![]() “He’d read all the medical literature-all of it, not just the abstracts,” he told me. Talking with him, Bhattacharya was surprised by his command of the research. “I’m lucky to have tenure.”ĭeSantis, young and aggressively confident, was similarly convinced that he could find a better way to handle the virus. “I’ve lost friends,” Bhattacharya told me. With COVID-19 killing hundreds of Americans every day, the signers of the declaration became pariahs in their profession. The only practical approach, they said, would be to protect the most vulnerable-mainly by isolating the elderly-and allow everyone else to go about their lives until vaccines and herd immunity neutralized the disease. He is one of three scientists who drafted the Great Barrington Declaration, which argued that many governments were doing more harm than good by shutting down economies and schools. In the early months of the pandemic, Bhattacharya had established himself as an outlier among public-health experts. It was Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, and he wanted to talk about the coronavirus. To make a donation, click here.One Sunday afternoon in September, 2020, Jay Bhattacharya, an epidemiologist at Stanford University, was at home in Los Altos when he got an unexpected call. However, we hope you will support our work with your prayers and financial gifts. She confirmed that Brave Church remains affiliated with PenFlorida and the Assemblies of God, and that Stocker is no longer leading the church.Īccess to MinistryWatch content is free. The couple had joined the church staff in 2014 as youth pastors and divorced in 2020.Īttorney Kristin Ahr told the Miami New Times in a written statement that the church and its board have “amicably resolved” the matter with PenFlorida through a “very friendly settlement.” Some of the alleged misconduct took place while Stocker was still legally married to his now ex-wife Christina, the suit says. The suit also alleges that Stocker abused alcohol, including getting so drunk at a Miami Heat professional basketball game that he wandered onto the court, and that he also acted “erratically” on other occasions. ![]() The lawsuit says Stocker violated church bylaws by refusing to resign after a PenFlorida investigation found he was guilty of “gross sexual misconduct and immoral actions.” The investigation also found that others, including board members, were discouraged from reporting him to protect his reputation. The woman he took to New York and on other trips reported him to PenFlorida and provided investigators with hundreds of texts, photos, and videos as evidence. Stocker remains the sole defendant in the case filed May 24 in Miami-Dade Circuit Court by Peninsular Florida District Council (PenFlorida), an Assemblies of God umbrella organization that oversees more than 300 churches, including Brave Church, the Miami New Times reported. Brave Church of Miami and four members of the church’s board of directors have been dropped from a lawsuit alleging that its pastor, David Stocker, Jr., engaged in extramarital affairs with at least three members of his congregation and used a church credit card to fund activities, including a trip to New York City.
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