Christians arrested at outdoor church service

Disturbing report on how police arrested three people attending an outdoor church service in Moscow, Idaho. Approximately 200 people attended the service put on by Christ Church, a Reformed Evangelical church in the city.

The city’s mayor, Bill Lambert, is demanding people wear masks outside until January 2021. It is uncertain if this was the reason for the arrest, as it seems no one at the church service was wearing a mask.

Breitbart explains what happened:

Police in Moscow, Idaho, arrested three people Wednesday for violating social distancing rules as their church sang hymns and Bible psalms outdoors — an event held, in part, to protest the city mayor’s mask mandate, which runs to January 2021.

Officers arrested Gabriel Rench, Rachel Bohnet, and Sean Bohnet, according to Moscow Report, a local independent news outlet. A video uploaded to social media shows Bohnet, a local music teacher, and his wife telling officers they refused to comply with an inaudible order. Moscow Report says the apparent infraction is that they refused to show identification.

Update: The Moscow Police Department’s daily activity log lists the reasons for the arrests as “public health emergency order” violations.

Footage of the couple’s arrest shows the church body singing the hymn “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow” as officers place them in handcuffs.

READ: Idaho Police Arrest 3 at Outdoor Church Worship Event in Defiance of Mask Mandate

Of course, there is the familiar double standard problem concerning the city’s treatment of a recent Black Lives Matter protest versus churches, as co-host of a local radio broadcast, Toby Sumpter, pointed out:

“If you can riot in Portland, for how many days? A hundred days? If you can have CHOP or CHAZ or whatever it was in Seattle, and all of that going on — and the police are hands off, getting defunded. And if you can have a Black Lives Matter rally in Moscow, Idaho, in the middle of July — completely unharassed — and then you have a few hundred Christians singing praises to Jesus and they’re getting arrested, what has happened to your country?”