Walking the fine line between public health and personal liberties
Washington-Supreme Court on Friday turned away a request from a church in California to block enforcement of state restrictions on attendance at religious services.
The vote was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joining the court’s four-member liberal wing to form a majority.
“Although California’s guidelines place restrictions on places of worship, those restrictions appear consistent with the free exercise clause of the First Amendment,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote in an opinion concurring in the unsigned ruling.
“Similar or more severe restrictions apply to comparable secular gatherings, including lectures, concerts, movie showings, spectator sports and theatrical performances, where large groups of people gather in close proximity for extended periods of time,” the chief justice wrote. “And the order exempts or treats more leniently only dissimilar activities, such as operating grocery stores, banks and laundromats, in which people neither congregate in large groups nor remain in close proximity for extended periods.”
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh noted dissents.
“The church and its congregants simply want to be treated equally to comparable secular businesses,” Justice Kavanaugh wrote in a dissenting opinion joined by Justices Thomas and Gorsuch. “California already trusts its residents and any number of businesses to adhere to proper social distancing and hygiene practices.”
“The state cannot,” Justice Kavanaugh wrote, quoting from an appeals court decision in a different case, “‘assume the worst when people go to worship but assume the best when people go to work or go about the rest of their daily lives in permitted social settings.’”
The court’s ruling was its first attempt to balance the public health crisis against the Constitution’s protection of religious freedom. And it expanded the Supreme Court’s engagement with the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, after rulings on voting in Wisconsin and prisons in Texas and Ohio.
The case was brought by the South Bay United Pentecostal Church in Chula Vista, Calif., which said Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, had lost sight of the special status of religion in the constitutional structure.
“The Covid-19 pandemic is a national tragedy,” lawyers for the church wrote in their Supreme Court brief, “but it would be equally tragic if the federal judiciary allowed the ‘fog of war’ to act as an excuse for violating fundamental constitutional rights.”
Supreme Court, in 5-4 Decision, Rejects Church’s Challenge to Shutdown Order
The full ruling:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19a1044_pok0.pdf
South Bay United Pentecostal Church Loses at Supreme Court
Discussion in 'News & Current Events' started by Agent47, May 30, 2020.
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church mouse guy Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
The UPC is a cult that denies the Trinity. Historically, it has been segregated. They are sometimes called "Jesus Only" because they say that there is no God the Father and no God the Holy Spirit.
Case closed. -
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Scott Downey Well-Known Member
Oneness Pentecostalism - Wikipedia
Oneness theology specifically maintains that God is absolutely and indivisibly one.[6][7][8]
Oneness Pentecostals believe that Trinitarian doctrine is a "tradition of men" and neither scriptural nor a teaching of God, and cite the absence of the word "Trinity" from the Bible as one evidence of this. They generally believe the doctrine is an invention of the fourth-century Council of Nicea, and later councils, which made it orthodox. The Oneness position on the Trinity places them at odds with the members of most other Christian churches, some of whom have accused Oneness Pentecostals of being Modalists and derided them as "cultists". -
church mouse guy Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
UPC denies the Trinity, so the UPC is a cult.
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Scott Downey Well-Known Member
In contrast, according to Oneness Theology, the Son of God did not exist (in any substantial sense) prior to the incarnation of Jesus of Nazareth except as the Logos of God the Father. The humanity of Jesus did not exist before the incarnation, although Jesus (i.e. the Spirit of Jesus) preexisted in his deity as eternal God.[18][19]
To deny Christ's existence from before all time began, when scripture says the opposite.
Example John 17 verse 5
1 Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, 2 as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. 4 I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do.
5 And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was. -
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church mouse guy Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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They also add must be water baptized and speak in tongues to be saved! -
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church mouse guy Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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Scott Downey Well-Known Member
John 12
27 “Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify Your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, saying, “I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.” 29 Therefore the people who stood by and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to Him.” 30 Jesus answered and said, “This voice did not come because of Me, but for your sake.
And this, God through His Son, made the worlds. So God did not make all things alone.
Hebrews 1
God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, 2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; 3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.
And Christ turns over the kingdom back to the Father at the end, with Christ then subject to Him. Christ reigns until He has all His enemies under His feet, then God the Father reigns.
1 Corinthians 15
20 But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. 23 But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming.
24 Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. 25 For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. 26 The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. 27 For “He has put all things under His feet.” But when He says “all things are put under Him,” it is evident that He who put all things under Him is excepted. 28 Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all. -
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A cult is like the so called elect. They remove themselves from reality and do not let their members have any outside fellowship.
I would just hold church if that big as a grocery store, just keep moving around in shopping mode for 45 minutes. Stores blast music and announcements anyway. In fact hold one long service all day just like a store. People do not need to sit for 45 minutes any ways. They can pay for their goods on the way out depending on what they received. The church re-invented keeps moving forward. -
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Total bummer, though, that Justice Roberts sunk this. It's not official. Bush's presidency was a bust. Praying Trump gets reelected and can appoint some justices to off-set the damage Roberts would love to do.
Roberts Sides with Liberal Justices as SCOTUS Rules in Favor of Restrictions on Religious Services
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