Screenshot United Methodist Insight

May 9. Five faith leaders were arrested while praying in the US Capitol Rotunda, including a Methodist pastor from Taylorsville who is a former associate pastor at a Cornelius church.

Rev. Joel Simpson was arrested after praying for several minutes in the Rotunda before eventually being arrested by Capitol police.

He was the associate pastor of Mt. Zion United Methodist Church in Corneliuus before moving to Taylorsville United Methodist about 45 miles north where he currently preaches.

Shortly after Capitol Police issued verbal warnings, officers surrounded the group and began arresting them. The others included Alvin Jackson and Hanna Broome, ministers affiliated with the activist group Repairers of the Breach; Ariel Gold, USA director of the interfaith The Fellowship of Reconciliation; and Shane Claiborne, a longtime activist and co-director of Red Letter Christians, a Christian social justice group.

Charges

They were charged with “crowding, obstructing and incommoding.”

Their goal was to pray about how congress is arresting and locking up the life-giving supports of Medicaid, food stamps, access to housing, and other essential resources for our communities, Simpson said on Facebook.

Quotable

“Jesus makes clear that what we do to the ‘least of these’ we do to him,” Simpson told Cornelius Today.