On December 31, 2020 Sean Feucht the controversial worship leader from Bethel Church is having a worship event alongside Los Angeles’s skid row. This blog finds it extremely troubling that he would hold a super spreader event during the COVID-19 pandemic amid the homeless. This blog would like to ask Sean Feucht and also Bethel the following. Do you have a death wish for the homeless on Skid Row? Is that how you treat the least of these? By exposing them to disease and death?
“Contempt is the weapon of the weak and a defense against one’s own despised and unwanted feelings.“
Alice Miller
He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
Matthew 25:45 NIV
Late last night I saw the following tweet and looked at Sean Feucht’s schedule and was appalled. And I decided that it was time to do another quick post about Bethel. If you want to read more about Sean before this post proceeds go to, “#LetUsWorship Sean Feucht of Bethel Leads Worship Protests as COVID-19 Pandemic in Wisconsin Gets Worse.” Let’s look at a disturbing situation.
Sean Feucht Worship Event Next to Skid Row in Los Angeles
On December 31, 2020 Sean Feucht is holding a worship event on Azusa St, which is adjacent to Skid Row in Los Angeles. Skid Row is where a large number of the homeless and homeless shelters reside in the Los Angeles area. It appears he is doing this to commemorate the Azusa Street revival. A historic revival which took place there lasted until 1915 and gave birth to Pentecostalism in the United States. The Assemblies of God traces its roots back to this event. Is Sean Feucht ending his tour at this location for that intended connection? This blog believes that is possible. If you want to read more about the Azusa Street revival you can do so here and here. Last night Kevin Nye was tweeting about the revival and raising concerns which I will get into below.
Overview of Skid Row
Skid Row is the neighborhood that is known for its homeless population. The city of Los Angeles has struggled with this area since the 1930’s. According to my research in Southern California there are at least 27 homeless shelters in the Los Angeles area. Quite a few are within Skid Row which has the zip codes of 90013 and 90014. Its about a fifty city block area that has a population of at least 4,757 according to 2019 numbers. 41% of the population is below the poverty line. Homelessness rose 11% between 2018 and 2019. Here is the break down of demographics according to Wikipedia.
7.78% under the age of 18, 1.38% from 18 to 24, 60.94% from 25 to 54, 19.49% from 55-61, and 10.41% who were 62 years of age or older. Veterans make up 9.90%.
The 2019 racial makeup of the neighborhood was 12.66% White, 58.21% Black/African American, 2.06% American Indian/Alaska Native, 0.63% Asian, 24.53% Hispanic or Latino, 0.79% Native Hawaiian / Other Pacific Islander, and 1.11% from other races.
The Los Angeles Police have a long and strained history with Skid Row. An attempt to clear up Skid Row in the late 1950’s led to a removal of 7,500 buildings, which were not replaced because of improved building codes. But Skid Row has also been the home to some disturbing health and disease outbreaks. Let’s look at some examples.
- According to USA Today typhoid fever has come out of Skid Row, with an employee of the Los Angeles Police Department becoming infected with the illness. Typhoid fever is seldom found in industrialized countries. You usually find typhoid fever in India, Southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and South America. Skid Row has attracted rats as the area has dealt with more and more with human waste given the lack of bathroom facilities.
- Skid Row has been the source of outbreaks of typhus fever. According to NBC an outbreak occurred in 2018. Typhus comes from fleas and ticks, which is tied to the rat problem in the area.
- Also an issue has been tuberculosis which has flared up form time to time. Outbreaks of tuberculosis form 2003 until 2013 have occurred according to the Los Angeles Times.
This leaves us with the COVID-19 pandemic and the implications for Skid Row. COVID-19 has hit the homeless hard in the San Francisco Bay Area and other parts of the United States. And while there have been some infections Public Health in Los Angeles has been surprised as to that fact that is it not worse. Sean Feucht may change all this with a super spreader event.
Does Sean Feucht and Bethel Have a Death Wish for the Homeless on Skid Row?
