The Daily Signal - How This Pastor Resisted Government to Keep His Church Open During COVID-19

Episode Date: July 23, 2021

Churches, synagogues, and other places of worship faced extraordinary challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in liberal states such as California. Rob McCoy, senior pastor of Godspeak Calvary Chapel of Thousand Oaks in California, joins a bonus episode of "The Daily Signal Podcast" to talk about he kept his church open during COVID-19 amid the restraints imposed by the state government led by Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat. "When COVID came out, and the governor declared that the church is not essential and wouldn't allow us to do Communion during our Holy Week, [from] Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, I refused to adhere to that," McCoy says, adding: So we followed [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] standards, we did Communion service, and I resigned from my [Thousand Oaks City] Council seat because I knew they'd have to censure me and they weren't going to uphold their oath of office to the Constitution.And we did Communion. And then ... the riots happened in LA, where 75% of the businesses that were burned and looted were Jewish-owned and targeted. And the governor embraced it, shoulder to shoulder, no masks. We realized then, now knowing the data, [and] we opened the church wide on May 31. And then in August, we didn't have a single case of COVID. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to a bonus episode of the Daily Signal podcast. I'm Rachel Dildjudis. Today, Pastor Rob McCoy of Godspeak Calvary Chapel of Thousand Oaks in California joins me to talk about how he kept his church amidst the coronavirus restraints on his church. Today's interview was recorded at Turning Point USA's Student Action Summit, so please excuse any background noise and music. I'm joined today on the Daily Signal podcast by Pastor Rob McCoy of God speak Calvert Chapel of Thousand Oaks in California. Crash McCoy, thank you for being with us on the Daily Signal podcast. Thanks, Rachel. And I, unlike you, I have a base for radio, but you don't. You should be on television.

Oh, my, we are kind. Well, thank you for being with us today. I want to talk about what happened at your church during COVID. Yeah. You had a situation where your churches could be shut down and you did something a little bit different to address that. Can you tell us about what happened? Yeah, so in April of 2020, I was a sitting city council member. I just finished my term as mayor. We'd had the borderline shooting where 12 of our young people were killed in a country, Western Day. dance hall. Two of them were from my congregation. So I love my city. And when COVID came out, and the governor declared that the church is not essential and wouldn't allow us to do communion during our Holy Week, Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday. I just, I refused to adhere to that. So we followed CDC standards. We did communion service. And I resigned from my council seat because I

knew they'd have to censure me and they weren't going to uphold their oath of office to the Constitution. And we did communion. And then, When the riots happened in LA where 75% of the businesses that were burned and looted were Jewish owned and targeted, and the governor embraced it, shoulder to shoulder, no mask. We realized then, now knowing the data, we opened the church wide on May 31st, and then in August, we didn't have a single case of COVID. And in August, they set an emergency temporary restraining order on us, citing me and a thousand congregants or visitors to our church. and they got a judge who was political and predictive to give him the restraining order. It was a three to two vote on the supervisory board.

And we opened, we violated the restraining order. I was brought to court and went before the judge, and they gave us fines every Sunday we were open. We accrued hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. And I just told him, I said, I'll see the inside of a jail cell before you'll see a penny of that money. And we stood in opposition, and then finally they dropped their suit. because they knew they had no grounds.

We have a 99 plus percent survival rate in our county. And when I stood before the judge, a little over 100 deaths tragically in our county, but only two of them, of all the victims, only two had died from COVID. The rest died with, with over three comorbidities per patient. And, you know, folks say that I don't love my neighbor because I'm subjecting them to this virus.

And the reality is the virus doesn't merit what the governor did, nor what our supervisors did. I do love my neighbor. I love those who have been, the abused who have been quarantined with their abuser, the elderly who've had to die alone, the children whose schools have been shuddered when more kids have drowned in bathtubs that have died from COVID, and the 65% of the businesses in our county that will never reopen because of this tyranny from our governor and our supervisory board.

And we did a cross-complaint. They tried to pay us off this month to make us go away, and we said, no, we're still pursuing it. We want to see the documentation, how they can justify what they did to our citizenry. I love my neighbor. I'm contending on their behalf and it's coming at a cost. So what is the next step forward in that situation? What do you expect to happen next?

