By Ezra Lloyd
At the center of multiple controversies over the past year, Sean Feucht, the Christian worship leader turned failed politician, has been touring the country leading maskless COVID Superspreader “worship protests” at a time when the live entertainment industry is at its most fragile.
Every con starts with assessing vulnerabilities. If you are going to take advantage of a person, institution, or system you have to know its strengths and weaknesses. Sean Feucht has done just that, mounting a national tour when the national touring industry is at a halt. Playing to maskless and enthusiastic crowds across the country, and specifically in Fort Collins and Colorado Springs this past weekend, the Christian ex-politician has pulled massive crowds at a time when it is dangerous and irresponsible to do so.
Sean Feucht Tour Schedule
September 14 Madison, WI Steps of State Capital | 6pm
September 15 Milwaukee, WI Veterans Memorial | 6pm
September 16 Chicago, IL Washington Park | 6pm
September 16 Kenosha, WI Kenosha County Courthouse | 10am CST
September 17 Cleveland, OH Edgewater Park Beach | 6pm
September 18 Tampa, FL 600 N Ashley Dr | 6pm
September 19 Orlando, FL Lake Eola Park | 6pm
September 20 West Palm Beach, FL 105 Evernia St | 6pm
October 2 Fort Worth, TX Trinity Park Dr | 6pm
October 10 Atlanta, GA Piedmont Park ATL | 5pm
October 11 Nashville, TN TBD | 5pm
There is a good reason why no one is mounting national tours or massive gatherings at the moment. We have already lost almost 200,000 people to the ongoing COVID Pandemic. To host massive live events now with no guidelines is downright irresponsible and a danger to public health.
These events come at a time when the entire live industry has been kneecapped by this crisis. Venues are going under every day because they can’t open their doors and thousands of skilled industry workers are desperate for work in a once-thriving market.
Enter Sean Feucht — who once called abortion “the slaughter of the unborn and the newborn”. The same Sean Feucht who staged what he calls a “protest worship” 50ft from the George Floyd Memorial in Minneapolis, drowning out grieving families with tasteless imitation folk-rock and altar calls to give money so that he could refurbish an airstream trailer and support his “ministry”. This is the same Sean Feucht, who decries mask-wearing and COVID guidelines as the “Persecution of Christians”. Sean Feucht, who is a long-time associate of the unaccredited Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry that charges thousands of dollars to “equip you to walk in the gifts of the Spirit, prepare your noble character and empower you to follow Jesus as He moves powerfully on the Earth today”. In addition to that vague platitude, Bethel’s take on Christianity is believing that they can raise the dead, pray away any illness, and soul-sucking— literally laying on top of the graves of other preachers and sucking out their blessings.
So …Bethel Music is at the scene of George Floyds murder. They are about 50 from his memorial playing music over all the local DJs doing alter calls. GTFO pic.twitter.com/G3wfX9RuoL
— Em 🌔 (@emmalouiseri) June 14, 2020
— Em 🌔 (@emmalouiseri) June 14, 2020
Sean and Bethel Church are just a millennial version of tent revivalists — but this time with a following on social media.
A 2000+ person concert to appease this monster’s ego is NOT a protest. It is, in fact, an insult to protests, that generally have actual causes, unlike Bethel and Sean who want to center themselves around genuinely important conversations regarding systemic racism in America to advance their own causes and fundraising goals.
Wow. Way to center yourself. Jesus would have grieved alongside the people, not shown up with a stage and a microphone.
— Lisa Pierce (@creek_n_canyon) June 15, 2020
GO AWAY. This is what whitewashing looks like. White worship folks from the other side of the country should not be leading a memorial, especially not DROWNING OUT BLACK VOICES. @bethelmusic https://t.co/PKlzptyWEV
— Jessica Arend (@jessica_arend) June 14, 2020
Sean arrived in Colorado — and hosted two shows that risked everything this scene has built.
It is not an understatement to assert that these concerts are currently risking everything we have worked to build as a music scene. 2000+ people in close proximity to each other with no masks or distancing is the literal definition of superspreader conditions.
Granted, there were only two shows in Colorado, and soon he will be back on the road hopping from town to town spreading his hateful ideology and COVID throughout the midwest. The real issue is that he has laid out a framework for predominantly white Christian fundamentalists to throw “worship protests” with no apparent consequences. He has set a dangerous precedent, one that will no doubt be replicated in the coming months as this pandemic never ceases to end due to the misinformation and negligence these people are peddling.
