Deep dive into Christian community in far northern California

Hailey Branson-Potts and Anita Chabria report for the Los Angeles Times on Bethel Church in Redding, California, county seat of Shasta County.  The story, headlined, "God, masks and Trump: What a coronavirus outbreak at a California church says about the election," leads with this powerful depiction, which is consistent with what my Redding friends have told me about Bethel in recent years: 

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 a major spike in coronavirus cases that Shasta County briefly fell backward to the most restrictive tier on California’s reopening plan.

In recent weeks, more than 300 COVID-19 cases have been reported by the church and its Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry (or BSSM), an unaccredited schoolfocused on prophecy and miracles. It has been the largest cluster of cases in Shasta County.

Another story about Bethel, this from the hometown Record-Searchlight on October 13, is here.   David Benda also reports on the church's role in spreading the coronavirus in the Redding area.  

Redding is still officially the largest California city north of Sacramento, though Chico has probably actually surpassed it in size after recent Butte County fires have driven folks into that town.