Sean Feucht says Christian leaders' reaction to worship tour during COVID was 'painful wake-up call'
“It is shocking to see how quickly and easily we are swayed into believing a lie.”
Worship leader and activist Sean Feucht isn’t talking about theology or even church denominationalism — he’s talking about the reaction of some in the Christian community to the COVID-19 lockdowns.
In an appearance on Fox Nation’s “Tucker Carlson Today,” Feucht spoke about his upcoming documentary, “Superspreader,” which tells the story of how the worship leader launched a series of rallies nationwide during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic.
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Feucht recalled how he was “shocked with the number of pastors and other leaders who complied with the mandates” after government officials restricted or banned public gatherings and worship services in cities across California and around the country.
He said it was when Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order prohibiting singing in churches — even as casinos, strip clubs and marijuana dispensaries remained open for business — that “flipped the switch” for him.
At that point, Feucht said he received calls and messages from underground church leaders whom he knew from serving on missionary work in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and other countries who reached out and asked him, “What is going on in California? I thought this was supposed to be America?”
“I wasn’t surprised the government was doing what it was doing, especially in California,” Feucht told Carlson. “We know these people. They’re crazy. They target the church.”
Feucht then started a “Let Us Worship” petition to keep churches open amid the pandemic. After the petition garnered more than 100,000 signatures, Feucht held his first open worship at the Golden Gate Bridge in July 2020.
About 400 people showed up to the event, where Feucht recalled encountering a police officer who told him he was on suicide patrol for the bridge.
The officer told Feucht that 10 different officers who worked the bridge were unable to stop the number of people who were jumping off at that point.
“He said, ‘What are you guys doing here?’ and I said, ‘We’re coming to pray,” Feucht explained. “And he said, ‘What took you guys so long?’”
“He said, 'More people are dying from suicide and depression, where is the Church?’”
From there, Feucht took the “Let Us Worship” event up and down the California coast; in Huntington Beach, a thousand people showed up to gather in worship, while 5,000 attended the San Diego event.
“We start to realize, this is a movement, something’s happening,” Feucht said.
He even took the tour to Portland, where at that point in 2020, Antifa was burning Bibles and causing havoc during the riots.
After a chaplain from the Portland police department called and asked him to call off the event “because we can’t control our own city,” Feucht decided to go anyway and 7,000 people showed up — even as Antifa was spraying bear spray into the crowd while they worshiped.
“Part of being a Christian and part of the call of the Gospel is to take light into darkness. And at that point, the two darkest places in America were Portland and Seattle,” he said. “It was important for Americans to see that there is a courageous church unwilling to back down.”
Perhaps the most challenging aspect of the tour for Feucht was getting other Christian artists involved.
Feucht also said despite being on a major Christian record label — “knowing all these musicians, knowing all these Christians,” as he put it — he was unable to find anyone to join him on this mission.
“Everyone was scared,” he said. “They thought it wasn’t right, they didn’t want to be put in harm’s way.”
Eventually, Feucht hooked up with a group of Russian immigrants who decided to join him on the tour, but it was the reaction to “Let Us Worship” from Christian leaders that Feucht said was “probably the biggest, most painful wakeup call for me.”
“We’re writing these songs about overcoming darkness, we’re doing these conferences and these events and these sermons, and here in a time when we step out, I found that oftentimes politicians on the right had my back more than a lot pastors did,” he said. “It really exposed a lot, fractured some relationships.”
In the interview, Feucht specifically named Evangelical leaders Rick Warren and Ed Stetzer as two prominent Christians who voiced their opposition to the worship movement.
“Their whole saying was ‘vax, mask, vax, mask,'” he said.
Feucht’s ministry hasn’t been without controversy: a Rolling Stone investigation in July obtained his IRS records and found Sean Feucht Ministries Inc. reported more than $5.3 million in revenue for 2020, a massive increase from the approximately $283,272 the ministry reported in 2019.
While Rolling Stone described the windfall as “curious,” Feucht accused the magazine of sending reporters to “spy on our prayer team,” tweeting, “The mainstream media will stop at nothing to attack Christians. Yet, we’ve seen God use this stuff to even change the reporters' hearts!”
In 2020, the father of four also unsuccessfully ran for Congress to represent California’s 3rd District.
Ian M. Giatti is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ian.giatti@christianpost.com.
