Ashley Morse, is a student at the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry in Redding. The church and school reported more than 300 cases of COVID-19. The outbreak came under control, but its effects linger in the city. REDDING — The influence of Bethel Church can be felt all over this economically stressed Northern California city. In the Redding police officers whose positions the megachurch funded.
The once-dying civic auditorium it keeps afloat. The church elder on the Redding City Council. Bethel can be felt in the trendy new coffee shops and restaurants where young, well-dressed people huddle at tables with open Bibles and nary a mask in sight. It can be felt in parking lots and on sidewalks where believers approach strangers, asking to pray for and heal them.
In downtown Redding on a recent afternoon, Chevon Gilzene, a 25-year-old student at the church’s Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, declared: “We want to love the city well.” It is a proclamation that is as disputed as it is acclaimed across Redding, a city of 92,000 where more than 10% of the population attends the nondenominational Christian megachurch. But anger toward Bethel Church intensified after members and students fueled such […]
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