And what will that look like? Well, you know, tyranny will take whatever you give them. And liberty is not man's idea, it's God's idea. And unless the church awakens and realizes that we are the force to contend with tyranny that seeks to enslave people, Matthew 16, 18, when Jesus says to Peter upon this rock, I'll build mine, everyone says church. The word was translated by Tyndale as assembly. because Jesus co-opted a secular term that existed hundreds of years before he invoked it at Cesarea Philippi.

He didn't say synagogue or temple. He didn't use a religious term. The word translated, an ecclesia or ecclesia existed hundreds of years before that. In the Greek world, it was where the citizens of the city-state would gather to contend for the welfare of their community. It's the public square, and the gates of hell will not prevail. So when they seek to enslave the citizenry of the freest nation on the face of the earth, It's the church that has to stand in opposition because liberty is not man's idea, it's God's idea. And he's come to set the captives free.

And finally, the Apostle Paul said in Galatian, stand faster for in the liberty for which Christ has set you free. He wrote that in prison. If you don't contend for liberty, you won't have freedom. Freedom's having choices. Liberty's doing what's right. Well, speaking of freedom and tyranny, what is your perspective, big picture just on the state of religious freedom in this country? It's under attack. We have the First Amendment.

And if you look at Canada, their religious freedom is outlawing. in their documentation, it's just as strong as ours, and we're watching their pastors being in prison and put in solitary confinement. If they think that's not coming to America, you're sorely mistaken, it will. And unless God's people stand, this is going to be a revolution of ideas.

It need not go to what we had for a war of independence against tyranny. We can stop it with ideas and contend for it, but if the church at least 25% don't wake up and push back, we're going to lose it. It's not going to happen in my lifetime. I'm not going to let it happen. I'm willing to give up everything for the sake of my kids and my grandkids. I'm 56. I'm on the downhill side of life. I'm not going to live to 112, I don't think.

But I look at you, you're young and vibrant, and you have this heart for the nation. I'm contending for your generation. We have to leave it better than we found it, and that's why we're doing what we're doing. There's nothing you can take for me I haven't already given. Take my house, take my church, take imprison me. It doesn't matter. I'm going to stand for liberty because that's essential for mankind. Well, speaking of what's going on, we're seeing, as you mentioned, in other countries, we look at Canada, and pastors have, I mean, at least churches have been closed. I think some pastors have been put in jail or at least called into offices, law enforcement offices there. Given that Canada's so close to us, so much is going on there, really no one's recording on that. What does that say about where we could be headed? Well, we had Archer Polowski come and speak at our church. He's the pastor that contended. He says, he's the one saying, Nazis get out, and he was in that Polish accent.

He experienced tyranny in Poland. He immigrated for freedom. He's in Canada proclaiming the gospel and they're shutting him down. They have actually a higher survival rate than we have in the United States. And they're using this as weaponry for domination to silence truth. And the only way they can do that is for censorship because a lie can't contend with the truth. So first you have to silence truth and then you bring in your propaganda. The church has to be the beacon of truth.

We stand upon that. the truth, the truth will set you free. Pastors have to be the bravest in the country to contend for their neighbors. If they truly love them, they'll fight for freedom. You mentioned pastors, I think that's a really interesting situation. We see people in leadership going

through, especially pastors, where maybe they're afraid to speak out because they're afraid of what the repercussions will be, or they just don't, they're having trouble finding your voice. What would your message be to pastors who are facing this tyranny to find that voice? You know, I understand that pastors are

peace-loving. But they misunderstand that peace is not the absence of conflict. Peace is the presence of Christ in the midst of the conflict. We must contend for truth. Jesus said, I didn't come to bring peace but a sword. The sword of scripture, the word of truth, is it's sharpening two-edged sword, able to divide the thoughts and the intents of the heart. They have got to stand upon these truths no matter what the cost. And if they think that they can comply and bow to tyranny and there's some way going to yield and give them their freedoms, they're here to take them. They're here to everything we have. They don't care about your church. They don't care about the Word of God. They want you removed from the equation so they can have whatever utopia they think they can

create. But anywhere the socialism's gone, it creates poverty and enslavement. And Jesus has come to set the captives free. And by the way, the Constitutional Republic we now enjoy, it was designed in the wilderness with three to five million Jews who were enslaved in Egypt, crying out the God for delivery. Since Moses, Pharaoh contends double. the brick output, reduces the materials. All the people complain to Moses want to kill him. People want liberty. They just don't want to fight for it. God still showed himself strong.

