Virus claims pastor who defied distancing

VIRGINIA

A prominent Richmond, Va.-area evangelical pastor died on the eve of Easter after contracting the coronavirus.

Bishop Gerald Glenn, founder and leader since 1995 of the New Deliverance Evangelistic Church in Chesterfield, was the first black chaplain of that community’s police department and a police officer before becoming a pastor, the Richmond-Times Dispatch reported.

He was a friend and a pillar of the region’s faith community, U.S. Senator Tim Kaine tweeted Sunday.

“My heart sinks as I learn this morning that Bishop Gerald Glenn, pastor of New Deliverance Evangelistic Church, died yesterday from COVID-19,” Kaine said. “May all do as much for so many.”

Glenn preached in church about the virus in March, before he became sick, encouraging people not to be afraid. On March 22, five days after Virginia Governor Ralph Northam had urged people to “avoid non-essential gatherings of more than 10 people,” Glenn preached in church to his congregation that “I firmly believe that God is larger than this dreaded virus,” according to a video played April 6 by Richmond station WTVR, before he died.

Glenn’s widow, Mother Marcietia Glenn, also has COVID-19, according to a YouTube post on Easter by church Elder Bryan Nevers, who also announced Glenn’s death Saturday night. All sermons were removed from the church’s YouTube channel Monday evening.

The New Deliverance community was left to wrestle with his death. They are part of the Church of God in Christ, a Pentecostal denomination hit hard by COVID-19.

“We still believe in God for healing right now,” Nevers said on the Sunday video, his voice wavering, the rows of purple seats behind him empty in the church. “Our bishop always told us, even as they wheeled him into the operating room, he proclaimed that God is still a healer ... I don’t know how, but I have to say: God will get the glory from this.”

The April 6 WTVR report quoted Glenn’s daughter, identified as Mar-Gerie Crawley, as saying her father had been sick for about a week before he was hospitalized. She said he had diverticulitis — a digestive condition — and it wasn’t uncommon for him to get fevers and viruses. His wife took him for a second time to the emergency room in late March, Crawley said, once his breathing was laboured and he was very lethargic. He was tested for COVID-19 and immediately got a positive result.

Gerald Glenn