The complicated tale of a preacher who died after dismissing COVID-19, and a lesson for all
In late March, when Landon Spradlin, 66, died of COVID-19 in a North Carolina hospital, the news of his passing was greeted by some with what can only be called glee.
Spradlin, an itinerant preacher and Christian blues guitarist, became infamous for having posted a meme on his Facebook page saying the coronavirus wasn’t serious and that the media were hyping it to create hysteria.
After Spradlin himself was felled by the virus, he was pilloried as a self-righteous crank.
His wife, Jean, 63, and daughter, Jesse Spradlin, 29, who helped manage her dad’s Facebook page, were stunned by the responses.
“The thing that blew my mind is that people would laugh at it,” Jesse told a reporter. “People would literally just leave comments that say, ‘Ha ha ha ha ha, I’m glad he got what he deserved.’ ”
Others who’ve died of COVID-19 after minimizing it have been similarly mocked.
“I don’t care who you are,” Jesse said. “I don’t understand finding joy in a family’s sorrow.”
If that’s your response, too—this idiot had it coming—I suggest you read Peter Jamison’s Washington Post profile of Landon, from which the above quotes are taken.
It’s a fair-minded, nuanced piece that gives the lie to stereotypes many of us, whether liberal or conservative, hold about people whose beliefs aren’t like ours. Increasingly, too many of us assume those unlike us aren’t just mistaken—they’re evil.
But through Jamison, we encounter Spradlin not as a crank or a villain or for that matter a hero, but as a sincere, loving and deeply loved man who spent decades ministering to society’s outcasts and sowing good will.
That’s how he caught COVID-19—conducting street ministry during New Orleans’ jam-packed Mardi Gras, before Americans generally understood the dangers the virus posed.
Landon and Jean Spradlin lived in rural Virginia. They had arrived in New Orleans on Feb. 18, “several days before President Trump declared on Twitter that the novel coronavirus was ‘very much under control in the USA,’” Jamison notes.
Like many older, white, Southern, evangelical men, Landon supported Trump.
The Mardi Gras trip was an annual pilgrimage for the Spradlins, who’d once operated a combination church and coffeehouse in New Orleans.
With musician friends, Landon played the blues for the partying throngs and told those who’d listen how much the Lord cared about them.
The Spradlins had shaped their lives around ministering to “meth-addled bikers, strippers, the homeless—none were too far gone for a hug and a pep talk from Landon about God’s relentless love,” Jamison writes.
In New Orleans, tourists and street people “stopped to listen. Some said they yearned for salvation. Some the Spradlins or their friends embraced, blessed or prayed over.”
“Landon’s message was never condemnation and death. It was always full of life and hope,” says Ken Gerry, a pastor from Virginia who knew him.
The Mardi Gras crowds weren’t wearing surgical masks or using hand sanitizer. Nobody realized the coronavirus was there, stalking them.
John Barry, an influenza scholar at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, lives in New Orleans. He tells Jamison he was closely tracking the coronavirus by February. But he saw no need for precautions, either.
“I didn’t avoid parades because I was concerned about the virus,” he admits. “I ignored the parades because I didn’t feel like going to a parade.”
After Mardi Gras, the Spradlins stayed in New Orleans a while. When Landon posted his controversial meme from there, only about 40 people had died of COVID-19 in the whole United States.
Then he and Jean started feeling ill.
Fear of the coronavirus was rapidly growing. New Orleans canceled its upcoming St. Patrick’s day celebration.
Landon, an Air Force veteran, went to the New Orleans Veterans Affairs Medical Center. He was tested for COVID-19, but told he didn’t have it.
The Spradlins started home. Landon was so sick he couldn’t drive.
They made it as far as Concord, N.C. Landon collapsed there, was rushed to a hospital. Doctors tested him again for the coronavirus. The results were positive.
He managed to speak to Jean around the ventilator tube in his mouth, right before she was quarantined.
“I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I love you.”
Those were his last words to her. Days later, he suffered a horrible, lonely death.
Jean was checked three times for COVID-19, but never tested positive.
There’s a lot more to this powerful story, questions about the indecipherable mysteries of faith, such as why one person lives and another dies.
But the big takeaway is this.
We find it easy to assume we know all about people we’ve never actually met, based on a social media post or a party affiliation. It’s easy to consider them vile and unworthy of compassion.
Yet when we get to know them, even if it’s only through a well-rendered newspaper story, we remember that nobody is ever just one thing: a Trump supporter or a socialist or a religious fanatic or a heathen. We remember it’s wise not to judge too quickly, lest we find ourselves judged.
We remember we’re all just human, and with that we’re both good and bad, holy and profane, deserving of censure and worthy of mercy.
Paul Prather is pastor of Bethesda Church near Mount Sterling. You can email him at pratpd@yahoo.com.
This story was originally published May 7, 2020 at 10:13 AM with the headline "The complicated tale of a preacher who died after dismissing COVID-19, and a lesson for all."