Free Republic

A Mississippi church that is suing to stay open during the coronavirus shutdowns was destroyed by arson Wednesday, according to local officials. Fox News reports someone also spray-painted graffiti on the First Pentecostal Church of Holly Springs, including a message that read, “I Bet you stay home now you hypokrits [sic].” Local authorities said there was an explosion in the front of the church, and the building caught fire sometime between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. Wednesday. Marshall County Sheriff’s Department Major Kelly McMillian told the local news that the fire is being investigated as a criminal act of arson....

A federal judge has affirmed the right of a Pentecostal church in Mississippi to worship without fear of being shut down again or threatened by local police, allowing the congregation to hold drive-in services beginning Sunday. In a federal lawsuit filed by the conservative legal group, Thomas More Society, on behalf of the First Pentecostal Church of Holly Springs, U.S. District Judge Michael P. Mills issued the order against the city of Holly Springs, whose officers disrupted and shut down a midweek Bible study, 10 days after disrupting the congregation’s Easter worship service and issuing its pastor, Jerry Waldrop, a...