We Do Not Consent: Josh McPherson's First Covid-era Manifesto
McPherson writes "I led a coalition" in a lawsuit against the state governor in the 72-page document
Grace City Church’s founding and lead pastor, Josh McPherson, published a 72-page manifesto in August 2021 that lays out his role in a 2020 lawsuit involving “40+ individuals” who got together to “legally challenge our governor’s overreaching powers” during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It’s the first of three lengthy documents McPherson has authored pushing back against pubic health protocols and state mandates designed to limit the spread of a virus that has killed more than 800,000 Americans so far.
He explains how he brought the plaintiffs together on page nine, under a subheading titled “Camp David.”
“I began reaching out to local community leaders, elected officials, pastors, anyone…,” he wrote. “One by one they began showing up at my house. This was new territory for everyone and no one knew what to do. One group was working on getting us approved to move out of Phase 1. Would I be willing to help by coordinating with local pastors to help with the required application process of the state? Certainly, I said.”
He describes the flurry of activity in the following period, writing that public officials, business and religious leaders were coming and going daily.
“Commissioners, council members, state representatives, medical directors, pastors, faith leaders, other elected officials and many community leaders poured in,” McPherson wrote.
Yet according to McPherson he still had not decided to sue the governor at that point. It was a few key conversations that helped him decide to take the leap and sue the governor.
One was with a “political operative,” according to McPherson.
“I made one more phone call to a political operative with connections to legal counsel. In 5 minutes I was on the phone with one of the sharpest constitutional lawyers in the state of Washington, Joel Ard,” he wrote. “I put him on speakerphone and laid out our proposal. He was a wealth of information. And a kindred spirit. An hour and 10 pages of notes later, we thanked him and told him we’d be in touch.”
After that call, McPherson writes that every Grace City Church elder agreed: “This was our best play.”
With the support of all nine ESAT members (Elder Support & Advisory Team), “we would initiate and lead a plaintiff coalition to legally challenge” Washington state’s emergency public health mandates.
“That is to say, we were going to sue the governor of the State of Washington,” McPherson wrote.
After that the path forward seemed to be pretty clear, from what McPherson writes.
He started making calls.
“Mayors, sheriffs, county commissioners, state representatives, city council members,” he wrote.
McPherson set a meeting and sent out a few text messages. He told folks it would take place at his house to discuss legal action against the state. He told them to “Bring anyone who can articulate legal harm from the Phase 1 mandate and would be interested in being a plaintiff.”
“Three hours later, people started pulling in,” he wrote. “Truck after truck rolled up to my farmhouse and out hopped patriots.”
After the meeting and a closing prayer, the “patriots” (who McPherson calls the “Noble 46”) hung out for a while eating cherry pie and drinking pints of beer from a keg someone had brought.
“Nobody wanted to leave. The spring air was clear and it smelled like freedom,” he wrote. “After the last person had left, I checked the sign up sheet by the pies. Every person had put their name down. We had our team.”
According to The Wenatchee World, the plaintiffs were:
Chelan County: Jose Cuevas*, Maria Cuevas, Chad Sangster, Travis Hornsby, Rachelle Johnson, Travis Hofstetter, Linda Herald*, Michelle McCormick, Mario Johnson, Jacklyn Johnson, Megan Johnson, Norris Williams, Cary Condotta, Gregg Smith, Heather Carlson, Heidi Fluegge, Matt Fluegge, Jeff Guentzel, Josh Hamilton, Kent McMullen, Larry King, Matt Stoddard, Shirley Stoddard, Ruth Esparza*, Wayne Loranger, Stephen Freeman, Jeffrey Kurpuis, Adam James, Josh McPherson and Puuokaala Knell.
Douglas County: Dan Sutton*, Mark Straub*, Kyle Steinberg*, Jim Walker, Christopher Quinn, Dennis Carino, Doug Bianchi, Jesse Rains and John Davis.
I put asterisks next to the name of the public officials. Some of them did drop out however, “including all three Douglas County commissioners and Wenatchee City Council-member Ruth Esparza” according to NCWLife TV.
North Central Washington’s Ivermectin impresario Karl Lambert, who I have covered on both my local TV show and Medium before, posted a photo of some of the them on the steps of the Chelan County Court House in May 2020, with a link to McPherson’s screed which was published on the now defunct “news” website “wenatchee.news” at the time.
But McPherson first published the post on Facebook more than a year before Grace City printed, published and distributed the final version of “We Do Not Consent” in Aug. 2021.
Wenatchee City Council Member Jose Cuevas is front and center in the photo.
I had heard he might regret his decision to get involved in the suit. So I emailed him in May 2021 to ask if he had any second thoughts and wanted to talk about it, even if it was off the record.
