A pair of California churches has been fined several thousand dollars for violating health restrictions and conducting indoor worship services during the pandemic.
North Valley Baptist Church in Santa Clara, Calif., was fined $10,000 by Santa Clara County for conducting two indoor worship services that included singing. It also received a cease-and-desist order. (The county fined the church $5,000 for a Sunday morning service and $5,000 for a Sunday evening service.)
Meanwhile, a California judge fined Godspeak Calvary Chapel in Thousand Oaks, Calif., a total of $3,000 for meeting indoors and held the church and its pastor, Rob McCoy, in contempt of court. (The judge’s fine included $500 for each one of six services.)
Jack Trieber, pastor of North Valley Baptist Church, decried the county’s fine.
“I’m in charge of the spiritual health of the people who sit in this area,” he said in a video inside the church building. “… And although [physical] health is very important — of utmost importance – spiritual health is supreme. And because we’ve been locked out … of churches, suicide is up, domestic violence is up, drug addiction is up, homelessness is up, alcoholism is up. We need to get back to worshiping God. I am commanded to worship God.”
Trieber said he is “willing to take a stand.”
“If you arrest me this week – and I know that’s a…
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