Last night I was troubled when I learned what Sean Feucht planned to do. California is already having problems with COVID-19 and we are going into a dark winter with deaths increasing. The holiday season is going to increase COVID-19 infections and the tragic reality is that there will be a lot more deaths. We are at 250,000 deaths now. Where will we be in the end of the year? 300,000 or 350,000? That will be almost half the deaths for those who died of the Spanish Flu in 1918.
Why does Sean Feucht want to bring about more death, pain and illness?
Its incredibly irresponsible to hold a large public event next to Skid Row given the public health risks that already exist. Does Sean Feucht want to kill the homeless of Skid Row with COVID-19? Think of how many homeless there deal with high risk conditions. Diabetes, HIV, shattered immune systems from drug abuse as well as damaged livers from alcohol addiction. Its hard to ask the question but I will pose it again.
Does Bethel’s Sean Feucht want to kill the homeless of Skid Row?
What about Bethel in Redding? What about Beni and Bill Johnson do they want to kill the homeless of Skid Row also? Sean Feucht says on social media that he can’t do what do does without Beni Johnson’s support. You can read more about that in, “Beni Johnson of Bethel Church and Conflicting Messages Regarding Face Masks During COVID-19.”
So does Beni Johnson have contempt for the homeless? Does she do this so she can try and raise a homeless person from the dead? How did Olive Heiligenthal coming back from the dead work? Honestly how is Olive doing these days? For those who don’t know what I am referring to you can read the following post, “Charismatic Evangelicalism and Trying to Raise People From the Dead. From Olive Heiligenthal of Bethel in California to Wooded Hills in Wisconsin.” Is that worship? To stand on the coffins of the deceased so that Sean Feucht can jump up and down and say, “Its beautiful Beni they love Jesus!!” My question is if Sean kills them with COVID-19 how do you evangelize those who died?
If exposing the homeless to disease and killing them in the process is how Bethel views taking care of the “least of these” I would love to know. What is serving the homeless actually? Its time for this event to be canceled. If this continues I think its safe to assume that Bethel wants to see the homeless harmed and could less about contributing to their death.
Wondering Eagle 
I tend to think that many of the times Christians claim they are experiencing “persecution,” it isn’t really persecution of their faith, it is criticism and pushback because they are acting like jerks.
Case in point.
With Feucht, I really have to question the amount of “good” he is doing for the cause of the gospel with his events versus the amount of damage he is causing to the gospel message through his confrontational “in-your-face” “the he** with your rules and safety protocols” methodology. It’s like a rude, belligerent, confrontational street evangelist who protests that he is doing good by preaching the gospel, but who in reality is turning people completely off to the message and reinforcing their worst negative stereotypes.
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I think it possible that Feucht believes, as you pointed out, that God will protect the homeless during his concert.
This is, of course, faulty theology. One does not test God.
It also begs the bigger question. Do the homeless need a concert or do they need food, shelter, access to good mental and medical services?
If one of you says to (a person in need), “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. (James 2)
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From what I could understand from the articles, he’s not doing the concert for the homeless, he is just doing it right next to where many homeless live. The choice of location was to commemorate the Azusa Street revival. So he’s choosing a location which is not out of consideration for the homeless but potentially exposes them. But he’s been doing that with a lot of his events, where he goes into a community and gathers a crowd to proclaim their freedom to ignore health recommendations in the name of “worship,” which often (understandably) results in resentment from the community where the event takes place. So, I don’t think the proximity to the homeless is even factoring into his decision. As you point out, this could be an opportunity to find material ways to aid the homeless community, but I don’t believe that is even a consideration for him.
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As in too busy with Prayer and Praise and Godliness in general?
Those that count themselves Mighty Works of God are usually real pieces of work (in a different way).
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I remember you telling me that pastors’ widows in your denomination can end up eating out of dumpsters.
(How often are they told “Be Warm and Well Fed — I’ll Pray For You(TM)”?)
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And if this guy’s from Bethel as in Redding in Northern California (the one with the Dead Raising Team), I know a couple guys from that down and their response to Bethel is “That CULT?”
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He’s probably hoping that whatever has prevented covid from devastating the homeless population will rub off on him.
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