Pastor Closes Church Due To “Tyrannical Government”

The Daily Beast reports:

The controversial Florida pastor arrested this week for holding massive services in the midst of the coronavirus epidemic said Wednesday he will not do it again this weekend. “I actually have no choice at this juncture but to shut the church down this Sunday,” Rodney Howard-Browne of The River at Tampa Bay said on his livestream call-in show. “I have to do this to protect the congregation—not from the virus but from a tyrannical government.”

Howard-Browne kept his followers guessing for two days about whether he would risk re-arrest by inviting them to pack into the church, where he claims he installed machines to prevent them from being infected. But on his Wednesday show, he finally revealed he would not reopen it, saying he didn’t want church staff or members to be arrested and floating the insane idea that an outsider infected with coronavirus might show up to a service and try to make his faithful sick.

PREVIOUSLY ON JMG: Howard-Browne tells worshipers that Jesus will “supernaturally multiply” the toilet paper in their pantry if they believe in him. Howard-Browne claims his church has “13 machines that shoot down the virus.” Pastor who performed at Howard-Browne’s church dies of coronavirus after calling it “mass hysteria” designed to hurt Trump. Howard-Browne vows to defy “ridiculous” bans on large gatherings. Howard-Browne says the coronavirus is a secret plot to “kill off many people with vaccines.” Howard-Browne says Jesus would “beat the crap” out of John Bolton. Howard-Browne says half of Congress performs human sacrifice and drinks blood. Howard-Browne says the CIA secretly trains ISIS at 49 US bases and ships them around the world. Howard-Browne says Hollywood is filled with cannibals who drink the blood of children. Howard-Browne issues a “restraining order” against the Antichrist.