This was his response:
I also reached out to fellow plaintiffs Ruth Esparza and Travis Hornby about the suit, but neither responded to my emails. I have also reached out to pastors and staff at Grace City Church with questions on a variety of topics, from the Vector Academy to Nicolas Clerc, but no one has gotten back to me.
I do plan on reaching out to Josh McPherson himself to request an interview, but my list of questions for him keeps growing almost daily. Once I have a final list I will request an interview with him.
I hope to speak with him in person, on the phone, or at least via email.
But enough housekeeping for now.
Back to “We Do Not Consent”
On page 16 of the GCC document, under a subhead titled “The Play” McPherson mentions the strategy behind why they wanted a lawsuit initiated by citizens rather than just church leaders, and hints as to why Cuevas was important to them.
“The state had an entire media machine. We had a few of us writing and blogging and posting on social media,” McPherson wrote. “Governor Inslee was claiming to act for the little guy. They had a governor-appointed judge who had COVID during our trial and had to quarantine at home; we had a Hispanic lead plaintiff who couldn’t feed his family.”
The judge he’s referring to is Superior Court Judge Kristin Ferrera, and it’s not the last time he mentions her. On page 17 and 18, McPherson finishes his narrative of how the suit fared in Ferrera’s court.
In the end the support from this allegedly duplicitous health official didn’t come through.
McPherson writes that Judge Ferrera ruled against them “with an apology” and an “affirmation” of their efforts. Yet NCWLife didn’t mention any of that in their coverage of her decision on the matter.
They did include a quote from her explanation as to why the Chelan County Superior Court could not impose a restraining order against the state governor though.
“From the record, it appears that the Health District, at least some of the officers of the Health District, don’t think they can,” Judge Ferrera said. “And my concern is you’re asking me to impose a restraining order lifting the restrictions. … If I were to lift those restrictions today, what would that look like? Would we be, tomorrow, ‘Everything’s opened back up,’ like there’s no COVID?”
McPherson’s reaction to the legal defeat in the final version of the manifesto is telling, especially considering he had more than a year to mull over what he wanted to publish in the the final draft.
“War Is Upon Us”
That’s the sub-headline on page 22. What follows is a four-paragraph reference to the film, “Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” in which McPherson focuses on the debate between Theoden, King of Rohan, and Aragorn, “about how to respond to the threat of imminent attack,” McPherson writes.
McPherson quotes King Theoden from the 2002 fantasy/adventure movie when he says, “I will not bring further death to my people. I will not risk open war.” To which Aragorn, played by Viggo Mortensen, replies: “Open war is upon you, whether you would risk it or not.”
McPherson wrote that when he saw that scene he thought “this is every pastor’s job every Sunday – to help people see that the backdrop to every day following Jesus is open spiritual war.”
“Signing up to follow Jesus is signing up for battle,” he wrote. “No two ways about it.”
Within a few paragraphs he’s on to the topics of “marxism, socialism, communism” and warning against “those in academia, activist groups, and even our very government who are pushing and promoting these ideas.”
You can read or download the entire PDF via Grace City’s website here.
In addition to “We Do Not Consent” McPherson has also written or co-written two other manifestos – “9 Protests Against COVID Vaccine Mandates” and “9 Critical Lenses To Help See COVID More Clearly,” which I will cover in the near future.
I’d like to take the opportunity before the end of this post to once again go on the record as saying that I bear no ill will toward any Christians, or anyone of any faith per se. I have great respect for many people of faith in my life and some of my mentors were and are deeply religious people.
Nor am I out to target the members of Grace City Church. I know some of them personally. They are good people in my experience and I do not think any less of them because of their church affiliation.
What got me interested in this story is Josh McPherson and GCC getting involved in local politics. What kept me interested is what I learned about how his leadership has impacted public health and how they have been able to raise large sums of money from their followers while also taking taxpayer dollars.
More on that topic next week as we take a look at the contract Chelan County Commissioners awarded to GCC to handle jail ministry for the Chelan County Regional Justice Center.
Josh is very dramatic. It is apparent from his "creative" writing ("...it smelled like freedom"; "...out hopped patriots", the "Noble 46") that he views himself as an Aragornian hero, and enjoys the attention, influence and power his position allows him. I'm amused he chose to mention the detail that they ate cherry pie and drank pints of beer.
Josh has a lot to learn if he thinks any legal outcome is a "slam dunk". Being "in the right" certainly never has guaranteed a win....especially if you're up against those who have more power, money, and influence. There is truth to the adage that abusers, not victims, have allies.
Narcissism, guns and a battle mindset are a dangerous combination.
Great job, Dominick! So how does McPherson demonstrate harm? Patriots? This is more than a bit scarey. I am a Christian but I am not a warrior against government! Thats not what I signed up for. It is always disconcerting to me when a "religious unit" gets its fingers into politics. What happened to separation of church & state?