Greg Piper this week has Just the News coverage about the District of Columbia settling a legal challenge brought by a prominent Baptist congregation against restrictions effectively forbidding worship services amid COVID-19.
In a settlement between the parties Thursday, Mayor Muriel Bowser and her administration agreed to pay $220,000 to Capitol Hill Baptist Church (CHBC) lawyers at WilmerHale and the First Liberty Institute.
“The District agrees that it will not enforce any current or future COVID-19 restrictions to prohibit CHBC from gathering as one congregation” in the district, according to the settlement.
Read the full story here.
The church won a preliminary injunction against the city’s COVID-19 restrictions last fall.
A legal complaint filed by CHBC noted that large anti-racism rallies had taken place outdoors without restriction. Churches were not permitted to meet in groups of more than 100, indoors or outdoors.
“CHBC’s membership reluctantly voted to initiate this lawsuit to reclaim their most fundamental of rights: the right to gather for corporate worship free from threat of governmental sanction,” the complaint read.
CHBC, or “Cap Bap” as it is commonly known, is associated with the Calvinist resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention. According to church officials, the average age of its 850-person membership is 31. The congregation has a record of successfully planting and “re-seeding” older churches throughout the area, among them Anacostia River Church, Sterling Park Baptist in Loudoun County and Del Ray Baptist in Alexandria.
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