John MacArthur pastors the Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California (eastern San Fernando Valley). A few weeks ago, he began preaching to an empty church, and soon his members started attending in person. He has decided to defy the California governor’s attempt to keep churches closed, even though it is now apparent that Covid-19 is roughly equivalent to a bad flu season. Is he doing the right thing? I think so.

He points out that 8,500 people have died of Covid-19 in a state with a population of 39.51 million people, which means that the average Californian has a 0.02% chance of dying from the Wuhan virus and a 99.98% chance of not being killed by it. The disease is real and dangerous, but because of the age-stratified fatalities, society can and should go on as normal while warning people over age 65 or younger people with serious co-morbidities to take reasonable precautions.

Serious religious liberty concerns are raised when a public safety issue this mild can form the pretext for governors to shut down religious worship.

Below is a video clip of MacArthur’s appearance on Tucker Carlson, and below that is a longer appearance on Eric Metaxas’ radio show.

UPDATE:

The document referenced in the Tucker Carlson segment is entitled, “A Biblical Case for the Church’s Duty to Remain Open.” MacArthur’s philosophy regarding church and state is one that Adventists can largely agree with. He states:

Insofar as government authorities do not attempt to assert ecclesiastical authority or issue orders that forbid our obedience to God’s law, their authority is to be obeyed whether we agree with their rulings or not. In other words, Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2 still bind the consciences of individual Christians. We are to obey our civil authorities as powers that God Himself has ordained.
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[BUT . . . W]hen any government official issues orders regulating worship (such as bans on singing, caps on attendance, or prohibitions against gatherings and services), he steps outside the legitimate bounds of his God-ordained authority as a civic official and arrogates to himself authority that God expressly grants only to the Lord Jesus Christ as sovereign over His Kingdom, which is the church. His rule is mediated to local churches through those pastors and elders who teach His Word (Matthew 16:18–19; 2 Timothy 3:16–4:2).
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As pastors and elders, we cannot hand over to earthly authorities any privilege or power that belongs solely to Christ as head of His church. Pastors and elders are the ones to whom Christ has given the duty and the right to exercise His spiritual authority in the church (1 Peter 5:1–4; Hebrews 13:7, 17)—and Scripture alone defines how and whom they are to serve (1 Corinthians 4:1–4). They have no duty to follow orders from a civil government attempting to regulate the worship or governance of the church. In fact, pastors who cede their Christ-delegated authority in the church to a civil ruler have abdicated their responsibility before their Lord and violated the God-ordained spheres of authority as much as the secular official who illegitimately imposes his authority upon the church.

Now that is a courageous statement made with Christ-like boldness and authority, so different in tone from the mealy-mouth statements issuing from most other Christian Churches, not to mention the timorous SDA Church.

As Lincoln said of Grant: “I can’t spare this man. He fights.”

Pastor John MacArthur of Grace Community Church in California, is a guest on Fox News explaining why his church will not close their church doors

Pastor John MacArthur of Grace Community Church in Los Angeles explains why he and his congregation have stepped around Gov. Gavin Newsom's Covidvirus order