Vanquished the Pharaoh's army, got him into the wilderness. Manor, water, all that stuff provided for. Clothes didn't wear out. But Moses goes up on Mount Sinai, gets a downloaded moral app. He comes back down, implements it, teaches the children, and puts it in the center of the community. And here's the greatest miracle of all that I've listed. Three to five million people lived together for 40 years. for 40 years without a police force or a standing army because from moral law comes civil law. And you had the Constitutional Republic when Jethro said to Moses,

you need godly men who love the law over thousands, hundreds, 50s and tens, federal, state, county, local, and then the Constitution, that's the Republic. The Constitution comes when he gives the moral law. That's the written documentation, the Ten Commandments, shows us how to live together. Government is God's idea and the Noahic Covenant. Our responsibility in the Amago Day, the image of our government. God is to allow people freedom to pursue excellence.

And when we subject them to a government that takes their choices away, we got problems. And in the United States of America, Romans 13, where it says submit to authority, Romans 13 submitting to authority, let me tell you who the authority is in America. It's the first three words of the preamble, we the people, they govern by our consent, and they are bound by the seven articles of the Constitution. And when they fail to honor that, it is our right and our duty to push back. And if we're not doing that, we're not good citizens and we're violating Romans 13. We're talking about Canada earlier.

I know some on the left and maybe even some on the right think, well, we don't really face the threat to religious freedom in this country, but something like what's happening in Canada or even other countries across the world, you know, we're not going to be thrown in jail for our faith. Is that far fetched or is that not? We've already had pastors thrown in jail in Louisiana and Florida. In addition, not only did they subject us to only broadcasting via YouTube, now they censor us. If we don't say what they want us to say, they take us off of YouTube,

and they've relegated us to a video, and going to church on a video screen is like watching a fireplace on the internet. You can hear it and you can see it, but you can't feel the warm. God says, do not forsake fellowshiping with the saints. People need community, immunity by community. This is a gimmick. We know it's a gimmick. Quit playing by their game and stand up and push back for the sake of your neighbor. If you love your neighbor, you'll fight for their freedom. So let's talk a little bit about the freedom to worship versus freedom of religion. Some people say, well, you can go in your church and you can worship behind closed doors, but once you're out in the public square, you need to put that away,

and you need to just do what is dictated to you. Why is it important that we see this distinction and know it? Show me in the Constitution where any governing authority has the right to tell a truth. They don't have that right. there's just no right avail to them and that they want to use an emergency order to do it they've got to justify it they don't have the numbers to justify that we we are not going to be relegated it's like in the scriptures a wife submitting to her husband she's she's not under obligation to submit to an abusive husband she does that willingly by her own choice just as a

church submits to a government willingly but when they violate they're there for our good When they cease to do good, they cease to be the authority in accordance with what Jonathan May, who is a great preacher in America, 70, he says when he died, Adams who said, and that's what started the revolution. That's what gave us a nation of 45 years of unprecedented freedom, because it was pastors who contended. When you look at John Peter Mullenberg, whose brother was also a Lutheran minister, and said, listen, you're not submitting to authority.

He said, why should we bow to King George? His brother gave him grief until he burned down Frederick Mullenberg's church, and then he joined his brother, John Peter, and Frederick Mulemberg became the first Speaker of the House. So, yeah, ministers need to contend for liberty, and the government doesn't have the right to subject us to being ostracized and alienated and quarantine. They don't have that right, and you don't have any of the data to prove that. The masks don't prove it. The social distancing doesn't prove it. There's no science involved in that. The governor did a logdown from 10 to 5 a.m. 10 p.m. to 5.m.