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The Colorado Locals involved in these concerts deserve their fair share of the blame for this unmitigated catastrophe for the live entertainment industry. Crossroads Church, who acted as a local fixer for Sean and his crew in Fort Collins, specifically misled the local technical crews into believing that the event would be “just a few people in the park“ — let alone underpaying them for a 12+ hour day and putting their lives at risk.
But it’s ok, Jesus will protect them, as long as you pray COVID away.
I talked to Chris Fernald, a local industry insider, who was one of many deceived by Sean Feucht’s traveling circus. Chris was hired for the most recent Fort Collins event, and I wanted to talk directly with him in an attempt to find out more about how the night unfolded.
“The guy who hired me, he’s like: “Oh yeah, it’s a small church thing, like, there’ll be a couple of people in the park”…it was put on by Sean with the help of Crossroads Church. I think, [you] can’t really blame us. We are a production crew, that’s just the job. I got to take jobs.”
It was clear, at least from the technical perspective, the only way they are able to hire legitimate talent is by deceiving them. As we have done the research for this story, every person that was part of the locally-sourced production crew for this concert has asserted that Sean’s team blatantly lied and misled them as to the size and scope of the project. Sean then further preyed on people’s goodwill to underpay skilled workers in the middle of a pandemic. I was curious about how quickly this had spiraled out of control.
“I’m sitting in the front of house, we don’t have any barriers, we just have a little tent. There’s maybe like 30-40 people, and I think “Oh good, this will be fine.” They’re pretty spread out, It’s City Park. Then it got closer to like 5:30 and then there were probably 200 people there. And then I look back at like, 6:30 and there’s easily 1,000 — they’re just swarming across the park, by the end there. I mean, I took some pictures there were easily 2,000 [people] there.“
When I inquired about social distancing or if statewide mask-wearing requirements were being followed, the answer I got was shocking, yet somehow unsurprising.
“None of them, maybe 1%. It was shoulder to shoulder in that place. It looked like Tour de Fat happening in City Park…they set up horse troughs on either side of the stage for water baptisms, it was so crazy it’s like the mega-churches that you see on TV people rolling on the ground crying — it was insane…I was talking to the Crossroads guys and they said that they had called the city, and they didn’t want [Sean] to have a concert. They responded saying “okay, we’re gonna have a protest.” And the city just said “okay” and just turned a blind eye — it was a straight-up concert. There was actually a significant amount of effort put into contacting the officials and they just let it roll — “
The city officials who let this slide should be ashamed of themselves. These 2000+ person events that the ‘Sean Feucht Superspreader Circus’ are throwing in towns all over the country are a danger to public health and safety.
It would not come as a surprise if the special variance that Fort Collins holds were to be re-examined because of this downright selfish and stupid oversight.
The fear from the government most likely stems from Sean’s propensity for martyrdom. Anytime his concerts have been shut down due to legitimate public health concerns due to them being likely superspreader events, he claims that its an “assault on Christianity” and that he has been “discriminated” against. A classic example of white, Christian privilege in action.
Christianity is not ‘under attack’ as Sean would want you to believe, Christianity is still the most popular religion in the world by nearly a ten-point margin.
Jesus doesn’t pay taxes (but he underpays live industry workers apparently) — This Plague Rat is planning superspreader events across the country and complaining that he and all of his prosperity gospel pals are “under attack”.
When Sean tried to pull a similar event in Seattle, officials there knew what was coming and shut down the park for COVID health concerns, and rightfully so. There is not one single reason why Fort Collins shouldn’t have seen this coming. Listen to this wild interview Sean did on Fox & Friends last week as an example of how the city could have anticipated and avoided this embarrassing outcome by taking a few minutes to type ‘Sean Feucht’ into YouTube:
Sean Feucht is a modern master of the art of deception, placing himself at the center of whatever is trending to try and sway followers to join in his fundamentalist ideology in the name of love. Singing and dancing on the graves of George Floyd and others who have been killed by the police to raise money, tax-free, for himself.
Now, he threatens the livelihood of thousands of live industry workers by forcefully jeopardizing variances, and hosting a string of COVID superspreader live concerts to thousands of maskless followers that are camouflaged as protests to further strengthen his social clout. It is inherently an insult protestors fighting for real and legitimate reforms, and this blatant display of cis-white-guy privilege serves to advance nothing but his own ego-driven agenda. All the while leaving the very workers he consistently underpays in the “name of Jesus” fending for themselves in an economic sector on the brink of collapse.
Chris Fernald capped off our conversation stating:
“I don’t care that they worship Jesus. That doesn’t matter to me. This is about the backlash that’s going to happen to my personal livelihood and the live entertainment industry. And that’s what makes me concerned.”
