This was a strange Easter of isolation and lament. Our country’s response to the novel coronavirus shut most church doors. My church, like many, moved to online Easter services, which I found both uncanny and comforting. “Christ is risen!” our pastor declared. “He is risen indeed,” we mumbled at the laptop while wrangling cranky twins.
But some churches did meet in person, defying public health recommendations and even the threat of arrest. Most prominent among them is Tony Spell of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a Oneness Pentecostal who for weeks insisted that keeping his church open demonstrates faithfulness and the closure order tramples his religious liberty. If one of his congregants dies of COVID-19 contracted at church, Spell told TMZ, “they died like free people, fighting for their convictions.”
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