Almighty God held his tremendous Sermon on the Mount before multitudes during a 1st century Leprosy Pandemic.
This isn't "suicide", this is just one preacher's determination that this pandemic is being vastly overhyped.
BTW, Rev. Jim Jones was a devout Religious Leftists in the mold of Jeremiah Wright and Jim Wallis.
Further, categorizing this church as a "megachurch" is inflammatory to say the least. Libs have been denouncing large churches as if that's "bad" somehow.
There are other churches that are also taking a stand against the governmental authorities. The Bible shows that is actually taking a stand against God:
Romans 13:1,2
Let every person be in subjection to the superior authorities,+ for there is no authority except by God;+ the existing authorities stand placed in their relative positions by God.+ 2 Therefore, whoever opposes* the authority has taken a stand against the arrangement of God; those who have taken a stand against it will bring judgment against themselves.
Also, this virus is extremely contagious - those people who defy the government's direction to shelter in place will have innocent blood on their hands. They will share the virus with each other, and when they go shopping (etc) give it to others.
Jesus is up there shaking his head. He went around HEALING people, remember? He would not approve of people risking making themselves and others sick just to celebrate him in a large gathering.
I feel bad for believers; for deeply religious people, Easter is a much bigger deal than Christmas. The resurrection, the renewal, the forgiveness. There's the hot cross buns in the community room afterward, too, and the overpowering smell of 50 potted lilies on the steps of the altar, ladies in their new spring dresses and little girls in their new patent leather shoes. Kids all revved up on a belly full of Easter basket candy. Familiar hymns about hope. Easter is nice.
For some people, this is like taking Christmas away from someone who loves it.
Well, both Christmas and Easter are actually pagan holidays - but let those who are part of this world enjoy them - everyone has free will. Hot cross buns have their origin in ancient Babylon. Of course, hot buns are not the primary problem (but note Jeremiah 7:18), it is also the origin of the symbol of the cross.
See:'
This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.
wol.jw.org
Excerpt:
"It becomes apparent, then, that Easter is a pagan name and that the event is associated with a pagan goddess of spring. But let us now go back to the time when Easter got its official start. It was A.D. 325, long after Christ’s resurrection. By now apostasy had set in and there were many false Christians, Christians in name only. The pagan emperor Constantine was one of them. Constantine, who was still chief priest of the Roman pagan religion, assembled a large number of these apostate Christians together at the Council of Nicaea. What was this pagan priest’s motive?
He wanted harmony in religion for political reasons. And so, as the book
A General History of Rome tells us, “he combined in his own mind the two hostile faiths rather than balanced them against another—a state of feeling rather than of opinion, which is more common, perhaps, than is generally supposed.” Constantine thus blended the two religions, the Roman pagan religion and apostate Christianity. One of the results was that Constantine decreed that “everywhere the Great Feast of Easter” was to be observed.
This appealed to the pagans, since they had long been used to worshiping a springtime goddess of fruitfulness. To the Greeks and Romans her name was Astarte. The Babylonians had worshiped her by the name Ishtar and the Phoenicians by the name Ashtoreth.
It was natural that the customs and rites pertaining to these springtime goddesses and their worship would surround Easter. Thus archaeologists have uncovered carvings of the fertility goddess Ishtar. They found her holding an egg in her hand and a rabbit at her feet. Thus the book
Great Catholic Festivals comments on Easter: “The eating of eggs on this day is said to have come down from pagan usage of the egg as a symbol of fertility.” And
The Catholic Encyclopedia says under “Easter”: “The rabbit is a pagan symbol and has always been an emblem of fertility.”
Worshipers of the springtime goddess Ashtoreth had a custom of eating cakes in her honor. They called the goddess “queen of heaven.” Of Ashtoreth and her worshipers the Bible says: “The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.” (
Jer. 7:18,
AS) Jehovah’s anger was kindled against his people whenever they adopted these pagan customs. But those who adopted the pagan Easter festival were not interested in following the Bible. They Christianized the pagan cakes, so they thought, by marking a cross on the top of them, thus the hot cross buns."
Of course, Easter is off topic but you brought it up and Easter Sunday is in 2 days.