,” Pastor Arthur Scott said. “One of the police officers said the mayor wanted to make an example of our church…” Oh, yeah, that’s totally Constitutional, as Mark Carroll, who sent me this article, must be snorting.

Speaking of courage and defiance, here’s how one creative reader of LRC is defying the Catholic Church’s anti-Biblical order to shutter its chapels: 

I will be on the steps of my Catholic parish’s church just before 7am [tomorrow, Easter Sunday]. I will test the door, to see if it opens. If not, I will quietly sit on the steps. For how long, I don’t know yet.

I have already set a minor stage for this by doing two things:

1. Inform by email one of the priests–a long-time family friend–of my intention (his reply was, well, irritated; I clearly struck a nerve).
2. Inform by email three good friends who are also parishioners (I intentionally included no RSVP).

My wife will accompany me, but stand off the church property in the car, in case I am confronted or arrested. I don’t expect that to happen. To any police officer who approaches me, I will merely say that I am waiting for the church to open as the governor specifically exempted churches from any order to close (that order, sadly, came from the treacherous bishops, and the priests…obeyed). … I will not be on public property, nor will I be in spitting distance of anyone else. If no one (priest) duly asks for my removal, I’m not sure what any police officer could do to me, or what lawful order he could issue.

I have no idea if anyone will join me, but I expect no one. … I did say–in the email read by my priest friend–that I consider my intended action a test to see what our parish priests are made of. They have been notified as a courtesy. I know they’ll be awake. I also know the security cameras will be on.

As I write this, it occurs to me to wonder if the pastor will have the parish’s uniformed, armed private security guard on duty. He is a close friend, but I did not include him in my heads-ups. I guess it never occurred to me that a locked church campus would need extra security. … I will not confront him or defy his order to leave the premises, should he so order. If he does, I will be profoundly sad.

Please join me in praying for this martyr-in-the-making as well as our brothers and sisters in Mississippi as they recover from the trauma—and expense—of Our Rulers’ tantrum.

The Best of Becky Akers