COVID-Denying Pastor: Pandemic Restrictions Were “Spun Out of Control”

Pastor Jack Hibbs of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills in California has become best known for denying reality.

In May, for example, he denied the seriousness of COVID and argued that two months of abiding by lockdown orders was enough and churches should go back to meeting in person despite the threat of the virus. In August, he wore a combat helmet to make the case that Christians were under attack. In September, he hosted an in-person baptism for over 1,000 people.

He has also claimed that Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, a Baptist, isn’t truly Christian.

On New Year’s Eve, he was still at it, telling his congregation that the pandemic was overblown:

… this time last year, if somebody would have said, “I see on the horizon a sickness that’s going to be a pandemic, that’s going to be spun out of control, that’s going to be terrorizing people, that the cure to it’s going to be worse than the pandemic itself, and that the greatest fear is not going to be getting sick, but what the governor is going to do to your family and your business,” right? Think about it! And that you’re going to be told to do this and to do that and do the other thing — it doesn’t help, but it’s going to give you something to do!

Let’s be honest. And the experts are going to tell us, “You’ve got to do this! Don’t look at us, we’re going to do our own thing, but you’ve got to do this!” And we saw this happen and it just added to the confusion of it all…

Wearing masks is not worse than dying.

Social distancing is not worse than killing your family members due to your own ignorance.

A vaccine is not worse than 350,000 dead people.

The pandemic wasn’t “spun out of control.” The problem is that we didn’t take it seriously enough.

And while there’s no shortage of hypocrisy, including from Democratic governors, the experts — the epidemiologists, the doctors, the other scientists — did not urge people to wear masks while secretly going to maskless gatherings.

But many churches absolutely fought or disregarded sensible COVID restrictions due to their own selfish interests. Their Persecution Complex has directly contributed to the deaths of countless people.

Hibbs hasn’t learned a damn thing about the pandemic and it’s been nearly a year. We can’t possibly expect his congregation to know any better when their leader is driving the clown car to Hell.

(via Christian Nightmares. Portions of this article were published earlier)