Since nearly the very start of the COVID-19 pandemic, right-wing pastor Tony Spell has been locked in battle with authorities in Louisiana over his steadfast refusal to abide by the state’s stay-at-home orders, mask mandates, and other public health restrictions enacted to help stop the spread of the virus.
Spell has filed various unsuccessful lawsuits against the state and its governmental leaders, and following his latest loss at the Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1st Circuit, last Monday, Spell used his Sunday sermon to attack the judges who ruled against him, declaring them to be enemies of God.
“Any government that is not built on the shoulders of Jesus Christ, that government is headed for a fall,” Spell preached with a delivery bordering on parody. “It is impossible to govern a nation without God and the Bible. It is impossible for our Constitution to work in a nation that is not wholly and righteously consecrated unto God.”
“I just want you to know tonight that we have a wicked government that is ruling our world today,” he continued. “I just want you to know tonight that when three Republican judges summed up a writ of denial on May the 25th and said that ‘We do not believe that the relator, pastor Tony Spell’s, free exercise of religion lies outside of the jurisdiction of government’s authority,’ when they say that, they are saying in no uncertain terms that ‘We do not believe the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.’ And I just want to serve notice to you three Republican judges—Mitch Theriot, Elizabeth Wolfe, and Chris Hester—that you are a godless judge. You have no right to sit on the seat in the United States of America and rule against Christians in America and tell us that we don’t have a free exercise of religion. Not only are you against God, but God is against you because when you come against God’s people, you come against God himself!”