5 a.m. Are you telling me that the virus knows when 10 p.m. hits? Where's the science in that stupidity? And we're looking at the numbers. They don't add up. And then now they're enforcing the vaccination. Seriously, their authority ends where my skin begins. They don't have that right. And by the way, before God, I can do as I please. And you want to inject me? Look, I would rather face, I've already had COVID. It was like a bad cold. Now some people died from I get that. It's dangerous to 65 and older with comorbidities. But to shutter schools and to quarantine the abuse with their abusers, all the things that I share, it's criminal what they're doing. We better wake up and realize this is a game and they're using it to cause us to submit. And now in LA County, they're forcing

mass again. There is no data, no data out there at all that justifies what they're doing. They just want to muzzle us and distance us. That's their whole job. Pass to report earlier when we were talking, you had mentioned suicides and people. Can you hear me now? Okay, we don't have any audio. All right, let me, can you hear me?

Okay, awesome. So earlier we were talking, you had mentioned that of the rate of suicides, people passing away because of COVID, all of the restrictions and people not being able to go to school, so forth and so on. Are there any personal stories or things you've, from others about how the mental impact of the shutdowns have had on people.

Can you share some of that with us as a path? Yeah, absolutely. First of all, we've had the highest number of opioid overdose deaths in recorded American history in the last 12 months. That alone should be enough. What they're not addressing is the emotional and spiritual consequences of these lockdowns. The depression is going through the roof. What we're seeing with child abuse cases already 300% increase in Ventura County alone.

This is criminal what they're doing. They need to be held accountable. Our children are paralyzed by fear and they've lost a year and a half of schooling for something that doesn't merit what they've done. They have ruined our schools. They're indoctrinating our children and they're using it to enforce whatever it is their utopia seems to be. We're not paying our tax money to be abused like that.

They govern by our consent. We no longer give them consent. That's why we're in the middle of it. of a recall for that supervisor who invoke that. We're gonna get rid of her, and we're gonna get rid of our governor, and we're gonna do all of that because we're tired, and America,

listen, California's waking up, most people have written us off, we're not done yet, we're fighting back, the church is gonna rise to this occasion. Big picture, and as we wrap up, what would you say needs to be done to strengthen religious freedom in this country? Well, I'll tell you right now,

anyone who's going to a church that's not open, submitting to the mass and the social distancing, it's time to find a new church. If your church is using their parking lot or their facility for vaccinations, find a new church. It's time to vote with your feet. Find churches that are contending against the tyranny. Support them because otherwise you're complicit. Silence in the face of evil is complicit with evil itself.

You can't sit by and be a spectator. It is now time to defend this because this is a government of the people by the people and for the people, and it will not perish from the face of the earth, as Lincoln said in the Gettysburg Address. Folks, it's time to take back the Republic. time the churches realize that they are on the tip of the spear. And if your church isn't participating in that, find a new church. I know that sounds harsh, but that's the reality at this point. All right, we got a bonus question because you're, don't probably align with most pastors in California, let alone just citizens, given that it's a very liberal state. What kind of pushback personally

do you get and how do you stay true to your values, given all the pressure you would likely face? Well, the pushback obviously occurred early on when they're saying, please don't do this, or you're outside the will of God, or you're not submitting to Romans 13. I've contended with all of that scripturally. I'll take on any one of them any day of the week. But here's the kicker. They are being provoked to jealousy

because the churches that have contended with a tyranny have had exponential growth. Our church has grown 400% in six months. We baptized more people in six months than the population of the church was six months ago. All their churches, last one out, turn off the lights. They're done. And if they want to hear a message,

The message is get a backbone and start doing what God's called you to do. Set the captives free. Help these citizens. Contend for your neighbor. Love the citizenry and care about them and do what's necessary no matter what the cost. Because God hasn't given you a spirit of fear, but a power, love, and a sound mind, and you're more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus. We're not victims.

We're conquerors. We don't have a better note to end on. That's great. Professor McCoy. Thank you for joining us on the Daily Signal podcast. Thanks, Rachel. I hate great questions. And I'm protected by the First Amendment.

But listen, without you guys and what you're doing, We are all entwined in that same First Amendment. I'm so grateful for what you do. Do not tire and grow weary and well-doing. You guys are lightened it up. God bless you guys. And thank you to all who are listening. Thank you.

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