The New Arab

About Rodney Howard-Browne and what happens to Easter, Passover and the hajj during a plague

When President Donald Trump first talked about churches being “packed” on Easter Sunday, many listeners must have wondered if he meant July 12 instead of April 12.

A lot has changed since Trump’s pronouncement and, for the most part, churches are not packed except for notable exceptions, such as the arrest of a Florida megachurch pastor on Monday for holding services this past Sunday.

Some of you may have heard that the Rev. Rodney Howard-Browne ignored the social-distancing warnings and preached to a packed church this past Sunday. TMZ and other outlets reported on that story.

This is the clear and present danger ... people continuing to congregate -- squeezing into close quarters like sardines -- and that's exactly what happened Sunday at a Florida Church.

The River Church in Tampa was packed to the gills with worshipers who clearly were looking for hope. Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne, who presides over the megachurch and has been reportedly defiant over social distancing, has claimed he'll cure coronavirus just the way he did with Zika.

He has vowed he will never close his church ... despite every doctor and scientist saying social distancing is the only thing that will prevent the disease from spreading even more.

On Monday, Florida police arrested Howard-Browne and charged him with two misdemeanors. CNN’s Daniel Burke had the best lede about it all:

(CNN) Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne said he wouldn't close his doors of his Tampa, Florida, megachurch until the End Times begin. The police weren't willing to wait that long.

News of this was all over Facebook and Twitter by Monday night. For those of you who are afraid of the Constitutional implications of all this, don’t worry. The CNN story points out that the police have been trying to work with this pastor for days, but getting nowhere. Now, the Christian Post says that Howard-Browne (which I am shortening to RHB) made family groups stand six feet apart from each other, but as I watched the video (atop this page), it was hard to tell. Take a look.

But then again, I’ve a history with RHB. I interviewed him back in 1994 for this article when he first hit the American religious scene (he’s from South Africa), introducing the “holy laughter” phenomenon and calling himself “the Holy Ghost bartender.” I was not impressed.


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