On Easter Sunday, a conservative Christian televangelist who denounced faith leaders who observe social distancing guidelines as "pansies" preached from the roof of Peckville Assembly of God.

In the parking lot, a registered nurse who works in the ER at Geisinger Community Medical Center in Scranton joined other congregants who left their cars to worship in the open air.

The televangelist's name is Jonathan Shuttlesworth, a Pittsburgh-area preacher who caught hell a couple of weeks ago for planning an outdoor "Woodstock"-style "Easter blowout" to protest stay-at-home orders designed to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

Shuttlesworth has a "ministry" called "Revival Today TV," but no brick-and-mortar church, which may be why he chose Our Stiff Neck of the Woods to host his self-serving service.

I won't publish the nurse's name, because she claims she was never fewer than 6 feet removed from another attendee, and I have no proof she was.

But she was there on Sunday, and at work Monday night. She wouldn't speak with me, but through a union official, she said she had no worries about infecting others and felt no responsibility to warn her supervisors or co-workers.

I disagreed and did it for her. I called Geisinger and asked whether the nurse violated policy or posed a potential threat to patients or co-workers.

Geisinger stood by the nurse.

So did the union.

"The nurse in question is still working and was not in violation of any Geisinger policies," spokesman Matt Mattei said in an email on Tuesday. "Geisinger does not dictate where or how our employees choose to worship, and we take every precaution to screen all employees for symptoms of COVID-19 upon entry to our facilities to ensure a safe environment for patients, visitors and employees alike,"

Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals Representative Alex Lotorto told me the nurse assured him she had no close contact with anyone at the service. That was good enough for him.

"She's a registered nurse," he said. "She deserves the benefit of a doubt."

I won't argue that. Considering the strain nurses and other hospital workers are under right now, they all deserve our prayers. I pray the "nurse in question" doesn't see fellow church members as coronavirus patients in the ER over the next few weeks.

Like Geisinger, I don't presume to dictate where or how anyone chooses to worship, but the choice made by Peckville Assembly of God members and leaders on Sunday was a deliberate slap in the face to a wider society under siege.

Shuttlesworth was surely happy to deliver it. For weeks, he has raged against faith leaders who curbed their activities for the common good.

"Shame on every European full gospel church, bunch of sissies, that shut down during this thing," Shuttlesworth said earlier this month in a social media video rant. "If you're putting out pamphlets and telling everybody to use Purell before they come into the sanctuary and don't greet anyone, you should just turn in your ministry credentials and burn your church down — turn it into a casino or something.

"You're a loser. Bunch of pansies. No balls. Got neutered somewhere along the line and don't even realize it."

How uplifting.

I spoke with Peckville Assembly of God Pastor Terry Drost a few weeks ago for a Sunday column about how faith leaders were keeping the faith while keeping the faithful safe during the outbreak. He described a "drive-in church" where families would listen to his sermon on the radio from the safety of their cars.

Some in his flock clearly didn't get the message. Many left their cars and swayed side-by-side to music made by performers packed tightly together on the roof. Images captured by Times-Tribune Staff Photographer Christopher Dolan sparked outrage from people who have worked and worshipped at home for weeks to stem the spread of a disease that as of Tuesday infected more than 600,000 Americans and killed more than 25,000.

I called Drost's office number and cellphone on Tuesday. His voicemail was full so I texted him. His only reply was an email of the dissembling statement he released Monday.

In it, he listed a litany of social distancing and preventive measures attendees were expected to observe. Staying inside their cars was one of them. Drost also said the angle of some of the photos "does not show the accurate spacing between people and does not take into account that people standing together were immediate family members from the same household."

Maybe so, but so what? These fine points sidestep the real issue: They shouldn't have been there at all — least of all an ER nurse in the middle of a global pandemic. The church has long streamed its services online, but chose to bring people together despite the risks.

Why would Drost expect his flock to respect restrictions when the preacher on the roof says violating them is an anointed act of faith?

Preachers in other states have been arrested for presiding over mass gatherings. At least two died from COVID-19 after insisting on in-person worship.

Many locals demanded to know why Blakely police didn't break up the service and arrest its instigators. On the department's Facebook page, Chief Guy Salerno explained that the event broke no laws.

"We will not be walking around with measuring sticks or physically moving people from one another," he wrote.

I called the chief Monday. He declined to say whether he believed the gathering was right or wrong, but said "it was obviously against the guidelines." Gov. Tom Wolf's stay-at-home order exempts places of worship but asks religious leaders to act in good faith and forsake mass gatherings.

"We don't enforce guidelines," Salerno said. "If Gov. Wolf changes the order, by all means we will enforce it. No one will be going into that parking lot."

Sunday's display of bad faith at Peckville Assembly of God should be enough for the governor to rein in religious leaders who can't or won't restrain themselves for the sake of public safety. Shuttlesworth's "Woodstock" was not an exercise in religious freedom, but a demonstration of a defiant, delusional disregard for fellow children of God who love their neighbors by staying home.

CHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist, says his prayers at home. Contact the writer: kellysworld@timesshamrock.com, @cjkink on Twitter. Read his award-winning blog at times-tribuneblogs.com/kelly.