After weeks of legal wrangling, a California judge on Sept. 10 issued a temporary restraining order against Pastor John MacArthur and Grace Community Church in Los Angeles due to the global pandemic.
Under a preliminary version of the court order posted to the court’s website, the church is prohibited from “conducting, participating in, or attending any indoor worship services” at any place within Los Angeles County “in violation of all applicable state and local health orders.” Further, the church is specifically forbidden from “participating in, or attending any outdoor worship services at the church or any other place within Los Angeles County unless, at all times during the services, they (a) fully comply with the state and county orders, (b) comply with the mandates of the state and county orders to wear face coverings and practice physical distancing, and (c) do not permit or allow any violations of the state and county orders.”
Judge Mitchell L. Beckloff also required that the church allow public health officials to “enter onto the church premises to verify compliance with the state and county orders.”
MacArthur and church leaders not only have defied government orders against public gatherings for weeks now but have denied public health officials access to the church property to document what was going on there. While the massive indoor worship services have been livestreamed, the camera angles in recent weeks have been limited to the pulpit and chancel areas and have not shown images of the congregation. Photos and videos taken by people in the room, however, have shown few face masks and little social distancing.
The order against outdoor services without social distancing and masks is significant because earlier the county and state had offered outdoor gatherings as a possible alternative to indoor worship services for the megachurch. While the church has held some overflow events outdoors, it rejected the plea to meet only outdoors and allowed thousands of people into a tightly packed sanctuary. MacArthur also publicly commended the congregation for not using masks or social distancing.
Two Sundays ago, MacArthur told the congregation “there is no pandemic,” which was the culmination of previous denials of the scientific and medical consensus about the seriousness of COVID-19.
Judge Beckloff — who three times earlier delayed taking immediate action against the church — declared in the court order that “there is an immediate threat to public health and safety due to the COVID-19 pandemic.” And, he said, the court believes the county is “likely to prevail on the merits of their complaint and that the harm to the general public, including all residents of Los Angeles County, from the non-issuance of a preliminary injunction outweighs the harm to defendants from the issuance of a preliminary injunction.”
The judge also said: “While the court is mindful that there is no substitute for indoor worship in the ‘spiritual refuge’ of a sanctuary, the court cannot ignore the county health order does not dictate a ban on worship.”
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