Privileged vs Costly Civil Disobedience: John MacArthur, COVID-19, and Immigration
John MacArthur‘s Grace Community Church in Los Angeles County, California recently made a decision to defy the regulations of the California government about indoor meetings due to COVID-19. They decided to resume their church services. MacArthur has framed this in terms of obeying God rather than man, a type of civil disobedience as they stand with other Christians throughout history who defied tyrants who threatened the faith. Video has emerged of his roughly 6,000 to 7,0000 congregants not only failing to social distance but even failing to wear masks. It is a privileged civil disobedience that could put communities in danger. However, beyond that, it begs the question of where MacArthur and other white evangelical leaders were on the idea of obeying God rather than man and civil disobedience when it came to true areas of persecution in the U.S. Perhaps none has been so acute as the U.S. treatment of immigrant communities, many of them brothers and sisters in faith, who are being persecuted by an increasingly xenophobic government. In this area there has largely silence from white evangelicals like MacArthur.
It should be clarified that Los Angeles is not banning churches, but it is calling for gatherings to be limited to 100. Small churches are free to meet as are churches that decide to meet outside. What they want to avoid is large indoor gatherings whether they are religious or nonreligious in order to stop the spread of coronavirus. It is a highly logical decision based on health recommendations. To frame in this in terms of religious persecution is dishonest.
There could be the larger question of whether the mega church model in general is in opposition to what the church should stand for. MacArthur could have taken other steps to still ensure that people were gathering for community and fellowship. He could have split the church up in smaller groups. He could have encouraged more house churches while the pandemic was still continuing. However, instead they had to follow the mega church model, which in and of itself is problematic and is of special concern in the midst of a pandemic.
My question is where MacArthur and others now claiming to believe in the power of civil disobedience were when churches across the nation declared themselves sanctuaries for undocumented immigrants whose families were being torn apart by ICE? Where are they now as families are being denied the chance to even truly apply for asylum and kept in make-shift, precarious refugee camps at the border? These areas do not seem to warrant calls for civil disobedience among much of the conservative evangelical community. This would really cost them something. This would mean going against a base that has largely accepted or even embraced the xenophobia of the Trump administration. This would be truly counting the cost and carrying the cross. This privileged civil disobedience on behalf of MacArthur and similar leaders is unfortunate, particularly with other, safer options available. An individual does not need to go to an actual service of 7000 in the midst of a pandemic to worship.
This whole scenario plays into the narrative of evangelicals being persecuted in America. While there is at times truth in this claim, it is also too readily embraced by very privileged populations who want to play the role of the victim. If MacArthur wants to count the cost, it is not by opening the doors of the mega church, it is following Jesus’ call in Matthew 25 to accept him through the least of these in their midst. This begins by calling for a reopening of our refugee system, following international law by allowing individuals to go through the asylum process at our Southern border, and standing against ICE’s separation of families. Playing the martyr perhaps has distracted the church from the true victims of persecution right outside their door and across their border. We are fighting the wrong battles and missing the message of Jesus in the process.
