Cosimanian Orthodoxy has nothing on my boy Tony Spell, the Pentecostal pastor who has made a name promoting himself as a confessor of the faith for urging Christians to defy the stay-at-home order. Look at the, um, braking local news:

NEW: This is video from a neighbor of Pastor Spell allegedly backing up a church bus into the direction of a person protesting in front of his church Sunday. @WAFB https://t.co/GSyfG10e53 pic.twitter.com/cw9rSz52Vi

— Lester Duhé (@LesterDuhe) April 21, 2020

Pastor Spell plays the race card like a champ:

In a telephone interview with WAFB-TV Monday evening, Spell acknowledges he was driving the bus and simply wanted to get out and confront the protestor.

However, Spells [sic] says, his wife, who was also on the bus at the time, talked him out of it.

“That man has been in front of my church driveway for three weeks now,” Spell said. “He shoots people obscene finger gestures and shouts vulgarities.”

“I was pulling in from my bus route, picking up black children who haven’t eaten because of this sinister policy that has closed schools,” the pastor said. “I was going to approach this gentleman and asked him to leave.”

The protestor, Trey Bennett, denies ever using profanity or displaying obscene gestures. Bennett says he has been peacefully protesting in front of Spell’s church since Easter Sunday.

Watch the video and see if it matches Spell’s description of what happened.

O Fortuna! Personally, I don’t think being charged with aggravated assault and being caught on video seeming to attempt to back over a protester with a church bus is going to do much for the Pastor Spell Stimulus Challenge, in which he is trying to convince Christians to send their stimulus checks to churches, including his own.

Uncle Chuckie, have you ever tried to run over your opponents with your AMC Pacer?

UPDATE: A church lawyer tells the Baton Rouge Advocate that the video clearly shows that Pastor Spell didn’t come close to hitting the protester, and that the protester must not have feared that fate, because he didn’t jump out of the way. Local news reporting that as of early Monday evening, the intemperate pastor had not been taken into custody.