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What if the church is a place where lives are transformed from the inside out, where people make decisions to follow Christ, and find not only find community, but actual real and powerful solutions to their failing marriage, their chronic mental illnesses, their abject loneliness, their anger and fear and judgment, and pain?
In June, a Florida Seventh-day Adventist school that received state and federal funding fired a teacher because of his sexual orientation.
On October 6, 2020, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case on the issue of whether individual FBI agents can be held financially liable if they are found to have violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The underlying case involves Muslim-Americans who alleged that individual FBI agents put them on the "no fly" list after they refused to act as informants against fellow Muslims in terrorism-related investigations.
The Satanic Temple is asserting a free exercise right to abortion as a religious ritual in lawsuits against the state of Missouri and against a Louisiana advertising agency.
Contempt of court is a quasi-criminal act, and the court cannot punish someone for breaking a regulation if that regulation is not constitutional.
Ginsburg wrote little on the religion clauses, but she frequently joined with those Justices who favored a strong separation of church and state.
Los Angeles County lost another battle in its bid to stop Grace Community Church from meeting indoors today. Judge Mitchell L. Beckloff found that, contrary to the County's representation, the Sun Valley megachurch led by Pastor John MacArthur did not violate any court order because no court order prohibited the congregation from meeting indoors.
Five months into the pandemic shut-down, Los Angeles County is asking for the courts to find that Grace Community Church Pastor John MacArthur acted in contempt of court for holding services this past weekend, and for fines of $20,000 against church leaders and the congregation.
With outdoor temperatures expected to pass the 100-degree mark, two Los Angeles area judges have given local churches some comforting news.
On August 2, 2020, the church again met indoors and Pastor McCoy said he was "willing to go to jail" and "willing for them to take our building" rather than comply with the state and local orders.