Dozens of evangelical Christians and activists fought in the skid row streets Wednesday night, while followers of controversial Christian evangelical singer Sean Feucht arrived for a homeless evangelism event.
Activists mounted dozens of vehicles that led to a skid row to try to block Feucht, who performed largely unmasked shows across the country to protest COVID-19’s restrictions on religious worship. Protesters feared that the disclosure could catalyze an over-spreading coronavirus event among the vulnerable skid row homeless population.
Los Angeles Police Department officials were present to prevent any violence, Mayor Eric Garcetti said earlier in the day. The protesters got out of the vehicles, shouting, “Without a mask, go home” and “You don’t look like Jesus. You came here to kill us. “
Feucht, apparently in response, changed the range a block away. An unmasked worshiper, wearing a T-shirt with the words “Jesus is my lifesaver”, laid his hands on a homeless man lying on the sidewalk, reciting “Satan, be quiet. Go away. “She dismissed the hand sanitizer and threw a mask that a protester had given her and stamped on it.
But many of Feucht’s followers were masked, although social detachment was non-existent. It was not clear, however, whether Feucht was present.
Feucht has another evangelism planned for Thursday in a tent city in Echo Park, and a show and party scheduled for that night in the parking lot of a church in Valencia.
Stephen “Cue” Jn-Marie, pastor of the Skid Row Wallless Church and organizer of the blockade, said the activists plan to take their protest to Garcetti’s home, whom he blamed for not preventing Feucht’s meetings.
This is absolutely insane— at the #seanfeucht resistance blockade pic.twitter.com/tMAuWFzrmJ
— T (@waterspider__) December 31, 2020
“They should have closed this,” said Jn-Marie. “I’m hungry.”
Pete White, executive director of the Los Angeles Community Action Network, added: “You cannot bring a super-propagating event to a community as vulnerable as a skid and think that people are not going to show up. Even when the city refused to interrupt the event, people will. “