Members of a Baptist church were given $500 tickets by local authorities for sitting in their cars in the church parking lot listening to a sermon from their pastor on the radio during the coronavirus pandemic.
The lot at Temple Baptist Church in Greenville, Mississippi, was full of parishioners Wednesday night gathered in their parked vehicles to listen to pastor Arthur Scott give a sermon via a lower-power FM frequency radio, according to Delta Democrat-Times.
That’s when police officers arrived and started handing out $500 tickets to people who didn’t disperse in adherence to social distancing guidelines.
“The police were respectful and just doing their job,” church member Lee Gordon said. “They asked us to leave first, and those who stayed got a ticket.”
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves issued a shelter-in-place order on April 3 that was followed by an executive order from Greenville’s mayor on Tuesday, mandating all church buildings close for both in-person and drive-in church services and encouraging churches to use other means to communicate.
Church members were told they were in violation of that order despite sitting in their cars.
“The preacher is in the church at the pulpit, and we are streaming the service live as well,” Gordon said. “But a lot of our membership is elderly and doesn’t have access (to technology needed to stream the service).”
Gordon added that he doesn’t believe the tickets were issued to send a message and believes the church service will be held again on Easter Sunday.
“I think somebody called the police,” Gordon said. “And we were just doing the same thing we’ve been doing the last three weeks.”
In Kansas, a legal battle is unfolding as Republicans in the state have pushed back against the Democrat governor’s effort to close churches during the coronavirus pandemic.
Reports have surfaced throughout the United States of pastors and parishioners defying stay-at-home orders to worship with their communities.
