Chris Avell, pastor of Dad's Place in Bryan, Ohio, was arraigned in court last Thursday because he kept his church open 24/7 to provide warmth to the unhoused.
Ohio law prohibits residential use in first-floor buildings in a business district. Since the church is zoned as a Central Business, the building is restricted from allowing people to eat or sleep on the property.
According to the city, Avell was sent a letter on Nov. 3 informing him the homeless were prohibited from sleeping at the church overnight. Avell ignored the letter, and during a New Year’s Eve service, police arrived and issued violations.
“Many of these people have been rejected by their families and cast aside by their communities. So, if the church isn’t willing to lay down its life for them, then who will? This is what we’re called to do,” Avell said in a Fox News interview.
Avell ignored the letter, and during a New Year’s Eve service, police arrived and issued violations.
Cartoonishly evil
the one time a church does the right thing, cops step in and arrest the pastor.
It's not that rare even, it just takes a pastor who paid a modicum of attention to anything Christ ever said
Aren't you glad we have a constitution to protect our rights via a fair and just system?
But like, look away, no one will report you not noticing stuff, what is going on in that person head
When you sign up to be a cop they do a ritual to test if you have a soul and if it pings you they put you in the "rejected" pile
only 74? normally we prefer at least 80 but the regulations say the minimum is 70 so here's your badge, rookieUnit's probably failing tbh, third one they've burned through this week with all the overloads
gotta send 'em off to nist to be recalibrated against the standard hitler they keep on ice
it's like the Kilogram they used as the actual thing determining how much a kilogram is before redefining it all on universal constants
No way a jury convicts, that is if he can get a jury trial for a 'zoning violation.'
the building is restricted from allowing people to eat or sleep on the property.
Either every church should be shut down for giving out wafers and wine, or the pastor should just claim that housing the poor is one of the sacraments.
The USA is such a christian nation, the world standard of morality, right?
Can't it be re-zoned? Such an embarrassing thing too take someone to court for.
Agreed. Evil AND fussy AND cringe. Who can say which is the worse crime?
(But for real I acknowledge that evil is the main concern here.)
oh boy it's a good thing the federal courts have been strengthening religious freedoms for situations like this!
Fuck it, one struggle
Not gonna lie comrades, I came to this website with a pretty ardently "Fuck the Church" mindset, but increasingly I'm seeing christians do kinda based things.
I grew up as an angry internet atheist during the Bush era, I have very severely softened on religion as a whole (that said, I still don't believe in a god or like... Universal consciousness or whatever, but I cringe at my behaviour from 2007)
