He says that Joel tells us that the greatest punishment of this plague is that God’s people are not allowed to gather for worship (Sumpter is preaching to a congregation watching by livestream). ![]() Preaching on verses from the Old Testament book of Joel, Sumpter says that Christians should regard the coronavirus as a call to repentance. The sermon is a standard one for traditional Christianity. Here’s the Sumpter sermon, titled, “A Message On Plagues”: I don’t have time to listen to all three, but I did spend over an hour listening to the Sumpter one, and the second Wilson one, and taking notes. The story I link to above lists three sermons - two by Wilson, and one by Sumpter - as possibly at fault. Or maybe Pastor sermon calling God’s people to humble repentance. We presume they’re talking about Pastor short lessons on responding faithfully to the COVID-19 crisis. Here’s what the church posted on Twitter in response: “Your app has been suspended and removed due to this policy issue,” the notice added. The church received a notice from the platform, stating: “We don’t allow apps that lack reasonable sensitivity towards or capitalize on a natural disaster, atrocity, conflict, death, or other tragic event. On Friday, Google suspended Christ Church’s app from the Google Play store after accusing the pastors of a lack of sensitivity and/or capitalizing on the current coronavirus pandemic. Well, it would appear straight-up banning churches isn’t off the table for some platforms, as a church in Moscow, Idaho discovered last week. But how will the tech giants and social media outlets respond, especially considering their tendency to censor unapproved messages? With coronavirus restrictions forcing the closure of church gatherings worldwide, and authorities threatening to punish those who continue to attend public worship, the Christian church has become more dependent on the internet than ever.Ĭhurches are now employing popular social media and video sharing platforms to conduct their services and broadcast their sermons. But I’ve got to stand up for Wilson and his church’s associate pastor, Toby Sumpter, in a matter of great importance to all religious people, both conservative and progressive, and to anybody who stands far outside the mainstream making radical critiques. ![]() In fact, that’s a massive understatement. ![]() It is more than fair to say that Wilson’s bomb-throwing Calvinism is not my jam. Readers who have been with this blog for a while may recall a dust-up I had with Pastor Douglas Wilson of Moscow, Idaho, over the way he and his church handled an instance of sexual misconduct and abuse.
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